Shownotes
In this episode of The Athlete's Compass, Tenille Hoogland joins the discussion to share her expertise on training for women in perimenopause and menopause. With a rich background as a professional triathlete and coach, she dives deep into how hormonal changes impact performance and training. The episode covers practical tips for adapting workouts, the importance of prioritizing health, and how mindset plays a key role in thriving during this transition. Tenille emphasizes the need for women athletes to listen to their bodies, adjust expectations, and use training as a tool for empowerment, all while balancing life’s other stressors.
Key Takeaways:
- Adaptability in Training: Hormonal changes during perimenopause and menopause affect performance, requiring athletes to modify their approach to training.
- Prioritizing Health: Long-term health and well-being should be the foundation of any endurance training, especially in mid-life.
- Mindset Matters: Athletes should cultivate a growth mindset to navigate the unpredictability of hormonal shifts and physical performance.
- Nutritional Adjustments: Increasing protein intake and maintaining a balanced, colorful diet is crucial for women in this stage of life.
- Listen to Your Body: Being attuned to daily changes and knowing when to push or rest is key to successful training in perimenopause.
- The Importance of Strength Training: Incorporating strength and conditioning helps combat muscle loss and keeps athletes feeling strong.
Transcripts
Hello and welcome to the Athletes Compass podcast where we navigate training, fitness and health for everyday athletes. We are excited today to welcome Tenille Hoogland to the show to talk about endurance training for women in perimenopause and menopause. Tenille runs the applied athletes coaching business as well as the element racing team and has a decorated career as an athlete, event planner and coach.
Hello, Tenille and welcome. How are you and can you catch us up on what's going on in your world today?
Tenille Hoogland (:That's so fun. Thank you so much for the introduction and for having me. It's absolutely brilliant. How am I? I'm great. I have to say what is new in my world? I started back in at swim club. I'm part of a swim club. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, getting serious. And it's been really fun. Like I just I realized how much I missed it. So that's what's exciting in my world and in my my athletes world. It's just you know, it's
Paul Warloski (:Nice.
Marjaana Rakai (:So,
Tenille Hoogland (:we're in transition, a lot of people are finishing their triathlon, you know, peak races and we're some of them are, you know, just ramping up until the the late, late races and and then we have others going into cross season. Just like so we're having a lot of fun and just constantly being this in this dynamic environment of.
Who do we want to show up as? What do we want to show up? And maybe some of it, some people are just kind of coasting through and showing up whenever they just kind of feel like it. So that's where we're at.
Paul Warloski (:So, you talked about in your content about being quote, in health unquote. What do you mean by that in the context of the everyday female endurance athletes? What does in health mean to you?
Marjaana Rakai (:I'm
Tenille Hoogland (:What a beautiful question. think if people understand and have been following the Athlete's Compass and have gotten to know Marjaana a little bit, they also will encounter a similar story for me and when I was a professional athlete and understanding what does it mean to be in health and what is the foundation of performance and then
particularly to the discussion that we're having about athletes and perimenopause and menopause, what does that mean when everything feels like it's changing? Like this idea of what feels like what you feel as strong, what you feel as your body. for many women, not all, that road is a lot more bumpy for others. So what is it?
So you're coming to your question, what is health? And I think that there's the experience of health is being able to adapt. In my mind, it's being able to adapt to stressors and the stressors that we want in our life, such as training and the ones that are every day in terms of work and family and the pressures that come maybe from systemic environmental.
Paul Warloski (:Hmm.
Marjaana Rakai (:So,
Tenille Hoogland (:and that we can adapt to those stressors well and or bounce back quickly and know how to support our body through it and our mind, of course, because they're connected. And so that's what I think of is health is maybe not always getting it right because the journey is not smooth. It's not straight. It's not predictable, particularly in perimenopause. don't have the...
We weren't just like when, you know, if for any of the parents out there, you weren't given a manual of like, this is how to parent this particular child. We're not given necessarily a manual on this is how you're going to go through perimenopause. And if you just do these things, everything will be fine. It's a continuous learning. So health is really about a mindset. It's also about ability to pull on levers that you have.
Paul Laursen (:Yeah, I love that definition, Tenille. Yeah, it resonates well with me. Also, like personally right now, just worth going through a personal stress in my life. And there's some things I'm noticing. I'm not actually absorbing my stress as I used to.
Marjaana Rakai (:So thank you very much.
I'll jump right in here because to give listeners a little bit context, Tenille used to be my coach when I first started Ironman journey. And I remember
She was always talking about health. You got to be health first. You can't perform if you're not healthy. And I was, I was ignoring it. I was just so tunnel visions. Do the workouts and do some extra. And as we all know, that led to overtraining and I wasn't healthy and I wasn't absorbing anything. And I was constantly, you know, not feeling good, but still just kept on the same wrong way track.
But Tenille's message that you need to be healthy first and of course Paul's been drilling that into me and giving me some some some of the tools to how to do it. But it's also I have to say Tenille you are really good with the psychology and the mindset and you planted some seeds that I afterwards realized as I was crying.
and feeling self -pity on the couch when I couldn't train, that health has to come first, that I can prioritize that. And being healthy allows me to fly across a world, do Ironman, which was extremely difficult, fly back, jet lag both ways, and here I am. But I think that health...
health aspect is it has to be on the driver's seat and it is a mental thing because we often just ignore it we need to get the work done and so what if we're you know a little bit unhealthy I mean is I doing Ironman healthy? Probably not so it takes some time to to recover from.
Tenille Hoogland (:for some women Coming into perimenopause is a rude awakening of holy shit. I don't always have control
Marjaana Rakai (:Okay,
Tenille Hoogland (:and I can't control this, my hormones are changing. And we don't remember in our teenage years because we think we're, know, super, like in our teenage years, the whole attitude, we're going through incredible hormone change as well, but there's a whole different vitality around it. you know, we can skip, well, well, can we or can't we is debatable, but.
You know, we can push through, you know, the teenager can push through maybe not sleeping as well and be okay. But that's not what's on offer in perimenopause. And so this idea of what are we willing to absorb and listen to, to be in health, I mean, that was the original question, is completely different. And how does it come into face with what are the tools? And we're wiser, thank goodness.
Paul Laursen (:Mm -hmm.
Tenille Hoogland (:like Paul was mentioning, it's like, I've got levers. Well, that comes out of wisdom. It comes out of having put yourself to the line, having done hard things, and now we get to be more adaptable and smarter and hopefully really listen to the situation that we're in.
Paul Warloski (:Thank
Paul Laursen (:like mechanistically what's happening here to the human, female, Tenille This is like a reduction all of a sudden in the ovarian follicles as we age, right? And then there's a cascade of hormonal shifts and symptoms accordingly. Do you want to?
Tenille Hoogland (:Mm
Marjaana Rakai (:I
Paul Laursen (:Do want to expand on any of those or?
Tenille Hoogland (:yeah, the way I actually, you know, I've been doing a lot of thinking about this and there's a couple things. So physiologically, it's a shift and we're having hormone change. That hormone change is if we think about, I would just want you to like think of a line and then it going up rapidly. Like you have estrogen, which is coming up and it can be up to a thousand times more than you're used to. Like it's insane how much estrogen can increase.
Marjaana Rakai (:Yeah, so I was like, that's not something I can't do. to stop. I'm just going to and think about what I asked for to do. And I'm going to stop and think about what I was asked for to do. I'm going stop And I'm and think what was asked for do. And I'm going to was asked for to do. And going to stop and what asked do. And I'm going I was asked for to do. going going going think was
Tenille Hoogland (:creating this sense of estrogen dominance and then it rapidly falls and then it comes up and there's not a lot of smoothness to the process of perimenopause. And then we have progesterone that is really reliant on this idea of this developing follicle and then becomes a corpus luteum and then it releases this beautiful progesterone that is intricately connected to the yin and the yang of estrogen.
Marjaana Rakai (:So, we're to go ahead started.
Tenille Hoogland (:And so over time, is happening is our estrogen is falling, our receptability to estrogen is decreasing, and therefore how our body is working is shifting as well. So that's the physiological hormones are changing.
Paul Warloski (:Hmm.
Marjaana Rakai (:I'm sorry.
Tenille Hoogland (:I think that the other thing that I want to really point out at this time is that we're changing.
the 40s, the 50s, and then into the menopause, there's a real, just like any human, is that we are coming into, depending on if you have families and what's going on in your family life. I have the young kids, other people have, their kids are becoming teenagers depending when you got started. But there's also this sort of embodiment of I'm at my, I'm coming into my own, I have something to say.
Marjaana Rakai (:And then you do what you're going to do with that to not make you lose your That's how you do it. I want you to find a way to do Maybe some side effects are going to be more contagious depending on the cost. I've been this long time. I've this for long time. I've this for I've been this I've been working this I've been working this for time. I've a long time. I've for long time. I've long I've working on this this long long I've been working this
Tenille Hoogland (:I am at the age where I have an expertise, like I've worked really hard to develop an expertise. And so you're pushing on that front of career potentially or in a way of thinking or supporting your family. And I think that there's something really important to acknowledge is that for the woman in perimenopause, it's all there. Life is full.
Paul Warloski (:Hmm
Marjaana Rakai (:Thanks.
Tenille Hoogland (:And there's a lot of stress coming in and to just to say there's this physiological thing, it's happening, it's real, we need to address it. But there's all these other priorities that we have tugging on us that we want to happen. And I don't want to just look at the hormonal change that's occurring because it's as equally changing in other aspects of our life that are impacting
Marjaana Rakai (:So I was just
Tenille Hoogland (:how we adapt to stress, how we want to create stress
Paul Warloski (:.
Marjaana Rakai (:That resonates a lot with me too. Your kids are a little bit younger than mine. I'm perimenopause as my daughter is becoming a teenager. We are kind of like all over the place. We have a really tight bond. It's so funny. She's just like me, but it also creates a lot of...
potential crashes as we go through these changes. It's kind of ironic that we're going through and you know, Paul, your daughter is a teenage tear. I don't know if you noticed that with your wife and daughter, their relationship could be start. Yeah.
Paul Laursen (:Definitely changing.
Marjaana Rakai (:I think that it's so beautiful, Tenille that you addressed that, because we have our plates full and being an athlete and how do we navigate the life and try to aim for balance, which I know is very fleeting as we navigate this period. I wanted to highlight also that perimenopause also can start, as you know, Tanil, in 30s.
Do you want to talk to us about your transition from like pro athlete and how did you get interested in coaching for perimenopausal and menopausal athletes specifically?
Tenille Hoogland (:So I was a triathlete. Well, originally, I was actually a synchronized swimmer. So that's why water was my first love and getting to know and how to be in water. then, fast forward, became a triathlete and just like, why wouldn't I want to be a professional triathlete? know, it just kind of, just one thing float into the other. the actual reality was I was a
Marjaana Rakai (:it.
Paul Warloski (:Thank
Tenille Hoogland (:I was 27 when I decided that I wanted to be the best athlete I could be. And so I had a huge break between my, I had wanted to go to the Olympics as a synchronized swimmer, big break, what led active travel vacations on a bike around the world. And then I went to school, did the masters, did all the things and then, got started with.
Marjaana Rakai (:I'm not even going do that.
He
Tenille Hoogland (:the federal government working for the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games federal secretariat and was inspired. They put videos on before all our meetings of like, don't you want to go to the Olympics? And I'm just like, well, you know, maybe 27 years old, why not? So I'm kind of can do person. thought that I was wise enough at that time to be able to do it right, know, quote unquote there. And well, I
Paul Warloski (:You
Paul Laursen (:Yeah.
Tenille Hoogland (:I relied on a lot on grit and I didn't rely on health. at that time, just, coaching wasn't where it is now where I would have a much, much higher expectation with and utilizing the information that we have. We know things about relative energy deficiency in sport. There is no excuse for coaches to be.
Marjaana Rakai (:So, I'm presentation.
Tenille Hoogland (:pressurizing to lose weight. When coaches say power to weight, understanding really the nuances of what that actually means. We want to emphasize strength. We want to emphasize power. And how do we do that? We get that by ensuring that we're feeling properly. So at that time, when I was in my, you know, going for it, that wasn't really understood.
Marjaana Rakai (:So,
Tenille Hoogland (:understood or wasn't part of the main conversation that coaches can have today if they're involved and following the information. So then what happened is I broke myself down really well and I didn't have a period for five years and I went into hormonal, just shut everything off. And when you shut everything down, really, obviously you can encounter a lot of injuries. so I
Marjaana Rakai (:I'm going be about the impact of the of
Tenille Hoogland (:it was injured and I had a mental like I was flat nothing left I just I was just going through the motions to meet the needs of my sponsors really I was a full I was a sponsored athlete with specialized and some others and that I just made I just made it to races then I had to find health again and I had to find sport again
Marjaana Rakai (:I'm excited to be
Tenille Hoogland (:And I also met the love of my life and we wanted to start a family. So then I came into massive fertility challenges. And that's when I had to learn about hormones for the first time. I like understand, these things really matter in our life. And, you know, injecting myself with fertility treatments and starting to really come into what did this mean? I had my first kid at 40. So I was then
Paul Warloski (:Wow.
Tenille Hoogland (:coming into and aware and being like there's this thing called perimenopause, another opportunity to really go through this time of hormones. And I wanted to know everything about it because I wanted to be in health so I could continue to love my sports and be active because it's just part of me. It's just who I am.
Marjaana Rakai (:I
I think you just nailed what you said there. Like we have the stress and hormonal changes and we love our sport. We want to keep doing it. And then together, like with with your mindset, like you don't have to stop doing what you love to do.
Paul Laursen (:Tenille, I've just been fascinated by your story. Thank you so much for sharing it. I was wondering if you might reflect a little bit. It's very interesting that you lost your period for five years there, right? And I'm sure you reflect on that and knowing now what you do as opposed to then.
Paul Warloski (:.
Paul Laursen (:Do you reflect on why that might have happened? Again, it's so common, But at the end of the day, was not being... You weren't in health and stress wasn't being balanced, right? And we want to go physiology deep. We can talk about the HPA axis and how it interferes with the ovarian axis. And it's kind of actually like a really nice barometer that...
that women have to know when they're not a little bit, you know, towards not being in health.
Tenille Hoogland (:as I gained success, then I sought out, so I sought out more, you know, being in environments that were higher level. And I thought I moved to Austin, Texas, to just train. I left my job, I sold everything I owned. I made massive sacrifices to do that. And as I did that,
it felt like the knife sharpened. And because I was an athlete that I loved work, I love working hard. Hard work is not hard for me. And, you know, I think about it's my greatest strength and greatest weakness. And so what happened is I just wanted to keep sharpening the blade and unfortunately it kept cutting me as well. So what I mean by that is
Paul Warloski (:Hmm.
Marjaana Rakai (:I was the one who said, I just love you. I love you.
Paul Warloski (:Mm -hmm.
Tenille Hoogland (:It was entirely related to the fact that no, I was not bringing on the fuel on board. That I kept on equating that weight with performance. So if I was no longer performing, I had to drop weight. was power to weight, right? So if my power started slipping, then it was my weight that needed to go down. It was just the way we talked. And I don't know if like,
Paul Warloski (:you
Marjaana Rakai (:I'm sure you've heard of It's absolutely, absolutely amazing. I'm a fan of it. I'm fan it. of it. it. I'm fan I'm I'm a fan it. it. a it. I'm fan a it. it. fan it. I'm fan it. I'm
Tenille Hoogland (:either like if that's how you remember those those days those days it sounds like it's like it's not that long ago really but it it it was and people are still really suffering and you know relatively relative energy deficiency in sport is it is just like i was at the female athlete conference in boston i guess they're they're starting it again in may so it was almost two years ago may so
Paul Laursen (:No, it wasn't.
Marjaana Rakai (:So it was how long you talked to them.
Tenille Hoogland (:And that was, everybody was talking about relative energy deficiency in sport. That was the discussion that we are female athletes as well as males for sure, but female athletes are simply not bringing in the fuel on board. That was it. What's interesting about perimenopause, and I'll bring this in, is that it is as much of an issue in perimenopause as it is for those younger, for when you're younger.
And then when I was struggling, the challenges is that, we've been dieting all our life and we haven't been the enforcement of fueling for your training wasn't, I mean, we're older, we're in our 40s and 50s now. So that history is still really strong and that mindset we have to really disengage, like really kind of understand and come up against it and say, where is it that I have something on repeat here?
Marjaana Rakai (:I'm to be asking you to the next speaker.
So,
Paul Warloski (:Hmm.
Tenille Hoogland (:Where is it that these mental ideas are getting in my way? The challenge with perimenopause is this overtraining and perimenopause symptoms can sometimes look really similar. And so then what happens is like, you're in perimenopause. You just need some more estrogen or you can go to do hormone therapy or this is what's going on when really you're just not eating enough.
Paul Warloski (:Hmm.
Tenille Hoogland (:And you can smooth out a lot of the symptoms by ensuring that you're recovering well, that you're eating enough, that you're sleeping well, that you're managing your stress through mindset work. And mindset work can look a lot, you know, have a lot of different ways of what it looks like. For me, mindset is going up and down a black line, for sure. I don't sit very well. that's, you know, finding your way around how do I ground myself being in trees another way. So it...
Paul Warloski (:Thank
Tenille Hoogland (:The thing about like, so you asked about my experience, it's how do we disentangle and also come back to addressing the foundation, coming back to the health, right? Where we started this conversation, what are the foundation of health parameters that we want to continuously stay and check on? Gut health. Like that was one of the first things that started going when I was a professional athlete.
Marjaana Rakai (:I'm
Tenille Hoogland (:It's just horrible. if you find yourself not able to digest any food, there's a problem. Right? now I'm lactose intolerant. Now I can't eat gluten. Now I can't do that. I'm not saying that those things aren't because of other reasons. But one of the things is that that whole that robustness of constantly being without food. Things are going to happen to your gut that aren't going to help you. Gut health has to be at the foundation of your health.
Marjaana Rakai (:Mm.
Paul Warloski (:Yeah, yeah.
Paul Laursen (:Mm -hmm.
Paul Warloski (:how do those nutritional needs change for women in their perimenopause and menopausal times? mean, especially the athletes, what needs to change in their nutrition?
Tenille Hoogland (:been this is another thing I've been thinking about a lot and it's so I can eat I can easily say okay we need to increase our protein okay that's that's nice okay everybody increase your protein but is that really a change like I like when I think of what did I need to do as a high -performance athlete in my 20s and 30s to respond really well to my training yes I need to increase my carbohydrate
particularly to fuel for my training. But that is, okay, so that's one thing, but that doesn't change either in our perimenopause.
Marjaana Rakai (:I'm going to
Tenille Hoogland (:When we think of high performance, and this is where it's really interesting and the data keeps on and research is coming out, even for in your 20s and 30s, we need more protein to be able to adapt to the stress than what we have been traditionally told, especially as endurance athletes. So, you know, if we look at the history, and I haven't done this, but I'd like to now that I think about it, is look at, you know, some of the papers that
the position statement. So you're looking at the Olympic and Paralympic Committee, looking at their position statements for nutrition. Let's look at that 10 years ago. Let's look at them 20 years ago and let's look at them today. The protein levels have continuously increased. They just have. And so when you so the question that you've asked, Paul is saying, what are the nutritional needs for perimenopause? Increase your protein.
Marjaana Rakai (:So,
So the two topics that you discussed on it, you just talked about the three things that think are important. So I think that we will just end it here and then follow up with the next topic.
Tenille Hoogland (:ensure that you have a wide assortment of beautiful carbohydrates that have lots of color.
Dr. Nikki Kay, brilliant woman,
wrote, health hormones and human performance, really speaks to this is like, do we, is it much, like, it different? Is it, what do we need to provide our bodies? And at the end of the day, bringing attention to how we are actually doing things and then what we need to provide in terms of our nutritional foundation, that's what we have
pay attention to.
Marjaana Rakai (:Yeah, I'll jump in here a little bit. When we're younger, we can get away with a lot more.
Tenille Hoogland (:Mm
Marjaana Rakai (:I think as we get older, I've noticed also like last year I made a huge house cleaning effort changing my diet. And I wouldn't say that it needs to be different from a teenage girl or in our twenties, thirties when we're pregnant or after pregnancy.
We should be eating all those colorful carbohydrates, make sure that we have healthy fats, support our immune system, our hormone production, everything, energy, and of course protein. Traditionally, endurance athletes are supposed to not eat as much as like, you know, bodybuilder for protein, but now we know that that's not the case and that we need more protein.
But I don't know that the requirements or the advice we give to athletes would be any different from the young age as we transition into, you know, reproductive years and beyond. Like, I think just focus on natural, healthy food and, you know, avoid the processed food. I think that's the simplest way to put it. And I've noticed
Paul Laursen (:Thank
Marjaana Rakai (:huge, huge improvement in my health because I've changed my diet. And that's why I can recover from these crazy stresses that I put my body through.
Paul Laursen (:Tenille I was wondering about the context of training and your recommendations in the context of a perimenopausal or a menopausal athlete and whatnot that you manage. What is the general guidelines? So saying you've got an athletic plan or any plan, is there added advice that you give to your athletes in terms of
how they should adjust training on a day -to -day basis.
Tenille Hoogland (:So the way I think about this is I think that...
I take from a number of people, the guy like how to learn and understand our bodies. I take from you and the incredible learning on, you know, high intensity interval training or high intensity training. Generally, I take from Dr. Steven Seiler, 80 20, and I really love Steve Magnus. So my my my groundedness, my philosophy of training really comes from those three.
Marjaana Rakai (:Okay.
I'm
Tenille Hoogland (:sources. And then layer on when I speak to those that are really trying to understand hormone in perimenopause and how do we need to train. And by this, I think of what does it mean to stimulate and maintain our muscle mass? What does that actually mean when we also want to perform in an event?
Marjaana Rakai (:So, I'm go ahead the first
Tenille Hoogland (:And I think where we want to come down to for the female athlete is variability matters a lot. And so how is your body responding to a stress? Are we providing the variable stressors? And we can think about this in terms of periodization, or we can think about this in keeping
the body, like what do we want to do? And this is where I'm really excited about our discussion is this idea of fatigue resistance and this idea of how do we balance this desire to maintain this fast -titch fiber, almost a sprint thing, know, this ability to go fast when our estrogen is starting to come down.
Marjaana Rakai (:So, thank
Tenille Hoogland (:and the body just wants to go, no, I really just want to go long. It's like, do I really want to do that sprint? Now, half of that is our brains. Actually, I have no idea if it's half of that. A lot of that, I'll just say, a good portion of it is just like, I'm older, I don't need to go that fast anymore. Like we have this idea of, and truth be told, like our body isn't as, you know, the ligaments and the tendons are, you know, like,
you know, I have interviews and the experts are just like, just think of a dry elastic band and they just don't spring anymore. So this desire to actually do this fast twitch work is rightfully our brains are kind of in this protective mode of going, well, that's maybe not such a great idea. So we have this. So your question is like, what needs to change for or what do we need to think about in perimenopause and beyond? Just like any other athlete, we want to think of, what are
Marjaana Rakai (:I'm
I'm
Tenille Hoogland (:our goals? What are we actually trying to do? And then how do we show up for those goals in the best way possible understanding what might be changing, not just in terms of our muscular load, but also in terms of our brains wanting to, well, I don't really want to go fast anymore if I just, you know, stay steady. So I come to, I know in one of your podcasts, you were talking about
Marjaana Rakai (:and we're going to be do that. So that's my answer. I'm going to to answer any questions that I'm going to answer any questions that have. So thank you for I'm to answer any questions questions that have. I'm you have. So I'm So thank you for for I'm
Paul Warloski (:Thank you.
Tenille Hoogland (:You know, was this there was a question from one of your listeners and it was talking about, you know, do I do the the four by fours or the do I do the 30 30s and how do I do this and and you and you respond and I take from you is this like well You were talking about an athlete that you were training and saying well There was an there was a hill that we had to know how to do It was about four minutes long and they had to do it repeatedly. Well, guess what people?
Get in your brain. Right. And so there's this real good push in this pool of like, well, what is it that what again, coming back to what your earlier question was is, what are your whys? I have athletes and in my programming, it's like, it's for lifestyle. It's for I just want to stay healthy and be able to run after my kids or my grandkids or whatever you're after. I want to be able to.
Paul Laursen (:Yeah.
Marjaana Rakai (:I'm
Paul Warloski (:Thank you.
Tenille Hoogland (:do the hikes or the rides with my friends and not feel like I'm like shot out the back any like at all. I want to be able to hit that hill and you know I just want to be able to do it and not feel like I'm dying at the top and that's lifestyle. There's these other athletes that I have it's just like I want to be I want to be as fast as freaking possible. I'm not done. I don't want to like I don't want to just finish anymore. I've got something to say here.
Marjaana Rakai (:So, you.
Paul Warloski (:Thank you.
Tenille Hoogland (:And those are two different programs and variability has to still come into both. But the specificity for which you were talking about to your athlete of just like, let's make sure we mentally can know that we can do those four minute repeats or stay at that. know, like Dr. Steven Seiler is saying, okay, yeah, we want 80 -20. But if you're preparing to hold a pace, you want to mentally have the confidence that you can hold the pace.
Paul Warloski (:Thank you.
Tenille Hoogland (:So do some pace work, not all the time. It's exhausting, but do some so you can get into the mindset that you can do these things.
Paul Laursen (:You
Mm -hmm. To the fluctuation in the hormones and the very, like I'm imagining again with a wife in perimenopause, there's a mood swings that happen and whatnot on a day -to -day basis like that, notwithstanding the goals are very clear with what you're sort of saying, but on a, is there a day when you would pull back and switch things up based on how you feel or?
Marjaana Rakai (:Okay.
Tenille Hoogland (:Heck yeah.
Paul Laursen (:How do you help your athletes navigate those kinds of questions?
Tenille Hoogland (:Yeah, a really good question. So one of the things that I learned and when I was training in Kenya, so I decided I wasn't an excellent runner. I needed to always be faster in my running. And so where did I go? I went to Kenya because why wouldn't one go to Kenya to run faster? And so there I was in a 10. And what I what I really learned in Kenya was that time is not linear there. It's circular.
Paul Warloski (:Yeah.
Paul Laursen (:Yeah.
Tenille Hoogland (:And this was my take. This is this white woman who goes to Kenya and like just wants to learn everything. And so this is how, what I was able to take from it is that in Kenya, nothing happens when it's scheduled to happen. So you always have to be ready for the next, like it's tomorrow is fine. So in saying this, what I want to instill in my athletes is that
Marjaana Rakai (:So,
Tenille Hoogland (:We don't want to give ourselves a free pass. We want to make sure that are we able to rise to the challenge? consistency is still key in any training experience. But when it comes to perimenopause, there are going to be days that you want to give yourself trees. You want to give yourself... The stress load is up. You're just not there. You're not going to have a good workout. If you're not sure,
Marjaana Rakai (:I'm going to
Paul Warloski (:Hmm.
Tenille Hoogland (:then try five minutes. You guys have heard that. You've said that to your own athletes before. Try five minutes, then go. So understand that your way of being, you're an athlete, your way of being is that you do this because you love it. If you're showing up and you feel empty, you're mad at the world, your hormones are just, you don't know what's going on, but you're aching, you haven't slept, you're...
Marjaana Rakai (:So, yeah, I'm take a few steps, but you know, I'm gonna take a few steps. I'm gonna take a few I'm take few I'm few I'm I'm take a few steps. I'm gonna take few steps. I'm gonna take take take I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm
Paul Warloski (:Thank
Tenille Hoogland (:just you're mad, you don't have any emotional adaptability. basically, Paul, it's all your fault, no matter what you do. Honestly, this is it. I'm just saying, you know what? What's gonna serve me? Because then bringing yourself up in that cortisol spike, you might not get what you're going. You're just kind of going, Like think about cortisol. It's like a, ugh.
Paul Warloski (:Yeah
Paul Laursen (:Nah, you know my life now.
Marjaana Rakai (:Hello.
Tenille Hoogland (:rather than a hit, right? When we hit the hit, you want to feel like it's energizing, that you're coming into it. So that's where you want to, let's not settle. I don't want my athletes to settle.
Paul Laursen (:Hmm hmm. Hmm hmm.
Marjaana Rakai (:my god, that, that you just nailed it and just, I had such an amazing training block up to about five weeks in and then wheels started to go like fall off.
Paul Laursen (:Awesome answer. Awesome.
Paul Warloski (:Yeah
Marjaana Rakai (:had family vacation. was at the, at the, like I had a massive training block. Everything was smooth and it's so easy to be grateful when things are, you know, running smoothly and you're feeling like you're in control. But when little, you know, domino bricks start to fall, then it's just like, and I still had a bunch of work to be done. And one of the last weekends, not
Tenille Hoogland (:Yeah.
Marjaana Rakai (:not too long ago, so this is still fresh in the memory. I had a massive day and after that massive day still had a long run the day after, but I was just so drained and I just pushed it one day. Remember Paul, we just, yeah, just go for a walk, recover, hit it again next day. So there is tomorrow.
Paul Laursen (:I remember.
Marjaana Rakai (:You know, like it doesn't like if the plan is there, yes, but you have to learn to listen to your body and the mindset and what your self -talk is so freaking important. Cause I remember I was asking on the, the Wednesday heat session, WhatsApp group, Paul W you remember I was like, what's your best ways to motivate yourself to do another six hour trainer, right? Any tips appreciated. Cause I
Paul Laursen (:Yeah.
Marjaana Rakai (:motivation was kind of, you know, on the downward slope. And at that moment, I should have, you know, like, respected that and pulled back a little bit. But when you have the drive and you have the date, well, champions is coming, you want to do well. It is so hard to pull that, you know, the handbrake a little bit. And then shortly after I got, you know, head cold. But it's just like, it's
Tenille Hoogland (:Yeah, which slowed you down. Like your body's so freaking smart.
Marjaana Rakai (:It will sit your ass down! It will!
Tenille Hoogland (:Yeah.
you're in and coming into perimenopause or, you know, and you're in the beyond, is learning how to listen to your body and not make assumptions, learning how to listen to your body and know that the body you have today may be different than the body that you had yesterday, because it's not straight.
Marjaana Rakai (:Yes.
Yeah.
Tenille Hoogland (:if you think, finally, I got these hot flashes, like, totally under control, guess what? They might come back. And that's what I'm doing, like with some of my athletes, it's just like, man, they come back every six months, are they? And then the evaluation is like, okay, well, what's happening at that time? Like, is there something else in life that is occurring that is bringing that stress load up just so much that you weren't to the level which
Marjaana Rakai (:Something is.
I
Tenille Hoogland (:your body is like, I really want that estrogen or I want that progesterone and I can't deal with it right now. Let's hear it. Let's have some hot flashes. You know, like that's the way our body's going to respond. So then we think again, coming back to health is like, what can I do
Paul Laursen (:Mm
Tenille Hoogland (:manage my stress?
Marjaana Rakai (:Mm
It might take a little bit longer to recover from a certain session if you have this bread and butter session that you've done for years. It might actually take a little bit longer to recover from and that's where the listening becomes so important and communication with your coach or if you have a coach. Just move things around. Go for a swim, go for a walk, do something, solve.
Tenille Hoogland (:yeah.
Marjaana Rakai (:soul food, like give yourself a break.
Paul Laursen (:Well, this was just an amazing conversation, Taneel. Can't thank you enough. So as I sort of reflecting and whatnot on the conversation, we spoke about the female physiology and the inevitability of reaching that age, late 30s even, 40, 50s. We go through this perimenopause, menopausal.
Paul Warloski (:guess.
Marjaana Rakai (:Okay.
Paul Laursen (:time where there's clear hormonal changes. We're seeing changes in the fluctuations of estrogen and progesterone. And they cause, you know, added havoc on the mind of an already stressed out woman, right, in various different times, right? So it's like a confounder in all of this. So, and there's other issues that are along the way. We spoke a lot about
Marjaana Rakai (:Okay.
Paul Laursen (:you know, with whatever question you might have in this area, be very clear for yourself on your why and let that drive your, you know, your decisions. We spoke about the classic 80 -20 balance in terms of your aerobic, anaerobic kind of amounts that you want to have in your training. We spoke about being able to call an audible on a given day if things aren't right and how, you know, there's always tomorrow.
Paul Warloski (:you
Paul Laursen (:And just at the end here, we spoke about nutrition being, you don't ever starve yourself. Fuel yourselves as they need to be fueled and listen to the little man or woman in your head that's telling you to eat because it's probably right. So listen to that. And then finally, the importance of being strong, all of us, and having a bit of strength and conditioning into the system.
Tenille Hoogland (:think the only thing I would add is that I want every, I mean, every human to know, but particularly the female athlete in perimenopause and in menopause is that your body is your ally. It is so phenomenal and it is always working for you. So it's whether we are trying to listen and support our body and that's our job. So in
Marjaana Rakai (:I'm
Tenille Hoogland (:That's the connecting piece that I think that is hard, but it can be so rewarding. And to really hone in on that, like your body is strong, your body is capable. And what we get to do is listen and to support and to...
what is in my head is kick ass. Like ass.
Paul Laursen (:Yeah.
Tenille Hoogland (:Because that at the end of the day, that's how we, when we feel strong, we can take on, on the things that we love and we're passionate about. that, that's the only thing I would add.
Marjaana Rakai (:I'm take a minutes talk the work we've So, going by
Tenille Hoogland (:Perfect.
Paul Warloski (:All right, Tenille, thank you so much. That was an amazing conversation. I can't tell you how much I appreciate, how much I've learned as well. That is all for this week. Join us next week on the Athletes Compass podcast. Ask your training questions in the comments or on our social media. And if you enjoyed this episode, we'd appreciate it if you would give us a five -star review for, mean, Tenille Hoagland, for goodness sake. mean, that deserves five stars.
Paul Laursen (:Yeah.
Paul Warloski (:For more information or how to schedule a consultation with Paul, Marjaana or myself, check the links in the show notes for Tenille Hoogland, Marjaana Rakai and Dr. Paul Laursen am Paul Warloski and this has been the Athletes Compass podcast. Thanks for listening.
