At The Yard Strength Training, , we focus on the foundations of strength—proper squat mechanics, core bracing, and consistent programming. But for female athletes, there’s another critical foundation that is often overlooked: women’s hormonal health and the menstrual cycle
We believe peak performance comes from understanding the body you’re training. That’s why we’re partnering with Izzy Fischer, founder of DailyBasis, to explore the connection between women’s health, hormonal balance, and athletic performance—bridging the gap between high-performance strength training and female physiology.
Whether you’re managing training with your menstrual cycle, navigating birth control and performance, or looking to better understand your hormonal rhythm for fitness optimization, this conversation is designed to give you actionable insight to support your body.
Ahead of our April 19th Women’s Strength & Social at Mill Valley, we’ll dive into how cycle syncing, targeted nutrition, and intentional strength training for women can help turn your menstrual cycle into a performance advantage—both in and out of the gym.
In This Article: Key Takeaways
1. Women’s health requires female-specific nutrition—not generic supplements
Most traditional supplements are designed for a male-default model and fail to account for women’s changing hormonal and nutritional needs across the menstrual cycle. Supporting female physiology requires targeted nutrition that adapts across phases, not one-size-fits-all formulas.
2. Understanding the menstrual cycle improves strength, recovery, and performance
Learning how hormones affect energy, strength, and recovery allows female athletes to train smarter—not harder. Aligning training with the menstrual cycle leads to better adaptation, reduced burnout, and more consistent strength gains over time.
3. Cycle syncing is about optimizing training, not doing less
Cycle syncing helps women match training intensity to hormonal phases—pushing harder when the body is primed for performance and prioritizing recovery when needed. This approach supports sustainable fitness, injury prevention, and long-term progress.
4. Different phases require different training and nutrition strategies
- Follicular phase (days ~1–14): Best for heavy lifting, PRs, and high-intensity training when estrogen is rising
- Luteal phase (days ~15–28): Better suited for moderate intensity, technique work, mobility, and recovery
- Key nutrients like iron, magnesium, B vitamins, vitamin D, and zinc support performance and recovery across the cycle.
5. Women’s hormonal health should be treated as performance data, not limitation
Your menstrual cycle provides real-time feedback on energy, recovery, and readiness. When women learn to interpret this “internal data,” they can optimize training, nutrition, and hormonal health, leading to better performance and a healthier long-term relationship with fitness.
Q&A with Izzy
1. DailyBasis is built around bridging a real gap in women’s health. What was missing in the wellness space that led you to create this?
Most supplements weren’t designed for female biology. They were built for a general population, which, historically, has meant male-default. What we kept seeing was that women were doing everything right: eating well, training hard, taking their vitamins. And still feeling off. Depleted. Like their body wasn’t keeping up.
When we dug into the research, the answer wasn’t complicated: women have changing nutritional needs across the menstrual cycle, and there was nothing on the market designed to actually meet them. Everything was either a generic multivitamin or a symptom-specific quick fix. We wanted to build the foundation: something that works at the root, not just the surface.
2. At The Yard, strength is our foundation. How does understanding the hormonal cycle actually make someone a stronger athlete?
It makes you a smarter one, which over time makes you a stronger one. When you understand how your hormonal environment shifts across the month, you stop fighting your body and start working with it. You’re not “off” during certain phases, your body has different priorities, different energy availability, different recovery needs. Training that accounts for that leads to better adaptation, less burnout, and more consistent progress. Awareness is the first step, but it’s what you do with that awareness that changes your performance.
3. A lot of women feel pressure to train at 100% every single day. How does cycle syncing help athletes optimize without burning out?
The all-or-nothing approach tends to catch up with people. The body isn’t a machine that performs identically every day and for women, that’s especially true. Cycle syncing isn’t about doing less. It’s about doing the right things at the right times. When you align your training intensity with your hormonal phases, you’re actually able to push harder during the phases your body is primed for it, and recover smarter in the phases it needs that. The result is more consistent progress and a more sustainable relationship with training.
4. Which phase is best for heavy lifting — the squats, the bench, the big lifts — and how should women fuel those days?
The follicular phase: roughly days 1 through 14, leading up to ovulation is when most women feel their strongest. Estrogen is rising, energy is high, and the body is primed for performance. This is the window to push your PRs. Fueling for this phase means prioritizing protein for muscle synthesis, iron to support the replenishment period after menstruation, and B vitamins for sustained energy. The Replenish formula in our Cycle Routine was designed specifically around this phase: rebuilding what the body loses during menstruation and supporting the high-output weeks that follow.
5. For the luteal phase, when energy dips and motivation is harder to find — how should training adjust to still see progress?
The luteal phase (roughly days 15 through 28) gets a bad reputation, but it’s not a phase to write off. It’s a phase to train differently. Your body is doing real work: it’s managing inflammation, shifting progesterone levels, and preparing for the next cycle. Strength training can absolutely continue, but you might find moderate intensity and more recovery time serves you better than chasing PRs. Mobility work, technique-focused sessions, and accessory movements are all productive here. And on the nutrition side, this is when magnesium, B6, and anti-inflammatory botanicals do meaningful work, which is exactly what our Balance formula is built around.
6. For a woman training 3–4 times a week, what are the non-negotiable nutrients to support her through the cycle?
Iron is foundational: particularly in the first half of the cycle, when menstruation creates real depletion. B vitamins for energy metabolism. Magnesium for muscle recovery and mood stability. Vitamin D3 for immune function and bone health. Folate. Zinc. And a healthy gut microbiome, because digestion and hormone metabolism are more connected than most people realize.
The challenge isn’t just knowing what to take, it’s finding them in doses and forms that your body can actually absorb. That’s where a lot of supplements fall short. The Cycle Routine was formulated to address that specifically: meaningful doses, bioavailable forms, designed with OB/GYNs and registered dietitians.
7. You’re sampling Your Cycle Routine product at the event. How does cycle-aligned, plant-based nutrition support things like birth control transitions or working to re-establish a natural rhythm?
When someone comes off hormonal birth control or is working to support a more regular cycle, the foundation matters more than ever. The body often needs time to recalibrate, and nutritional gaps can make that harder: irregular cycles, energy fluctuations, mood shifts. What we’ve designed supports the body’s foundational needs during that process: replenishing key nutrients, supporting gut health, and giving your body the building blocks it needs to find its rhythm. It’s not a quick fix, nothing meaningful is. But a strong nutritional foundation makes the process easier, and more consistent.
8. Electrolytes come up constantly in fitness. How does DailyBasis think about hydration in the context of hormonal health?
Hydration needs actually shift across the cycle. During the luteal phase, progesterone affects fluid retention and electrolyte balance in ways that a standard electrolyte drink wasn’t designed for. The Cycle Routine includes minerals that support hydration and fluid balance as part of the broader formula — it’s not positioned as a standalone electrolyte product, but it’s built with the understanding that hydration isn’t one-size-fits-all either.
9. What’s the one thing you hope women leave with after the event on the 19th?
That their cycle is data, not a liability. Every phase is telling you something about what your body needs. Once you start reading it that way, the whole relationship with training, nutrition, and energy shifts. You stop managing symptoms and start working with a system that’s actually on your side.
10. Why does it matter that women have spaces to talk openly about things like birth control and cycle health?
Because silence creates gaps: in research, in product development, and in how women understand their own bodies. For a long time, women were told that their cycle was too complex, too variable, too inconvenient to factor in. The conversations happening at events like this one are part of changing that. When women can talk openly about what they’re experiencing, they’re better equipped to advocate for themselves — with their doctors, their coaches, and their own health decisions. That’s the whole point.
—
Closing
Women’s hormonal health isn’t a constraint—it’s a framework for better training. When athletes learn to align strength work, recovery, and nutrition with their menstrual cycle, they unlock a more sustainable and effective path to performance. The goal isn’t to push through every phase the same way, but to train with intention, using the body’s natural rhythms as a guide for long-term strength, resilience, and progress.
—
The Yard Strength Training was established in 2021. It is a reservation-based strength training gym with locations in San Francisco and Mill Valley that offers pod-based training, group classes, and space for independent personal trainers. Each of our workout pods includes your own rack, bench, barbell, and plates—plus access to nearby fan bikes, rowers, and a shared training space equipped with kettlebells, dumbbells, and functional training tools. Interested in joining the squad as an Independent Personal Trainer, Client, or Member? Contact us here.
DailyBasis is a women’s health and nutrition company designed to support the body through every phase of the menstrual cycle. Built on the understanding that women’s nutritional needs shift hormonally, DailyBasis creates cycle-aligned formulas that help fill key nutrient gaps, support energy, recovery, and hormonal balance. The goal is simple: move beyond one-size-fits-all supplements and give women a smarter, more personalized foundation for training, health, and everyday performance.