There is a version of this question that turns up almost every month. You are tired, your lower back aches, you have been awake since three and class is at 6:30. Do you go, or do you stay home?
The useful answer is that it depends on the day, not on the phase. It helps enormously to know what is actually happening in your body, because once you do, you stop guessing.
What changes across your cycle
Your menstrual cycle is driven largely by two hormones. Oestrogen climbs through the first half, the follicular phase, and peaks just before ovulation. Progesterone takes over in the second half, the luteal phase, then drops away in the days before you bleed. That drop is what starts your period.
Those hormones do far more than manage your uterus. Oestrogen affects mood, sleep, fluid balance and how your connective tissue behaves. Progesterone lifts your resting body temperature slightly, by around half a degree, and can make your breathing feel heavier during effort. Neither of them is working against you. They are doing a job.
What the research actually says about performance
This is less dramatic than the internet suggests. The largest review of the question, a 2020 meta-analysis published in Sports Medicine, pooled dozens of studies on exercise performance across the menstrual cycle. It found performance may be very slightly reduced in the early follicular phase, the days you are actually bleeding, compared with the rest of the cycle. The effect was trivially small and the quality of the underlying evidence was low.
The authors concluded that blanket recommendations based on cycle phase are not appropriate, and that women are better off working from their own experience.
So no, you are not weak for half of every month. The strength is still there. What changes is how the effort feels.
The cycle syncing question
Cycle syncing, the idea that you should lift in one phase and only stretch in another, is not supported by good evidence. It is a tidy model sitting on top of a messy reality. Cycles vary between women and between months. If you are on hormonal contraception, particularly the combined pill, you may not have the hormonal swings the model assumes at all.
That does not make your cycle irrelevant. It means the useful unit is not the phase. It is the day you are actually in.
What actually helps
Move gently on the hard days. Exercise has decent evidence behind it for period pain. A Cochrane review found regular exercise reduced the intensity of menstrual pain. You do not need to push. Low intensity movement, breathing and gentle mobility do the work.
Expect the luteal phase to feel warmer. Your core temperature is already slightly up, so a hot room or a sauna session can feel harder than usual. That is thermoregulation, not weakness.
Take heavy bleeding seriously. If you are soaking a pad or tampon every hour or two, passing large clots or feeling persistently exhausted and breathless, see your GP and ask for an iron study. Heavy menstrual bleeding is a common cause of iron deficiency, and low iron will flatten your energy long before you connect the two.
Your pelvic floor still counts. Bleeding does not change what it needs. If you leak when you sneeze, jump or laugh, that is worth acting on in any week of your cycle.
Scale, do not cancel. Turning up and doing half the class is not a failed class. It is an honest one.
The permission part
Most of the women who come through The Kitchen are already carrying a full load. Work, family, the mental admin nobody else sees. The last thing you need is another system to optimise, another app telling you which phase you are in and what you are allowed to do in it.
Your body gives you the information directly. Tired is tired. Sore is sore. Strong is strong. You do not need to cross check it against a chart.
Listen to the day. Turn up for the version of the class that fits it.
Come to Mat Pilates at The Kitchen
Mat Pilates is built for exactly this. It scales. On a strong day you will work hard. On a heavy, aching, flat day you can take the gentler option in every exercise and still leave feeling better than when you walked in. Nobody is watching which one you take.
Classes run at The Kitchen, Pacific HQ, 29 Josephson St, Swansea. New here? Start with our Intro Week: unlimited classes plus a sauna and ice bath session for $59 +GST. Membership is $59 +GST a week for three classes plus a sauna and ice bath. Book your spot at thekitchenpilates.co.