The menstrual cycle tracker allows female athletes to record menstrual cycle symptoms when completing their wellness questionnaire, and allow coaches to detect menstrual cycle problems, and optimize workload, recovery and nutrition, in order to manage the impact of menstrual cycle on women athlete’s risk of injury and performance.
Enabling menstrual cycle tracking
To enable this feature, open Team settings - Modules, make sure that the Wellness questionnaire is enabled for both Staff and athletes, and press the Menstrual Cycle Tracking button to Activate (it will become blue). Then save.
Preventing non-medical users to access menstrual cycle information
To prevent coaches (and any user without access to health/medical data) to view menstrual cycle information, open Settings-Health and set the 'Coaches can access menstrual cycle information' to 'No'
Disabling menstrual cycle tracker for specific athletes
When the menstrual cycle tracker is activated, menstrual cycle related questions are automatically displayed to all female athletes of the selected team.
If an athlete do not want/need to answer menstrual cycle questions, or if she is using hormonal contraceptives, she can turn this feature off by opening her profile, and deselect the Activate button next to the Menstrual Cycle Tracker option.
Modifying the default cycle length
The default cycle length is automatically set to 28d but can be changed to reflect individual situations.
Once 3 cycles or more are recorded by athlete, the cycle length will automatically be adjusted to personal cycle’s length, and will replace the default value.
Recording menstrual cycle symptoms
Once the Menstrual Cycle Tracking is enabled, the questions below will be automatically added to the wellness questionnaire of female athletes.
Athletes can complete the questionnaire by pressing the options that are matching their current symptoms.
Customizing Menstrual Cycle Tracking questions / answers
To modify the menstrual tracking items, go to Team settings-Menstrual Cycle Tracking, edit the text and click Save
Customizing the list of available symptoms
To modify the symptoms, open Team settings-Menstrual Cycle Tracking-Symptoms, edit the text and click Save. To add new symptoms, click the green cross. To delete symptom(s) click the X.
Adding Menstrual Cycle Alerts on the Team Dashboard
To add menstrual cycle alerts on the Team dashboard, open the Team Settings-Readiness Dashboard-Menstrual Cycle Tracking and select Show.
The Menstrual Predictive Dashboard
Use the menstrual cycle predictive dashboard to quickly identify future phase of your menstrual cycle (follicular, luteal) and better optimize workload, recovery, and nutrition. To open this dashboard, open the Team dashboard, and click on the athlete's name.
Understanding menstrual phases and alerts
Once alerts have been added on the team dashboard, each athlete's menstrual data is automatically analyzed according to the logic below. When a problem is detected, alerts are immediately displayed.
The phases of the menstrual cycle
The menstrual cycle there is a set pattern of female hormone variations, which last about a lunar month, on average 29 days (can vary between 26 and 35 days). The start of each menstrual cycle is indicated by a menstrual bleed/period
It is normal physiology for women to have reasonably regular menstrual cycles from age of menarche, the start of periods (average age 12 years) up to menopause, cessation of periods (average age 51 years).
Menstruation occurs at the start of the menstrual cycle day 1 to around day 5. This can also be known as a period or menstrual bleed. The endometrial lining (lining of uterus) is being shed
The follicular phase is when a follicle in the ovary is growing in preparation for release of an egg (ovulation).
Ovulation occurs around the middle of the menstrual cycle when an egg is released from the ovary and makes its way down the Fallopian tube to the uterus
Luteal phase starts immediately after the ovulation occurs and continues to the start of the next menstrual bleed. After the egg is released from the ovary the remnant of the follicle becomes the corpus luteum, which produces the hormone progesterone.
The alerts of the menstrual cycle
Phase/Alert | Dashboard alert | Focus | Alert Color |
No menstrual bleed for 3 cycles or more (requires medical investigation) | MISS3 | May require medical attention | Red |
No menstrual cycle recorded for over 3 months | NOMENS | Compliance issue | Yellow |
Irregular menstrual cycles | IRREG | May require medical attention (possible relative energy deficiency in sport, RED-S) | Yellow |
Polycystic ovary syndrome | PCOS | May require medical attention | Yellow |
If athlete reports bleeds after the first 7 days
Change of flow or pain for same day between individual cycles
Flag have very heavy periods
Flag have very light periods
Flag have very high MENS pain | BLE
BLE ↑↓ or PAIN ↑↓
BLE ↑
LOWMENS
PAIN ↑ | May require medical attention - possible relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S) Encourage good hydration and intake of iron rich foods | Yellow
White, Yellow or Red depending on current day reported bleeding and pain respectively
Red
Yellow
Red |
Unusual pain | PAIN | Recovery, yoga, pilates and other gentle exercise | Yellow/Red |
Heavy bleeding | BLE | Encourage good hydration and intake of iron rich foods | Red |
Early follicular - Menses | EFOL | Recovery, yoga, pilates and other gentle exercise | Yellow |
Mid follicular | MFOL | High intensity, low volume | Green |
Late follicular | LFOL | Low intensity, high volume aerobic work Time for potential risk ACL injury | Green |
Ovulation | OVU | Strength/power, ACL risk | Yellow |
Ovulation with pain | OVU PAIN | May require medical attention | Red |
Early luteal | LUT | High intensity, low volume; max strength/power | Yellow |
Mid luteal | LUT | Low intensity, high volume aerobic work | Yellow |
Late luteal | LUT | Recovery, yoga, pilates and other gentle exercises | Yellow |
Activating / deactivating / modifying the menstrual cycle alerts
To disable and / or modify the menstrual cycle alerts, open Team settings - Alerts - Menstrual Cycle Tracking. Then select/deselect the appropriate options.
Modifying the default recommendations for menstrual alert
To modifying the explanatory text for each menstrual alert, click the Alert icon (with exclamation mark), edit the default text and save.
