Menstrual cycle doesn't skew sports studies

A US study from Brigham Young University, published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, found that women's athletic performance was just as consistent as men's.

To date, most advice on physical exercise is based almost exclusively on men. Female subjects are excluded from more than 90% of studies on exercise performance and fatigability.

Although participants often told researchers that their menstrual cycles influenced their mood and performance expectations, their measured results showed “absolutely no change.”

“ Women with regular cycles saw the same results between the high estrogen phase, the high progesterone phase, and during menstruation, when levels of both are low, said Jessica Linde, who led the study. 'study. This information removes a great barrier. It shows that we shouldn't exclude women from research based on the idea that their menstrual cycles will skew the results.”

“The assumption in exercise research has long been been that women are like men, just smaller, said Jayson Gifford, co-author of the study. Our study suggests that this is not the case and that there are important differences between the exercise of women and that of men. Including more women in research will allow us to refine approaches to female physiology.”