139: Training Through Your Cycle: The Smart Way to Stay Consistent
Broads: The Bold & Badass Fitness Podcast for WomenShow Notes
A 2025 study out of McMaster University found that your body builds muscle the same whether you're in your follicular phase or your luteal phase. Your muscles, it turns out, do not care what your cycle tracker says.
So why are so many women losing their consistency, skipping workouts, and rebuilding their entire program every week around an app? Because cycle syncing culture sold us a system that sounds scientific but is actually costing us our progress.
In this week's episode, I'm breaking down what's really happening across your cycle, why the cycle syncing approach is creating more anxiety than results, and how to make smart adjustments to your training and nutrition without overhauling a thing.
What's Discussed:
(0:35) What this episode is and what it is not
(2:29) The four phases of your cycle and why certain weeks feel the way they do
(4:05) Your power window: the phase most women hit their strongest sessions
(4:30) What is actually happening in the luteal phase (and why it is not weakness)
(5:19) The problem with cycle syncing culture and who it actually serves
(6:22) What the research really says about performance across cycle phases
(8:46) The smart adjustment framework: when to lean in, when to dial back
(10:34) Why high-intensity cardio in late luteal is usually not worth it
(11:19) How to fuel across your cycle without tracking every macro
(13:03) The simplest way to track your cycle (no app required)
(15:02) Why consistency will always beat perfect phase alignment
(16:05) Your challenge for the week
Find out more from Broads:
Website: www.broads.app
Instagram: @broads.podcast @broads.app
BroadsCOACH: Head to www.broads.app/broadscoach and apply for BroadsCOACH.
Check out previous podcast about listening to your body:
Episode 108: Dr. Alyssa Olenick: The Real Truth About Hybrid Training
Resources Mentioned:
Nutrition Webinar: Check out the plate method at www.broads.app/nutritionwebinar
Macronutrient Guide: Want a simple place to start fuelling for the body you're building?
Grab Broad’s FREE Macronutrient Guide: The Balanced Plate Blueprint at www.broads.app/macronutrient-guide.
Gym Starter Guide: Ready to stop waiting for "someday"? Download the free guide at www.broads.app/gym-starter-guide
Check out more from Tara LaFerrara:
Website: www.taralaferrara.com
Instagram: @taralaferrara
YouTube: @TaraLaferrara
TikTok: @taralaferrara
More from Broads: The Bold & Badass Fitness Podcast for Women
You know what consistent people have that you don’t?
Rocio Cortez had never played a sport or trained in a gym when she walked into her first jujitsu class at 27. Three and a half years later she's competing across four martial arts, she's deadlifted 275 pounds at a bodyweight of 119, and she's added 15 pounds of muscle she never set out to add. In this conversation she and Tara get into what changes when you train for performance instead of appearance, how to handle a body that's changing faster than your brain can keep up with, and why the friendships that fade when your lifestyle shifts were never the ones holding you up. If you've decided you started too late, Rocio's timeline will recalibrate what you think is possible.
Nutrition advice for women is loud, contradictory and usually built for someone else's body. In this solo Q&A, Tara answers your most-asked questions. She covers intermittent fasting, tracking macros, how to actually get enough protein and which protein bars are worth buying. She also gets into healing your relationship with food and going alcohol-free when your partner still drinks. You'll walk away knowing which tools fit your body right now, and which ones you can skip.
For women who strength train consistently and feel like something is still missing, it is probably not the program or the effort. The tools that elite collegiate strength coaches use with their athletes — plyometrics, isometrics, contrast training, tempo work — are almost never included in general fitness programming. In this episode, Erica Lowery breaks down exactly what those tools are, why they work, and how any woman can start adding them to her week without overhauling what she is already doing.
Most women who are not seeing results from their training are not failing because of their program, their supplements, or how hard they are pushing. The problem is consistency — and not in the way most people think. This episode breaks down seven specific ways to build the kind of consistency that actually holds, so you can stop spinning your wheels and start making progress that compounds.