Menstrual Cycle Insights

Menstrual Cycle Insights goes beyond cycle and symptom tracking to coach you on your sleep, strain, and stress based on your current phase and how that aligns with biometric changes. It’s part of our investment in women’s health, performance science, and research.

The menstrual cycle is considered a vital health indicator and causes dramatic hormonal shifts throughout the month, producing different physiological responses. In some phases, you may be more able to take on strain, work out harder, and experience higher gains, while in other phases you may need more rest and recovery. By using Menstrual Cycle Insights, you can understand each phase of your cycle and get recommendations about your training and recovery routines.

Coaching recommendations and educational insights

Your health and body are unique – and Menstrual Cycle Insights takes that into account, giving you valuable insights to train, feel, sleep, and perform at your peak. WHOOP has worked with leading researchers in female physiology to build this feature, ensuring Menstrual Cycle Insights offers science-backed recommendations tailored to each phase of your cycle.

With Menstrual Cycle Insights, WHOOP provides:

• Phase-based Strain and Sleep recommendations, as well as stress tolerance guidance
• More than just cycle tracking with period start date and phase predictions based on your cycle patterns, even if you have an irregular cycle 
• Educational insights for each cycle phase about food, sleep, training, work, mood, and sex
• The ability to log symptoms like headaches, cramping, or bloating, and see patterns over time
• Tracking for different stages of your health journey, including ovulation 
• Phase-specific trends over time for biometrics, including skin temperature, Resting Heart Rate (RHR), Heart Rate Variability (HRV), and Recovery

Strain and sleep change throughout your cycle

The menstrual cycle has several stages. During some stages you may be able to gain more muscle and make better gains than others. Menstrual Cycle Insights recommends maximizing training during your period based on how hormone levels change throughout the month. 

During the early follicular phase (your period), estrogen and progesterone are at their lowest levels. This allows you to build more muscle and make bigger gains than in other phases. On the other hand, as your body prepares for menstruation in the late luteal phase (just before your period) your body is less able to take on additional strain and it may be a good time for an active recovery day. Whatever exercise you do, you’ll see better gains during your period than in any other phase. But everyone is different and if you have low energy or have poor recoveries during your period, you may choose not to work out harder during your period. 

Experiment with Menstrual Cycle Insights while working out and see how your recoveries improve. Your cycle affects all of your systems, including your circadian rhythm. In the week before your period you’re more likely to experience lower quality sleep and more time spent awake than the rest of your cycle. Meaning you may want to plan for more time in bed during your premenstrual week to offset this.  

For members who are menstruating, the optimal day Strain recommendation factors in your cycle phase to reflect how ready your body is to take on Strain. WHOOP encourages you to push yourself early in your menstrual cycle and prioritize recovery later in your cycle based on the latest scientific research.

Based on women’s performance science and health research

Women were excluded from clinical trials until 1993—setting research back decades. WHOOP is here to change that by committing to closing the gender equity gap in research, and our features will continue to reflect our findings:

• In the British Medical Journal, in partnership with female physiology and nutrition expert Dr. Stacy Sims: Uncovering key differences between natural menstrual cycles and hormonal birth controlled menstrual cycles. One of the study’s findings is that our ability to recover changes throughout the natural menstrual cycle differently than when hormonal birth control is used. The effect of hormonal birth control on recovery further varied depending on whether or not the birth control contains estrogen. This study inspired WHOOP to ask how we could help women understand how to train using their WHOOP data.
• In Nature: Quantifying fluctuations in cardiovascular parameters across the menstrual cycle. Cardiovascular Amplitude quantifies fluctuations in RHR and HRV across the menstrual cycle, offering a new perspective on how the body responds to hormonal shifts. These insights enhance menstrual cycle tracking and coaching on WHOOP, helping members gain a clearer picture of their hormonal health and performance.

WHOOP continues investing in research, data, and features that support women at every stage of life—from menstruation to pregnancy and menopause.

Menstrual Cycle Insights should not be used for conception or contraception, and all phases, including the ovulatory phase, are estimates. Menstrual Cycle Insights is not a medical device and cannot diagnose or manage medical conditions. It does not provide medical advice. Always consult your doctor for health concerns and never delay or modify medical care based on its information.