Current evidence shows no influence of women's menstrual cycle phase on acute strength performance or adaptations to resistance exercise training

The bias towards excluding women from exercise science research is often due to the assumption that cyclical fluctuations in reproductive hormones influence resistance exercise performance and exercise-induced adaptations. Hence, the purpose of this umbrella review was to examine and critically eval...

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Published inFrontiers in sports and active living Vol. 5; p. 1054542
Main Authors Colenso-Semple, Lauren M., D'Souza, Alysha C., Elliott-Sale, Kirsty J., Phillips, Stuart M.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Switzerland Frontiers Media S.A 23.03.2023
Subjects
exercise performance
hypertrophy
menstrual cycle
resistance training
Sports and Active Living
strength
resistance training
exercise performance
strength
hypertrophy
menstrual cycle
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Summary:The bias towards excluding women from exercise science research is often due to the assumption that cyclical fluctuations in reproductive hormones influence resistance exercise performance and exercise-induced adaptations. Hence, the purpose of this umbrella review was to examine and critically evaluate the evidence from meta-analyses and systematic reviews on the influence of menstrual cycle phase on acute performance and chronic adaptations to resistance exercise training (RET). We observed highly variable findings among the published reviews on the ostensible effects of female sex hormones on relevant RET-induced outcomes, including strength, exercise performance, and hypertrophy. We highlight the importance of comprehensive menstrual cycle verification methods, as we noted a pattern of poor and inconsistent methodological practices in the literature. In our opinion, it is premature to conclude that short-term fluctuations in reproductive hormones appreciably influence acute exercise performance or longer-term strength or hypertrophic adaptations to RET.
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Specialty Section: This article was submitted to Elite Sports and Performance Enhancement, a section of the journal Frontiers in Sports and Active Living
Edited by: Gregoire P. Millet, Université de Lausanne, Switzerland
Reviewed by: Neil Schwarz, University of South Alabama, United States Emi A. Yuda, Tohoku University, Japan Sandra K. Hunter, Marquette University, United States
ISSN:2624-9367
2624-9367
DOI:10.3389/fspor.2023.1054542