Exclusive: Jessica Ennis-Hill - Why we need to talk about periods

Maybe that’s because sports coaches tend to be male, or because for so long talking about periods has been a taboo – to have those conversations as a young athlete especially can feel very awkward. Early on I remember trying to manage my periods, but it was difficult and uncomfortable. There were many occasions when I was on my period and dealing with the stress of competing across two days in the heptathlon, worrying about having to wear tiny pants.

As I got older I went on the pill to manage my cycle but there was no understanding of how the pill affects performance. Still to this day there isn’t enough research around the impact of the contraceptive pill, it is often left to individual groups to experiment. When I was competing I did always think, ‘If I run my pill through, will this have a positive effect on my performance, or will this hinder me?’

Knowing what I do now, I can’t help but wonder about the impact the menstrual cycle might have had on my performances. I would be fascinated to know, had I logged my cycle, whether it would have made any difference. In your follicular phase you do feel more confident, you have those energised days. If you pair that with a testing week to try and max out your weights, maybe I would have noticed a difference. But I never recorded it, which is a shame. All those heptathlons I did over the years, it would be so valuable to have that data now to share with other women.

The occasions when I did talk about periods was with my old school friends – usually we shared the negative things like having cramps, or feeling emotional! My symptoms have changed loads over the years. I often feel bloated, and I’ve had phases where my menstrual cramps have been really uncomfortable, but I found that having kids changed things. I started getting menstrual migraines – they’re honestly so horrible – and I only realised it was related to my cycle when I started tracking my hormones in June last year.

Everyone’s period is different, but it’s been so positive to learn that there is a way to feel better during our cycles. We don’t have to be controlled by the symptoms every month. That’s why I feel so passionately about setting up CycleMapping. I want all women to be able to understand our bodies. To understand that whether you’re an elite athlete going through your ‘testing’ phase and feeling fatigued and bloated, or an everyday woman wanting to head out for a run and tackling menstrual symptoms, there is a way of managing your cycle. Women shouldn’t have to feel like they need to push through the pain. Knowing your cycle helps you to recognise how you’re feeling, and – instead of feeling overwhelmed by it – empowers you to tailor your training, and your life, around that.

It is a different way of approaching exercise and – I think – an important antidote to a lot of the pressured messaging you see on social media to slog your body. A lot of my friends train every day, but even when I was an elite athlete I didn’t do that, and I still don’t. It’s so important to rest your body, and to value different types of exercise in different phases of your cycle. On Instagram it’s all about ‘the burn’, and there’s not much understanding of how more gentle forms of exercise are important at different times of the month.

So many women and girls have been put off exercising through PE lessons at school, often because of puberty and getting their periods. I really want all women to be able to cultivate a healthy relationship with movement. That’s something I’ve always had. My coach, Toni, used to joke that once I retired I’d never run again, but I’ve kept going because I love it – the buzz, the freedom –  and I wish more women could feel that way about keeping active.

That’s where my passion comes from: wanting to help women understand how hormones affect our bodies and our mood. Giving women the tools to understand how we can work with our period instead of feeling like we’ve got to fight to get through them. And so the app was born, sharing the lessons I’ve learnt about my body, in an accessible and easy to understand form. CycleMapping is aimed at women on a natural cycle, and the mirena coil.

Hearing the feedback from the women testing it for us, and reporting the benefits, has given me such a buzz. The long-term goal is to be able to offer it to all women, regardless of which contraception they’re on, or which stage of life they’re in. That’s the dream. But for now the impact we are already having on women’s lives is huge, and I’m excited for the future.

• To be one of the first to try Jennis CycleMapping visit: cyclemapping.jennisfitness.com  

'We need to look after our hormonal health' - the women testing out Jessica Ennis-Hill’s fitness app, by Fiona Tomas 

As a young girl, Rachel Carey was taught to hide her periods away. She is still haunted by the memories of being marched off to the staff lavatory, aged nine, where she was allowed to change her sanitary pad in solitary confinement. Classmates who had not had the “period talk” would stare at her.

Throughout adulthood, she switched between different forms of hormonal contraception to help with heavy bleeds, only deciding to stop taking contraception altogether after giving birth in 2019. Motherhood served as a powerful reminder that periods were legitimate bodily processes, but her menstrual cycle impaired her ability to exercise – to the point they were “ruining my life”.

“I’d see my husband train and he has a really linear progression, every day is pretty much the same for him. I never found that. There were always peaks and troughs,” says Carey, who would experience crippling menstrual headaches each month.

When she was invited to test out Jennis CycleMapping – a new feature of Jessica Ennis Hill’s Jennis fitness app which launches this month – Carey felt she had nothing to lose. She had used the pregnancy and post-natal programmes on the app to stay active while expecting and was eager to see what gains she could make by tuning into her hormonal health.

As a biology teacher, the 36-year-old was well versed in the science behind menstrual cycles, but she had never considered factoring it into her exercise routine. The results have been astounding. “Pretty much all my hormonal related headaches are gone,” reports Carey.

“I’ve learned not to compare what I can do today with yesterday or last week, but with what I’m doing now with the same stage of my cycle last month. Weirdly, I’m able to be more consistent by being inconsistent, by not doing the same thing week in, week out.”

The marked improvement in her symptoms are reflective of a raft of other benefits experienced by 12 other women who have trialled the app over the past two months. One woman’s unusually long cycle reduced from 45 days to 30 days (the average length is 28 days), another two have managed to reduce their premenstrual symptoms entirely, while all participants reported feeling stronger after eight weeks.

Period tracking apps have flooded the market in recent years with the rise of Femtech, a new sector of technology created to support women’s health. So how does Jennis CycleMapping stand out from an increasingly crowded market?

Rather than being a period tracking app, CycleMapping aims to empower women of all fitness abilities to train with, rather than against, their menstrual cycle. Users input data – from menstrual symptoms, cycle length to fitness history – and using an algorithm, the app suggests daily workouts depending on where a woman is in her cycle.

Although the science behind the menstrual cycle is generally well established, it remains a typically underfunded, albeit evolving, area of research. Just last week, a study published in The Journal of Endocrinology found that obesity may be linked with heavier periods and increased inflammation to the womb lining.

During the first half of the cycle – known as the follicular phase – oestrogen levels start to rise which can lead to increased levels of motivation. Research suggests a woman can enjoy 15 per cent better strength gains during this phase by incorporating high intensity workout compared to the second half of the cycle, the luteal phase, where a shift in metabolism favours longer, steady state endurance sessions.

“Oestrogen is a really helpful hormone in terms of growth and repair of muscle, and also recovery has been shown to be quicker in this part of the cycle,” explains Dr Emma Ross, one of Britain’s leading Olympic sports scientists who helped devise the app with Ennis-Hill.

“Women are also better able to use carbs as fuel in this half. There is quite a compelling bit of research which says if women do more strength and high intensity training in the first half of their cycle, women have greater strength gains than if you regularly space it across your cycle. The app builds that in.”

Katy Curran, a keen runner who idolised Ennis-Hill in her youth, initially struggled with the concept of tailoring her exercise routine around her cycle, which is fast becoming an area elite sportswomen are tapping into, including the US women’s national soccer team.

“I was a bit sceptical,” she says. “I thought, ‘I can understand top athletes like Jessica Ennis-Hill using it, but why would I need it?’’’ Curran’s hesitancy is symptomatic of a body illiteracy gap among women, which the app is hoping to help close.

“Fundamentally, we don’t get taught enough about our bodies as women, so it doesn’t matter if you’re a 21-year-old who wants to play university netball or you’re the next Jess Ennis Hill who wants to get on the podium,” says Dr Ross. “You both have a very poor baseline level of body literacy because we haven’t served women with education.”

Perhaps the best embodiment of this is the menstrual yoga classes offered by Lina Nielsen, a qualified yoga teacher and British 400m hurdles track athlete, on the app. This type of yoga has been shown to help alleviate period cramps, a symptom which 90 per cent of women experience, by increasing blood and oxygen flow to the womb area. “We also feature yoga for heavy legs, low energy, low mood – all things that we know women experience during their periods or premenstrually,” says Nielsen.

Having eagerly shared her transformative experience with her sixth-formers at her all-girl’s school, Carey is keen to arm pupils with the knowledge that she missed out on growing up.

“Culturally, we teach girls to deal with negativity about their cycle by shutting it down,” she says.” But we also need to teach them that they may want to have a family, when to ovulate and how to look after your hormonal health.”