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.