Managing Training for Female Athletes & some general tips!

This is the last post in our series for female athletes, we wanted to give you a wrap up of the past weeks with some big take aways!

1. RECOVER HARD

Females should fuel with 25-30g of protein and a small dose of carbohydrates within 30-45minutes of completing your session.  Our hunger response is blunted with exercise, but getting something in is better than nothing, slowly you will get better at this!

2. KNOW YOUR CYCLE

Understanding your cycle, which is different for everyone, will help you to make the most of your training.  With your knowledge and your coaches experience you can team up to plan your training to make the most of the times when you will have sufficient energy available, and those times where more rest and recovery is appropriate. Garmin now has a feature for cycle tracking and can help predict and notify you at certain time points, a great tool!  In short, the follicular phase (starting on the first day of your period) is when females physiology is most similar to males during which you will have the most amount of energy.

3. CARBS ARE IMPORTANT

Female athletes naturally have a lower carbohydrate metabolism, so carbohydrates before, during and after training can assist with endurance performance and preventing long term fatigue.  This does depend on the intensity and length of the particular training session.  Experimenting with higher carbohydrate intake before and during high intensity sessions or sessions longer than one hour is a great place to start

4. MENOPAUSE PLANNING

Hormonal changes make a huge impact on daily life and ability to train, recover and improve performance.  Energy availability may wain during this period which is why the nutrition strategies above are super important to adapt to your training plan.  Some women may have to change their fuelling and supplement strategies eg. fructose metabolism (a type of sugar found in lots of sports gels) is reduced during menopause, so looking at different types of gels may help.

5. SUPER STRENGTH

Strength is king, develop a consistent and manageable strength routine.  Use this to your advantage to not only create a platform of health, but to supercharge your endurance performance. Focus on key muscle groups; core, glutes, calves.