For the Girl Who Knows She's Worth More Losing Her Period When Working Out

Train With Your Cycle, Not Against It: A conversation with Triathlete and Coach Alex Kozlowski

For many young women in sports, losing your period is treated like a badge of honor.Less inconvenience. Less interruption. Proof that you are training hard.

Triathlete and coach Alex Kozlowski sees it differently.

From years in endurance sport and now coaching women across seasons of life, Alex has learned that the menstrual cycle is not a nuisance to override but a signal to understand. When I asked how she would encourage young female athletes to listen to their bodies and cycles, her answer was immediate and grounded in experience.

“Your cycle is honestly the biggest tell of where your health is at. So if you are having a normal cycle, you know that you are recovering enough, eating enough, you are balancing out with the training.”

In endurance sports especially, the stress load is high and the margin for recovery is small. Instead of guessing whether to push harder or pull back, Alex teaches girls to use their cycle as feedback.

“Looking at your cycle as a way of seeing ‘am I eating enough, am I recovering enough’, and that kind of indicates ‘can I push harder in workouts or do I need to ease off’.”

Rather than separating performance and health, she ties them together. The cycle becomes a dashboard, not a disruption.

She remembers clearly the mindset many girls have in high school sports. Relief when a period does not come. Even celebration. But she now sees that response as a misunderstanding of what the body is communicating.

“Your cycle as a woman tells you where your health is at. It tells you if your hormones are balanced. It tells you if you are getting the recovery, nutrition, all that kind of stuff.”

Then she says something many girls rarely hear.

“If you are healthy, if you do not have PCOS or endometriosis or anything negatively affecting your body, your period should not be painful. It should not be something that you are dreading.”

Pain, in her view, is not something to normalize without question.

“If I am having a painful period, something else might be going on.”

What Your Cycle Is Telling You

Your cycle as a woman tells you where your health is at. It reflects:

• Hormone balance

• Recovery status

• Nutrition adequacy

• Training load

• Overall stress

Training advice around the cycle often comes with rigid rules. Take it easy during your period. Avoid intensity. Expect weakness. Alex has learned that reality is more personal than prescriptive.

“I would say train more based on feel.”

She laughs when she shares that her own strongest performance day often lands where many coaches would predict the opposite.

“The second day of my period is probably my highest performance day. I usually have the best workouts or the best races on day two of my period.”

Her approach is not careless. It is attentive. Pattern aware. Responsive.

“Listen to your body, but also when you are feeling good, do not be afraid to push your body.”

That balance matters. Awareness without fear. Effort without punishment.

When the conversation shifts to women who are not competitive athletes, but want to start moving, her answer becomes even more practical. No elaborate plan. No perfection required. Just a clear starting point.

“Strength training is the biggest thing that you should do. Definitely prioritizing that.”

Strength first, then balance.

“Having a balance with some sort of cardio is also really important.”

And effort still has a place, even for beginners.

“Every once in a while you should do something where you are trying to push yourself.”

The theme returns again. Not extremes. Not avoidance. Rhythm.

If You Are Just Starting

Strength training is the biggest thing that you should do. Add:

• Basic strength work

• Some cardio

• Occasional challenge

• Gradual progress

For Alex, movement is not only physical. It has also been deeply personal. She shares that during a season of mental health struggle, exercise became more than training. It became support.

“Exercising became a big part of that. It became my stress reliever and it just makes me feel good.”

Not every workout feels good in the moment. She is honest about that too.

“You have a really bad day and you are like - man I am just going to go for a run even if the run just absolutely sucks. I am going to do it because I know my body needs it.”

Motivation, she says, is rarely one size fits all. As a coach, she sees that clearly.

“That question is always very individual.”

Some women are driven by internal goals. Others borrow purpose from people they love.

“Some of my clients, their why is their family. They want to be healthy for their kids. They want to live a long life so they can be there for their kids.”

There are seasons, she explains, when doing it for yourself feels too hard. In those seasons, doing it for someone else is still valid. Still powerful.

When women feel stuck at the very beginning, her advice becomes beautifully small and concrete.

“Just start somewhere.”

Not a full program. Not a full hour.

“A five minute walk.”

Movement in ordinary moments counts too.

“Sit to stands or lunges or doing some planks.”

Then she repeats it again like a steady refrain.

“Just start somewhere and eventually it will build up.”

The Small Start Rule

Just start somewhere. Try:

• A five minute walk

• Sit to stands

• Lunges

• Planks

“Eventually it will build up.”

At the end of our conversation, she offers one final line of encouragement. Simple. Direct. Hard to forget.

“My biggest piece of advice for really anybody is just do the hard thing.”

Why?

“Life is so much more amazing when you put yourself through hard things because you learn to appreciate things a lot more.”