Female athletes have faster reaction times and make fewer mistakes during their period – even though they feel their performance suffers compared to other phases of their menstrual cycle, new research shows.
The study of more than 200 athletes, led by researchers at University College London, sought to understand why injury rates are much higher in female athletes than their male counterparts.
As the popularity of women’s sports has skyrocketed, so have their injuries, which has led to much debate about the possible reasons.
Hormones are a clear difference between people who have a menstrual cycle and those who do not or who use hormonal birth control. What effect these hormones have as they rise and fall during the menstrual cycle is not clear, although research points to changes in brain function that could reasonably affect an athlete’s performance – or perhaps make them more susceptible to injury.
While neuroscientists are curious about these monthly brain changes, exercise scientists have hardly investigated how the brain function of professional athletes is stimulated or hindered by the changing hormones and how this fluctuation affects injury risk.
“Changes in spatial cognition could theoretically be a contributing risk factor for injuries, especially in fast-paced sports that require millisecond accuracy in interactions with moving objects,” said Flaminia Ronca, a sports scientist at University College London, and colleagues. explain in their published article.
For example, female athletes often report feeling awkward around ovulation or that their performance deteriorates in the latter part of their menstrual cycle, the luteal phase, and when they get their period.
But studies trying to measure these perceived effects have been inconclusive: strength and power may peak around ovulation, and endurance may decline during menstruation.
Sports scientists have also largely focused on the biomechanics of the female body that could explain the higher injury rates in female athletes, particularly torn anterior cruciate ligaments (ACL). Differences in technique, training and hormones can be a factor here.
It makes sense that hormonal changes can loosen ligaments and tendons, leading to more injuries at certain times of the month. However, loose joints do not explain types of injuries other than ACL tears, such as concussions and muscle strains, which are also more common during certain menstrual phases.
Therefore, Ronca and colleagues recruited 241 participants for their study, including 96 male athletes, 105 female athletes who were menstruating, and 47 who reported using contraception.
The athletes were put to the test in a series of online cognitive tests, administered two weeks apart and designed to mimic what athletes’ brains need to do during games: think quickly, react quickly, process spatial information and be laser-focused to stay.
The study could not examine individual differences in cognitive performance between phases of the menstrual cycle, and was based on menstruating women reporting their current phase on the test day (two-thirds used a menstrual tracking app).
Overall, menstruating female athletes performed worse on cognitive tasks in the late follicular phase of their cycle, as they neared ovulation, and in the later luteal phase, just before bleeding.
But their cognitive performance peaked during menstruation, even though these female athletes felt worse during their periods and suspected this negatively affected their performance.
“What is surprising is that participants’ performance was better when they were on their period, which challenges what women, and perhaps society in general, thinks about their abilities at this particular time of the month,” she said. Ronca. The guards Tobi Thomas.
Since there are no differences in reaction times and accuracy between male and female athletes, the next step for the researchers is to investigate how different types or doses of hormonal contraceptives can also affect athletes’ brain function – or even protect against injuries, as previous research shows. turns out. .
The study is over Neuropsychology.