Menstrual Cycle Phase Does Not Influence Training-Induced Muscle Hypertrophy or Strength: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Methodology

Randomized controlled trial (RCT)

Population

24 eumenorrheic females; unilateral within-participant design across 3 menstrual cycles (12.2 ± 1.3 weeks of training)

Intervention

Within-participant unilateral design with 4 leg conditions: non-trained control (CON), standard even-volume training (EX), higher-volume in the follicular phase (HV-FOL), and higher-volume in the luteal phase (HV-LUT)

Findings

All resistance-trained conditions produced significantly greater hypertrophy and strength than the untrained control leg, but there were no differences among the three training conditions — concentrating training volume in the follicular or luteal phase produced no advantage over evenly distributed volume, providing direct experimental refutation of cycle-phase-based periodisation.

Outcome measures

Muscle hypertrophy (muscle size) and muscle strength

Limitations

Small sample (n=24) though strengthened by a within-participant unilateral design; eumenorrheic, mostly young women only; ~12-week duration may be too short to detect small long-term divergences; unilateral leg training limits generalisation to whole-body programmes.

Original source

DOI: 10.1249/MSS.0000000000004031 · PMID: 42160459