the pill and cycling performance

[ride mama ride]

Just curious about anecdotal feedback on whether other women cyclists have noticed increased or decreased performance on the bike while taking the birth control pill. I just had my second--and LAST--child, and am considering whether to take it or not. I am a competitive cyclist and am specifically wondering about weight gain and heart rate. Any info you'd like to share would be appreciated!

[Aquila]

I went on the pill more for period control than anything else, and I LOVE not getting cramps and losing about 10% of my life to feeling semi-crappy. If there would be any increase in my performance, it would easily come from feeling good more and wanting to go out and do stuff pretty much all the time. Depending on your crampiness, pms, etc, you may find the pill great or no big difference.

I didn't gain weight on it, but there are lots of different formulations, and your experience might be different.

My heart rate is 66 at rest (the blood donation nurse takes it), for what that's worth (I'm 47 and overweight, but in decent shape biking). I don't know if it's known to have effects on heart rate or blood pressure, but if so, it hasn't caused me any problems in either area.

For me, feeling good and the freedom of not having to deal with periods while traveling and living abroad has made it a good choice.

[alpinerabbit]

I once read it is performance enhancing - the only drug that is and that they can't put on the doping list, for ethical/discrimination reasons.

Basically it keeps you low-level pregnant, doesn't it? in certain countries where the gov't placed lots of emphasis on olympic medals, they would get the athletes pregnant shortly before important events, so they would be in the first weeks, only to have an abortion later. Sad but performance enhancing.

[OakLeaf]

According to this abstract, the IOC originally banned norethindrone NOT because it is performance enhancing in itself, but because some drug testing labs couldn't distinguish it from nandrolone, an anabolic steroid.

Interestingly, the Snopes entry on abortion doping suggests that it's the abortion, not the initial pregnancy, that is supposed to be performance enhancing. (Now, I consider Snopes only marginally more reliable than the rumors it's supposed to debunk, but FWIW, she lists that one as "indeterminate.")

I've never taken it myself, so can't add anything personal.

[ny biker]

It caused me to retain water, which made my legs feel heavy and swollen and left me constantly worried about whether I would be able to prevent dehydration (or hyponatremia) during rides. It also made me gain weight, caused frequent migraines and generally turned me into an angry *****. And this was a low-level dose that I took to fix a problem with too-frequent periods. After 4 months I stopped taking it and it was several months after that before the migraines subsided.

Your mileage may vary...

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

I've never had any problems, weight gain, or side effects at all from being on the pill years at a time.

[redrhodie]

I've been on it for years, and I remember the first 6 months being kind of rough (mostly due to moodiness), but it got much better. Lighter, painless periods are a plus, so is clear skin and the ability to anticipate the start of my period within a few hours.

Since I didn't start riding until I'd already been accustomed to it, I can't give info about how it will effect your ride. It often takes some getting used to, but once you adjust, it's definitely got its perks.

[Becky]

I've never noticed much of an effect on my cycling when I'm on the right pill. It took me 3 tries to find one that didn't make me insanely naseous or have a bunch of sexual side effects.

If you decide to start the pill, keep a close tab on any side effects that you're having. This will help a good doc figure out what the right pill is for you. It's definitely a trial and error process!

[aicabsolut]

No impact on performance other than it makes me more comfortable at that time of the month, and it helps me control hormonal headaches. The headaches, especially migraines, certainly have a negative impact on any physical activity. I take it more for those and other benefits than I do for birth control, so all in all, they make my quality of life a bit better, and that is better for my cycling.

[han-grrl]

I found i gained weight with the pill. i went off of it after my surgery and just never went back on. i noticed menstrual cramps now (bleh) but i am better able to control my weight. i did find i PMSed something awful on the last 3 pills though

[NoNo]

I haven't noticed any negative effects on my riding, but my quality of life is much improved. No weight gain, no more cramping which used to completely disrupt my life, much lighter periods, and far less moody. I'm much more comfortable during that time now, so I can only imagine it helps me.

[Andrea]

You are going to get a LOT of varying answers- mainly because there are a LOT of different hormone combinations in the pills on the market today.

My personal experience:
Was on Lo-ovral. Was getting some "breakthrough bleeding" (I've got a relatively short cycle when not on the pill), so the doc put me on a tri-phasal pill. Within two weeks, I was feeling more emotional than usual, and I was taking a hit in the performance dept., which made me more emotional (it was definitely not normal for me to get dropped on the "B" ride, then feel like crying about it)
So, I do some research. Turns out, some pills- usually the ones that are labeled as reducing breakouts, will reduce the amount of circulating testosterone in the blood (yes, women have very small amounts). The research I found was about how certain formulations can reduce sex-drive because of their effect on testosterone.
I could not find ANY research that related that same phenomena to athletic performance. But, with my background in exercise physiology, I can tell you that you NEVER want to reduce testosterone if you're an athlete. There is a lot of research that looks at the pill and performance, but research of that nature has so many confounding factors (type of pill, individual variance in response to the pill, how performance was measured, time of cycle that performance was measured, training status of participants... the list goes on!) that there are no hard, conclusive results.

So, I switched back to Lo-ovral. When I switched, I almost immediately felt like I was back to normal. Now, I take it continuously, and, after several months, rarely have any breakthrough bleeding.