Today Stephen has two guests joining him - Joslyn Thompson Rule & Christie Mitchell - to talk all things menstrual cycle and how this can impact training.

Jos has been in the fitness industry for around 18 years, first in rehab and then moving into strength work. For the past 10 years she has been working with Nike as one of the Master Trainers and over the last 6 plus years, having noticed the difference in what was available to men and women, she has focused on elevating female coaches, training women and identifying  differences in the training of men and women and how to address these.

Christie has been a personal trainer  personal trainer for around 3 years, with a focus on unlocking the potential in her clients and showing them how capable they are.

They being by talking about women health and its relationship to training and why they believe that women's health is under researched, underfunded and still considered taboo, even though it affects and impacts so much of a woman's life.

You'll hear them take it right back to basics:

• laying out each stage of a woman's cycle,

• the average length (although this can obviously vary from person to person),

• the importance of nutrition in helping maintain a consistent cycle and what

• some of the benefits, and potential drawbacks, of tracking your period (or any other element of your life, ie sleep, hydration etc) can be.

Stephen asks Jos and Christie about working with someone on dietary changes and, with the consideration of cravings and mood fluctuations in mind throughout a cycle, would they try to begin this during a certain point of the menstrual cycle or just as soon as possible with a client?

Stephen also considers how best to approach the subject with clients, especially as everyone has a different relationship to their period and its impact on their body, and asks Jos and Christie how they think male personal trainers can help with fitness programming in relational to the menstural cycle and how to open the conversation with clients that experience a period.