Heart to Heart with Hads

How to Tell If Your Workout Is Hurting Your Hormones

• Hadlea Shaw

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Our workouts can either help our hormones thrive or drive them into dysfunction, with key signals revealing whether your training is supporting or sabotaging your health.

• Signs your hormones are suffering include poor sleep, low libido, missing periods, and chronic soreness
• Tracking devices like Whoop, Oura Ring or Garmin can help monitor recovery through heart rate, HRV and sleep quality 
• Cycle syncing involves adjusting workout intensity based on menstrual phases - heavier loads during follicular phase, more restorative during luteal
• Training fasted can negatively impact stress hormones and recovery
• Excessive cardio, training to failure, and no rest days are particularly harmful for hormonal health
• Recovery techniques like contrast therapy, red light therapy and cold plunge can support hormone balance
• Focus on quality movements with intention rather than constantly chasing soreness or sweat
• Sustainable fitness means listening to your body's signals rather than pushing through exhaustion
• Measure progress through energy levels, sleep quality and overall wellbeing, not just aesthetics

I'm here to help women find and heal the root cause of their hormone and gut imbalances so they can have sustained energy and feel their best. Share and review this episode—your support means the world to me!


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Speaker 1:

Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode of Heart to Heart with Heads. I'm really glad to have you here. I'm just extremely grateful for just this life that I have and the things that I do, and I don't really feel like I talk about that often, but just everybody, take a moment where you're at, appreciate every little thing you have going on around you. My three gratitudes for today are being able to work from home, being able to have something that I genuinely love to do every single day in my life, and once you can start to appreciate the gratitude for the little things, your life feels so so much more fulfilling. Third thing I'm grateful for is just my mindset around everything I do. I just Brock told me today or I, yeah, it was last night I was like I just I was looking at him, we were just cuddling and I was like I wish I had your eyelashes, and he said I wish I had your mindset and I was like that made me so sad. So I don't know, just food for thought.

Speaker 1:

But today I want to talk about how to tell if your workouts are hurting your hormones. So first thing we should talk about is what are some things that you may notice whenever your hormones are not doing well, and that is poor sleep, low libido, no period not recovering well. You're always sore. So these are things that are symptoms or signs you should look for. When it comes to you know your hormones and so how you can really tell is if you're going to the gym, you're training hard, you know, say, you're going to the gym three times a week, you're training at, you know, full intensity, strength training and your body's not recovering. And you can tell specifically in your sleep. If you're waking up in the middle of the night, if you're waking up feeling not recovered, if you're having heart palpitations, you know your heart rate is elevated at night, and all of these things you can tell by just feeling, just being super in tune with your body. But another thing too if you use a trackable wearable device, which I highly recommend everyone wear something like that if you're really into your health and fitness. There's so many different options out there for you. There's the whoop band, there's the aura ring there I don't really love the apple watch anymore there's a garmin. There's so many different things that you can utilize to help track, you know, your heart rate, your heart rate variability.

Speaker 1:

I did a whole little masterclass on this for my clients this last week and it went really good. We talked about blood sugar, blood pressure, heart rate, all of these things. All of these things can be affected. Your blood sugar, if you're not recovering well, can be down. You can tell this could really be impacting your hormones as well. If your blood sugar is off, that can negatively affect your sex hormones in the sense of your body just not properly being able to utilize its energy, its fuel sources. So, um, these are just some things that you can kind of monitor to. You know, make sure that things are going well, and I'll just kind of give you a breakdown on like. If your heart rate is over, say, 60 beats per minute at night, then you can tell your body's not properly recovering.

Speaker 1:

Just from experience this past week I was in my luteal phase and I noticed that my body is a lot more sensitive during this phase, and so I really, going into my next cycle, I'm going to be more aware and I'm going to pull back my training intensity on those days leading up the two weeks to 10 days leading up to my cycle. I'm gonna bring down my weight and my intensity. Just do lower weight, higher reps, focus on more on getting a pump, instead of taking sets to seven, 10, seven to eight RPE. So I'm keeping things more like four to five RPE or just like I said, focusing on the volume and the intensity. So just doing three sets and I did like 15 to 20, sometimes like 20 to 30, a lot of things, just lower weight, focusing on really getting a good pump, a good burn, and I noticed it really helped me. I didn't have heart palpitations, I felt a lot more calm and cool, and then I also incorporated some Chaseberry, which this is more for like if you're in that luteal phase and you have those symptoms in your luteal phase, this is what I would do, not necessarily in general, but whenever you're in luteal phase, if you're following, you know your menstrual cycle being in tune with that. Quote unquote cycle signaling. I think cycle signaling should just come down to the individual and how you're feeling. Not everybody is affected as much in their luteal phase or whenever they start their period, whatever. Honestly, I feel better once I start my period because my estrogen is starting to rise up and so then I can increase my training intensity back up during those like that week of starting my period and that week after that and then a couple of days after, and then that you know, like going back into that luteal phase of cycle syncing, I can bring my intensity back down a little bit. Um, so those are just some things that you can do as far as when it's kind of going around your menstrual cycle.

Speaker 1:

So, like I mentioned, symptoms that are tied to the overtraining is not sleeping well. Another big one, too, is not having a big appetite. We want to be hungry before every meal, right, and if you're feeling like you're not hungry, this could be your body saying like okay, we're overstressed, we need to pull back, and so that's when you do, you know, some sort of deload style of training. Or if you're doing a lot of HIIT workouts, take those out completely, I'd say. If you feel like you're not recovering, if you're experiencing, you know you're not getting stronger in the gym, this one's huge too. If you feel like you've hit a plateau, if you were just tired, low energy all the time, even after your lift, if you're not, you shouldn't feel so wiped out after your lift that means that you, you overdid it, and I used to be someone that, oh, like it doesn't affect me. It's fine, you know. But after a while my body started to pick up and she was like you actually cannot train like this anymore.

Speaker 1:

So, not taking every single thing till failure. If your body cannot handle that and you'll know it cannot handle that, because you will have heart palpitations, like I said, you're not going to be able to sleep well at night, your period may go missing Mine definitely went missing. You're just going to, overall, feel terrible. That brain fog, the low appetite, just all of these little things. You can tell that training's hurting you, even if you're training for like endurance training, like marathon.

Speaker 1:

If you're experiencing any of these things, you need to pull back, you need to take a good long break. Um, just modify. It doesn't mean that you have to totally pull back and stop everything that you're doing. Right, like I said, I was still doing the things, but I just pulled back on the intensity. Or even if you're doing a lot of endurance training and you're like my body's just not recovering well from this, just you can do your same. You know mileage. You can do the same thing just walking or maybe cycling, riding bike, just bringing your heart rate levels down a notch so that your body has some time to recover from the stress that you're putting on it.

Speaker 1:

Another thing, too, is like if you're not eating enough food specifically protein, carbs, fat in order to fuel your body for the training to recover, you're also going to feel like crap. So, really really taking a good deep dive in on your nutrition and making sure that you're eating enough food If you're training fasted, I would really encourage you to stop doing that right now. You could literally just have a protein shake and a banana and you'd be fine. This is something that I recently started doing and I'm like this has been a biggest game changer, because in the past before, whenever I didn't have my menstrual cycle, I was going fasted and I was like what the heck? But actually fasting can negatively impact your hormones, especially your stress hormones. Like your cortisol can be negatively affected if you're your cortisol in your thyroid, because when you're fasting for that long, your body's like, oh, we're just gonna run on. We're gonna run on this energy that we already have and, you know, not use the food for fuel that it should to be fueling that. So so those are just some things that you can kind of pay attention to and focus on and, just, like I said, making sure that you're not totally stopping because we still need to be moving our body in some way.

Speaker 1:

Right, you could even switch to more low intensity things, like whenever you are getting into your luteal phase. You can do the yoga Pilates less intense things, or you can just yoga Pilates less intense things, or you can just if you're if you're capable enough to go into the gym and not train super hard. For the longest time, I was not able to go into the gym and just not give it my all, because I had always been taught and programmed Okay, every single set I do needs to be taken till failure, till I literally can't breathe, and so that's been something that I've had to rewire in my brain. And if you're someone that's similar to that, if you're not able to do that literally, I'd rather you not go at all. I'd rather you go do Pilates, go do yoga, do something that's less intense so that your body can have that break. But especially if you don't trust yourself to actually make the change and do less, you know less than you're used to.

Speaker 1:

So those are kind of the things that you should look out for whenever you're not feeling well, and these are the things that could be impacting your hormones, and these are the things that could be impacting your hormones, and so you really, really just want to keep an eye on how you're feeling after certain training sessions, especially right after, in the days after. You should not be sore for more than two days after. If you are, your body's like screaming like, hey, let's actually change up what we're doing, because what we're doing is making us, making our body, not be feeling well. So, other than that I that's kind of the big, the really big things to be aware of there's, you know, obviously, things that you can do to help your body recover more faster. Essentially, you know, contrast therapy is really good. Doing red light, cold plunge I feel like those things are really beneficial for you too, and they just help you recover better in general.

Speaker 1:

I'm trying to think if I missed anything. This is all I had in my notes For Talking about Um, but basically, what it comes down to is many women think that better, more is better when it comes to training, and so that's where like, hormones really can get out of whack, because you're like, oh yes, I'm doing good, I'm doing so good, I'm getting closer to my weight loss goals. And you have to really think about your hormones because they can take a big hit if you're not careful. And so the gym can actually be the thing that makes your body thrive or the thing that keeps you stuck and inflamed and burnout. So the excessive cardio has to go, the always training to failure has to go, the no rest days has to go, chasing a sweat or soreness or calories has to go as well.

Speaker 1:

And then just, you cannot ignore your cycles. Like I mentioned, doing the same intensity at every phase instead of adjusting can be harmful for your body. So, like I already mentioned, low libido, worsened PMS, missed periods and some other signs that you can see, stubborn fat gain, especially in your belly. This is more metabolic, slowed metabolism, you know, like I said, not as hungry Energy in your mood, brain fog, the irritability, anxiety, the poor sleep plateauing in your training, declining strength, frequent injuries, slower recovery between your sessions. So biggest thing is focusing on you know. So biggest thing is focusing on, you know, quality movements, lifting with intention, not just, you know, going super ham. You can cycle your workouts, like I mentioned too Heavier loads in your follicular, more restorative training in your luteal, fueling your body properly, of course, like I mentioned, you know, incorporating active recovery. This is huge too.

Speaker 1:

You can some people feel like, oh my gosh, like I'm not going to the gym every day. If you feel like that, you can still, you know, go into the gym and not train super hard. You can do walk, you can do mobility work, you can do stretching, you can do yoga. These all still move the needle, make you move your body, make you feel good without applying a bunch of pressure and intensity. So another thing, too, is you can measure your wins differently. You don't need to constantly track like okay is my, is a scale going down? All the things are so many different things. Right, you know your strength, your energy levels, your sleep quality. All of these things are things we want to focus on, because this is what's ultimately going to support our hormones. We can't just focus on scale if that's your goal is to lose weight. There's different variables that we want to check to make sure that our hormones are essentially good.

Speaker 1:

So all that to say, if your workouts are leaving you drained, your body just needs to chill out. It's sending you signal. You know you're not quote, unquote, broken. I hear this a lot, but you're not, you're not broken. You can fix it. It's just going to come with a little bit more strategy than you may be used to. So just learn how to train in a way that supports your, your body, so that you can build strength over time and then you're not constantly hitting these burnout and plateaus. So the cycle syncing is huge.

Speaker 1:

But also just being super, super aware in your body and not ignoring things I think that's the biggest thing is women think they can just ignore things and push past them because they seem normal, but in reality I'd rather you just be so in tune with your body, like I love when my clients come to me and they're like I listened to my body. My body was feeling so ran down and I would rather them chill out, not go to the gym. Just focus on, you know, literally chilling out, laying on the couch, like just being in stillness, than going to the gym and overdoing it. There's a difference between not being motivated and just overall. Generally you can feel it in your bones whenever you don't feel good, and I love that. I'm teaching women to be super in tune with their bodies, because not all women have that.

Speaker 1:

And so, all that to say, just learn to train in a way that supports your body so that you can actually balance your hormones and it can be a sustainable thing like fitness should be sustainable and it shouldn't burn you out to the freaking gills and make you feel like crap all the time and grill your hormones, because I've been there and I want to make sure that women are equipped with the knowledge and the tools that they need to make sure that it doesn't happen to them. So I hope you guys enjoyed this quick little episode. But I just wanted to share with you because last week I had entered my luteal and I was feeling really, really bad and I was like, okay, what's going on? And I was like, oh, I got to pull back my training intensity a little bit. So go to the gym still, get a good pump, but just scale it back on the train because your body only knows stress is one thing and if you're putting on stress from you know work, the stress that your body's feeling because it's about to start your period, you know the gym, all these things can play a part, even if you, if you don't think they do, they actually do.

Speaker 1:

So hope you guys enjoy this episode episode, share it, review it. All the support means. The support means all the world to me, because it's if I can just help one singular woman change her outlook on her health and make a difference, make a change, then that's literally all I could ever want and ask, because, at the end of the day, I'm here to help women find and heal their root cause of their hormone and gut imbalances so that they can look and feel the way they want to and have the sustained energy and unfuckwithable energy, I should say, and a snatched, freaking waist and a big old ass. Anyways, hope you guys enjoyed it and I'll see you on the next episode. Bye.