Far 2 Fabulous

Preventing Injuries During Hormonal Changes

• Julie Clark & Catherine Chapman • Episode 78

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Episode 78

Have you ever wondered why you seem more prone to injuries as you navigate perimenopause or menopause? That twinge in your knee, the persistent ache in your shoulder, or the way your body feels stiffer during certain weeks might all be connected to your changing hormones.

As a 54-year-old competitive gymnast, I've had to rethink my entire approach to training after experiencing injuries that seemed to come out of nowhere. The truth is, they weren't random at all – they were perfectly predictable based on my hormonal fluctuations. When estrogen rises during the first half of your menstrual cycle, it boosts collagen production, giving your tendons and ligaments more elasticity and resilience. Think of them like fresh, stretchy elastic bands that can extend and snap back easily. But after ovulation, when hormones begin to drop, those same tissues become more vulnerable – like old elastic bands sitting in a drawer that snap when stretched too far.

This episode unpacks exactly how to work with these changes rather than against them. You'll learn how to time high-intensity workouts for when your body has natural hormonal protection, how to recognize your personal warning signs of increased injury risk, and specific nutrition and supplement strategies that can support your joints when your hormones no longer do. I'll share practical tips for adapting your warm-up routine, why strength training becomes even more crucial during this life stage, and recovery practices that help keep your body resilient.

Whether you're still experiencing regular cycles, navigating the unpredictable patterns of perimenopause, or adjusting to the consistently lower hormone levels of menopause, you can create a training approach that honors your body's current needs. This isn't about slowing down or giving up the activities you love – it's about getting wiser about how you pursue them. Join me to discover how tracking your symptoms, listening to your body's signals, and making strategic adjustments can help you stay active and injury-free for decades to come. Have you noticed changes in how your body responds to exercise? Share your experience in our Far Too Fabulous Facebook group!

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For more information about Julie Clark Nutrition, click HERE
For more information about Catherine Chapman, click HERE

We look forward to you joining us on the next episode.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Far Too Fabulous hosted by Julie and Catherine. Join us on a mission to embrace your fabulousness and redefine wellness. Get ready for some feistiness, inspiration, candy chats and humour as we journey together towards empowered well-being. Let's dive in.

Speaker 2:

Hello, hello and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. Julie here and I'm actually on my own this week. Catherine and I are having quite a lot of difficulty in being available at the same time, and what we normally do is get together and record a batch of episodes, but we have not got any in the reserve. So I am gonna come on and talk to you about something that is really close to my heart, and I know that it affects lots of people and I don't think it's talked about enough actually. So I thought, right, I've got the microphone to myself. This week I will come and talk to you about injury prevention in perimenopause and menopause.

Speaker 2:

Now, the reason why this is close to my heart is, if you've been listening for a while or you've been following me, you will know that I am in my 50s and I do competitive gymnastics. As you can imagine, that is quite a risky sport to do, but it's not just about doing crazy things like gymnastics in your 50. I think this is to do, but it's not just about, you know, doing crazy things like gymnastics in your 50. I think this is to do with any sport, whether you're training seriously or you just love staying active. I think hormonal changes during you know this time of our life where we get into our 40s and definitely into our 50s. Unfortunately, they do make us more prone to injuries, unless you learn how to work with your body. So in this episode I want to explain how hormone fluctuations impact training when you're more at risk, and how food and supplements and just kind of smarter ways to do things can help us to be strong and injury free. Now I've learned this the hard way, so I have suffered some injuries since my hormones changed and I've got a wise to this. So this is an area that I've been looking into in quite a lot of detail. So I wanted to share my experience of that, especially doing gymnastics, because I'm obviously putting a lot of pressure on my joints and my tendons and ligaments etc. But I want to give you the tips really on how you can stay injury free, because I think it's really important.

Speaker 2:

So the first thing that we really need to recap and we've done a lot of episodes, catherine and I, on hormones and the cycle, but I think we need a quick refresher on it because it really matters for injury risk. So I will cover what happens if you've got irregular periods or you haven't got any periods, because there are different factors at play here. But if, like me, you are still having a regular period, then just to recap, the first half of our period, so from day one of our bleed up to ovulation, is called the follicular phase. Now this is when oestrogen is rising and we and we need estrogen because it is linked with collagen production. So in that first half of the cycle when estrogen is rising, it's a good time for strength and for tissue repair, so you might notice better energy and quicker recovery and you might feel more ready to push hard in training. And this is exactly what I do, because estrogen helps collagen production, which supports ligaments and tendons. It means that in that first half of your cycle, if you're tracking it, your risk of injury is much, much lower. Now the way that I will recognize this is that, obviously, as a doing gymnastics, I'm doing a warm up and I've got specific things I do.

Speaker 2:

If I notice that I am not as flexible as normal, I know that I need to go a little bit easier on myself, because that flexibility, with our collagen production reducing because of estrogen levels reducing, we can have harder ligaments and tendons so they're not as stretchy and they don't bounce back as quickly as they should. So if you think about it like an elastic band, if you've ever had elastic bands, you know in that drawer, that nightmare drawer in your kitchen with all the stuff in it, you're looking for an elastic band, but there's one that's been in there for ages and you go to use it and it snaps. This is a bit like the tendons and ligaments in our body, unfortunately, but when we've got estrogen there, that helps our collagen production and it makes those elastic bands more elastic, but then can recover back to their shape and size if you stretch it. So I noticed that my flexibility is way, way better in that first half of my cycle. I therefore know that I have a reduced risk of injuring myself, and so you can start to look at this whatever you're doing, if you're a runner, if you're doing weights in the gym, whatever it is know that if you track your cycle and you know it, that first half of your cycle, so from day one of your period up to ovulation is when you're going to have estrogen and therefore collagen on your side and that's going to give you better recovery and it's going to mean that you've got a less risk of injury.

Speaker 2:

Now, around the mid-cycle comes ovulation and we do have a brief surge in testosterone. Now this one can give you more power, more drive and better coordination. So this is a really good time to go for a bit more. A personal best For me it might be trying that extra move that I want to do because you've got that natural performance boost, because you've got that natural performance boost. But right after ovulation, a lot of women and I'm one of these we can have a I call it the hormones going off the cliff. But basically we can have a very low hormone day or a couple of days and that puts us at greater risk.

Speaker 2:

But right after ovulation, most of us will go into the luteal phase. But we will go into the luteal phase but our oestrogen and progesterone levels start to fall and then the progesterone starts to climb. Now, when we're in this particular phase, we are way more susceptible to injury. Ligaments are looser and we don't recover as well. Now this is particularly important for people that already have loose ligaments, like conditions like hypermobility.

Speaker 2:

You've got to be really careful after the ovulation into that second half of the cycle. So we don't recover as well, we're more tired, we can be more clumsy and we may well notice that when we do exercise we feel more sore. So this is the time to ease off or just take it a bit easy, be a bit more aware that you need more recovery time, you need more stretching and also cool down in order to help support yourself. So if we think about that in terms of the cycle, really the first half of the cycle is just do whatever you like. You can push the boundaries a bit. The second half of the cycle is proceed with caution. So hopefully that makes sense. And I've been using my cycle as a guide to what I can train. And I think I said on another episode that if I've got a competition that's scheduled and it is just in that week leading up to my period, if I don't have to compete, I won't because I know that I'm at a high risk of injury because I've got the stress involved in competing on top of the fact that I haven't got the support from the hormones, and it makes such a huge difference. So, again, whatever sport you're doing, you can use your cycle to guide you in this matter.

Speaker 2:

Now, what happens if your periods are irregular or you're postmenopausal. So if your periods are all over the place or you don't have a cycle at all, in perimenopause hormone patterns can become really erratic. You can have some months where you feel like superwoman and others where you know that everything is off and it can be hard to plan your training in this, you know. In that kind of scenario, however, instead of using our cycle or we can still track our cycle, but when we've got a situation where one minute our period is 23 days, the next minute is 35 days You've really got to track your symptoms and patterns. In menopause, oestrogen and progesterone levels drop and stay consistently low. This means that we have less natural protection for joints, so we will have a slower repair and recovery and we will have a higher baseline injury risk. However, it's not all bad I'll come on to that but basically, by checking in with your symptoms and patterns, you will start to know whether you're at a higher risk of injury or not.

Speaker 2:

So symptoms like I said, when I'm warming up, if I feel more stiff, there's a particular move that I do, where I'm laid on the floor and I lift my legs over. It's quite difficult to explain, but I'm laying on my back and I lift my legs over my head and I touch the floor with my toes behind my head. If I can't do that, as in, it's hard for me to touch the floor behind me. I know that I'm at a higher risk of injury because I'm not as flexible. So do you feel more sore than usual? Are you sleeping poorly? This has such a huge impact. Do your joints feel stiff or creaky? Well, more than normal, that is yeah. And are you feeling mentally or physically more fatigued?

Speaker 2:

It really helps if you can, with your cycle, when you've got that erratic cycle, learn to track your symptoms and patterns, because in perimenopause what can happen is that oestrogen can go a bit crazy and it can help us. So we can feel really, like I said, like superwoman, and then the next minute it's plunged down low and then we don't have the benefits of the protection that it offers and we're looking at that balance a lot. Feel more stiff or creaky or we seem more tired, then these are all signs that your body may need a bit more TLC. Therefore, we want to treat our body when we're tuned in there exactly how we would in the luteal phase, so that second half of the cycle, when we know that ligaments are looser and we don't recover as well and we're more tired and clumsy it's a similar sort of thing. So even in post-menopause, you can still create your own rhythm here, so we know that levels are going to be consistently low. That does give you a higher baseline injury risk, but there are really specific things that we can do to help support our bodies, especially with regards to our joints and ligaments and tendons. So it's not all bad, and I think it's just knowing this information. Once you start tuning into this, it's really cool, because you really know when you can push it.

Speaker 2:

Like I said, it doesn't matter what training you're doing, what sport you're doing. You can adjust your you know your workout to suit where you are and help to support your joints and just be in this injury prevention mechanism, rather than just you know doing whatever and then an injury comes out of nowhere, which is exactly what happened to me in previous times. I've just not been tuned into this and then, when I look back, I can see that the warning signs were there. I know that my tendons and my ligaments were susceptible, and then I put them in a scenario where that elastic band just couldn't recover. So, as I said, as someone who competes in gymnastics at the age of 54, I've really had to rethink how I train, because you know, when you're younger you just don't think about these things, you can just go all in. But now I need to be a bit more strategic with stuff. This means focusing on things like that increased time for stretching before I do anything, more conditioning, because actually we can really support our joints if the muscles around them are in a good condition. So conditioning and strength training can be really, really beneficial here.

Speaker 2:

So, as I said, I've learned the hard way, I've pushed through on low energy weeks, I've had ankle injuries and it's just that learning process of stepping back and saying, right, how can I do things differently? So it's not about doing things less, it's just training smarter and not necessarily harder. So let's talk about some practical tips. So training smart for me and you can do the same is warming up properly. Don't, do not skip the warm-up. It's not optional anymore and what I find is when I go to classes, if there's a mixture of ages, the warmup is not suitable for me. Now I know that that's not the case with Catherine's classes, because she is tailoring things to women of this age anyway. But if you're going to a class and that warmup is not adequate, then you need to just say to the instructor I'm going to take myself off in the corner and do a bit more warm-up. It is so important so that is not optional anymore.

Speaker 2:

You can't just go straight into whatever you're doing, and this particularly important for running. Don't just go straight into a run If whatever you're doing, if you're doing 0 to 5k, you've got to do a bit of warm up and that does involve stretching those muscles. Strength training is really your best protection. So focusing on those areas that are going to protect the joints that you're looking to support so those shoulders, the core, the glutes they actually do a lot those butt muscles, those big muscles in your legs and then prioritizing mobility and joint stability, especially in the second half of your cycle or if you're postmenopausal. So recovery matters because often when we get this change in our hormones it does disrupt our sleep and this can affect our recovery and increase our injury risk. So we have to build in active recovery days and if we've got issues with that sleep disruption, then we've got to look at what can best support that sleep routine. What can we do to help ourself, and there are so many things you can do.

Speaker 2:

Go back and listen to the episode on sleep. A lot of the time, sleep gets disturbed in perimenopause because of the impact on blood sugar, so we've got to look at diet. It also will be disruptive if we're drinking caffeine past midday and or alcohol, and it will also be impacted if we're asking a lot of our liver. So if our liver is really active, it will often wake us up. So recovery is really important and a lot of our recovery is done when we're asleep. So prioritizing that is going to be really really important, and if we are stressed, we are going to further increase our risk of injury.

Speaker 2:

There's many reasons for this. The impact on sleep is tied in here as well, but the fact that when we stress, we push up our inflammatory response and in fact, inflammation plays a really key role here as well because we tend to have more inflammation as we get older, just because we're taking on everything from the environment to what we eat, to our stress response, to illness. There's so many things going on in our body that can promote that inflammatory response, but stress is a big one. So the last thing you want to be doing is going all out when you're stressed. Now, this often is counterintuitive, because exercise can be really really good for stress relief and I'm not suggesting that you don't exercise. If Catherine was here, she'd be going no, you stress relief. And I'm not suggesting that you don't exercise. If Catherine was here, she'd be going no, you definitely don't want to do that, but you need to be a bit more mindful of the fact that if you are in stress, then you've almost got to again treat it like the luteal phase. You know, proceed with caution. That doesn't mean that you can't proceed, but you're just going to do things in a different way to protect your body from injury. Really, now, diet can be a huge support.

Speaker 2:

We've spoken about protein. This is so important. Protein breaks down into amino acids, which are the building blocks to everything. We already know that we have a higher need for protein as our hormones start to change and we get into that Kind of like past 40 years old. We need to be really focused on this. If we don't have sufficient amino acids in the body, the body will break down its own tissues to access them. The reason for this is that the body needs the amino acids because they are often the starting ingredient for lots of things in the body. So, for example, tryptophan, which is an amino acid, is the first ingredient on the pathway to reduce serotonin, which is your feel-good neurotransmitter. So what you don't want to do is not have sufficient amino acids. So you need your protein. You need protein for your muscles and you need the protein to break down through the gut. So you've got to have good gut health at this point to access the amino acids, because they are the first part of a chain for lots of things that go on in the body.

Speaker 2:

Now collagen is an interesting one. So there is a bit of a mixed opinion on collagen. There are types of collagen. Now collagen is a protein and, and so in studies we've seen that it's not necessarily collagen itself that helps. It is the protein intake. However, I've just attended a day looking at joints and we've been looking at recent studies and looking at lots of things around joint pain and joint issues and how we can support. Now, vitamin C is incredibly important for collagen production and we do need some copper, but we can use a specific type of collagen for our joints. It's type 2 collagen, a lot of the collagen that you see in collagen supplements won't be type 2. They're often type 1, which can help a bit, but not as well as type 2. We've seen in studies that type 2 collagen is incredibly beneficial to the joints. Type 1 will help things like your skin, hair and nails, and a lot of the supplements will be going down that route. If we're specifically looking at joints, we can add in collagen and we can add in vitamin C before we exercise with some protein in order to support our ligaments and tendons. So, therefore, if you know that you're feeling like you're either track your cycle and you know where you are and you're in that l your symptoms and how you feel, and you check in and you're thinking to yourself yeah, I do feel a bit more tired, I do feel more sore, yet my joints are more stiff or creaky today then you can use collagen with vitamin c and your protein, which you can do in a powder if that suits you, before you exercise, because that's going to help support those ligaments and tendons.

Speaker 2:

Healthy fats are really important, healthy fats, which generally are your omega-3 fats. Omega-3 fats are essential. We get them from things like oily fish seeds, certain seeds flax seeds are really good, but what we're looking for is the omega-3 essential fatty acids. These help with hormone balance and inflammation and also they're providing some lubrication to the joints. So healthy fats, either in the diet or I would probably add a supplement of omega-3 at this age, because it's incredibly difficult to get the level of omega-3 balance that we want because we are very omega-6 dominant in our food chain. So we have a test called the Omega Index test and we can have a look and what's interesting is that the Omega Index can be very. It can give a very accurate prediction on health outcomes if the percentage is not right. So we can do it's a very simple test and we can do that at home and send it off to the lab and we can check the percentage of omega-3. Then it doesn't matter what the other fats are. The most important is how much omega-3 and in studies when they looked at this, it was absolutely essential that people supplemented. So it's a really, really key one Anti-inflammatory foods.

Speaker 2:

So your colorful vegetables and fruits, your turmeric ginger berries, are a good anti-inflammatory food, but just think about natural food, colorful food. These are the ones that have an anti-inflammatory effect. The most popular anti-inflammatory diet is the Mediterranean style diet. So if you look that up and look at the general guidelines for that, it can be helpful to make sure that inflammation is reduced as much as possible, because inflammation is really the precursor to every illness that there is. So if we can keep inflammation down, then this is also going to help, because inflammation really really impacts our joints and our ligaments and tendons. It causes havoc, it causes the joints to dysregulate and break down and we don't want that. So anti-inflammatory foods are really important.

Speaker 2:

There are a number of supplements apart from omega-3 and looking at things like collagen and protein, magnesium I think we've mentioned magnesium several times on this podcast. Magnesium is really really important. I often use a supplement. Well, it's a spray that goes on my leg, so I'll put it on my joints. Actually, my ankles and my knees Can use it on my shoulders as well, but it's a magnesium spray. But it's got joint support with it, like glucosamine and MSM and chondroitin. So magnesium really important because it supports muscle function, sleep and nervous system and it's actually one of the most important nutrients for energy production, so it helps with sleep as well. So magnesium very important.

Speaker 2:

Vitamin D and K2 can be really crucial for bone health. K2 will help calcium go where it's supposed to in the bones. Vitamin D will help the absorption of that calcium. So we need that for bones and also for tissue repair. Omega-3s to help reduce inflammation. And collagen to support the tendons and the ligaments, because the way that these things are made are dependent. The elasticity that we get is from collagen. So really some key nutrients that you can use there.

Speaker 2:

But I think the main thing I want you to understand is that your hormones are really, really powerful, but they don't have to be, you know like well, they can be a hindrance, but if we know how to deal with them and we understand their patterns and we can listen to our body, then we can train more effectively to avoid injury. And I think if you've got a cycle and you can just start looking at that first half versus the second half, you will start to see a difference. Start tracking how you feel week to week your energy, your sleep, your soreness, week to week, your energy, your sleep, your soreness, according to your training. Have a look and see how you can adjust it, because the thing that I want to achieve most of all when I'm training is I want to be able to keep performing at a high level. But I also know I need to be smart about it because I need to protect those joints and things, especially with hormones changing and that protection on those joints and things being less than it was before. So it's not about slowing down, it's not about accepting defeat. It's not about going oh, I'm too old to do this. It's about getting wiser.

Speaker 2:

So if you start to track these things, if you haven't got a cycle, you can still track how you feel. Remember, you can use the moon. I know this sounds a bit crazy, but go back and listen to that episode. You can use the moon if you don't have a cycle, because we tend to cycle with the moon as women, and it can give you an idea of what's the first half versus the second half. Most people, even without a period, will know that they feel different at certain times of the month. If you can tune into that, then you'll start to get an idea. And then just think about am I in my follicular phase that first half, or am I in my luteal phase that second half? It's the second half that you need to be more cautious. It doesn't mean to say that you can't do the things. You just need to do it in a different way, be more cautious and then, whenever you've done any exercise, please cool down and stretch afterwards and then use the other tools that you might have.

Speaker 2:

I think I've spoken about my sauna blanket on this podcast. Probably not when it's 30 degrees. Catherine's spoken about her ice bath that she does. We know that when we see sports people on the TV, they often get into ice baths after they've done their sport. So we can use things like that. But we can also use sleep to help us recover. We can use the cool down, we can use stretching, we can use building muscles to support those joints to help us. So there's loads of things that you can do to help reduce your injury risk. I really hope that's been helpful and I would love to carry on this conversation in the far too fabulous facebook group. So please let me know what's happening for you, if you're doing exercise and you've noticed that you've got more susceptible to injury, and maybe what you're doing to help support yourself, or whether this is new information for you and it's just made sense. Something's just clicked and you've thought, yeah, I need to start looking at this in order to protect myself. Let me know I'll see you in the group.

Speaker 1:

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