How menstrual cycles are reshaping daily life in women’s football | OneFootball

Clubs are increasingly building menstrual cycle considerations into training and warm-ups, reshaping daily routines and player care.

According to L'Équipe, awareness work has accelerated, with Strasbourg adopting dark purple away shorts in October via Sabryna Keller’s Femmes de Foot to ease fears linked to white kits.

Coach Vincent Nogueira said players were delighted and questioned why the change had not come sooner.

Racing Strasbourg are among France’s pioneers, said physical coach Sara Faure, who cited Insep researcher Juliana Antero’s work over the past two years. Players complete daily wellbeing questionnaires covering pain and cycle phase.

Early-period days can bring pain or heavy fatigue. Nogueira works closely with physio Anaïs Frey, a specialist who leads education sessions.

Pre-match activation is tailored to the phase of the cycle, and some players experience hip blockage at specific times.

At Montpellier, doctor Claude Nilles does not adapt team sessions to the cycle, instead tailoring individual work by time of month. He stressed transparency, no stigmatisation and robust medical support, adding that gynaecological follow-up is vital and has not always been done.

Faure warned that hormonal deficits, irregular cycles and especially amenorrhoea, common in elite sport, can greatly raise injury risk, notably stress fractures. She added athletes need at least six cycles a year for adequate oestrogen, which Insep gynaecologist Carole Maître has described as a booster hormone.

Maître welcomed the shift, saying solutions exist for every issue. She noted one in 10 women live with endometriosis and one in two have irregular cycles, and said period pain must be managed because it affects concentration, sleep and mood, so physiology must not impact performance.

Source: L'Équipe