Kathryn Ackerman, MD, MPH

Kathryn Ackerman, MD, MPH is a sports medicine physician, Associate Professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, medical director of the Female Athlete Program at Boston Children's Hospital, Associate Director of the sports endocrine research lab at Massachusetts General Hospital, and a team physician for USA Rowing. Dr. Ackerman is, herself, a former national team rower.

Twitter: @DrKateAckerman https://twitter.com/DrKateAckerman

Female Athlete Conference​

Here’s the conclusion from a recent, comprehensive meta-analysis of the role of the menstrual cycle on performance. Dr. Ackerman was not on this paper but the scientist she mentions in the episode is the corresponding author of the review. This basically puts in a single paragraph the take-home message from this episode and our current state of knowledge.

Conclusion

The results from this systematic review and meta-analysis indicate that exercise performance might be trivially reduced during the early follicular phase of the menstrual cycle (MC), compared to all other phases. Due to the trivial effect size, the large between-study variation and the number of poor-quality studies included in this review, general guidelines on exercise performance across the MC cannot be formed; rather, it is recommended that a personalised approach should be taken based on each individual's response to exercise performance across the MC.