The founders of Femmi have created an app offering personalised running programs for women based on their menstrual cycles. Photo / Matty Harrington
The founders of Femmi have created an app offering personalised running programs for women based on their menstrual cycles. Photo / Matty Harrington
When it comes to running, there are countless apps you can use to track your progress, but most of them don’t take your menstrual cycle into account. Now elite runner and Femmi co-founder Lydia O’Donnell has created an app designed for female runners to prove how you can use your period to your advantage. Here she tells the Herald how taking control of your cycle can make you a more confident runner - and debunks a few myths you’ve probably heard.
When you’re in the throes of painful period cramps, the last thing you feel like is lacing up your running shoes and heading out for a jog around the block.
But for female athletes, it’s part of their daily routine. O’Donnell recalls being trained by male coaches who had no idea how the menstrual cycle works and how it affects your body — and it took a toll on her performance and her overall health.
“They encouraged me to lose weight, telling me I’d be a better athlete,” she says.
Fast-forward a few years, and she’s launched an app for her coaching platform Femmi, along with friend and fellow athlete Esther Keown. It’s designed to help women exercise in a way that helps them get the most out of their cycle, with the pair out to prove that your period doesn’t have to hold you back — it might actually be your secret weapon.
As a young athlete, O’Donnell trained with “multiple male coaches who just had no idea about female physiology”.
“Everything we got taught was very much based on male physiology,” she tells the NZ Herald. “[They] treated me like one of the boys, encouraged me to lose weight ... I had male coaches grabbing my stomach, telling me if I lost that, I’d be a better athlete.”
Unsurprisingly, that led her down an “unhealthy” path, where she struggled with body image, disordered eating and over-training. She developed Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (RED-S) as a result and lost her period — something she’d been encouraged to believe was a good thing. It was then that “everything just clicked” and she realised that she needed to learn more about her own cycle and hormone fluctuations.
“It wasn’t until we learned about our bodies that we actually found ourselves enjoying the sport a lot better and reaching the performances that we knew we could,” O’Donnell says of herself and Keown, who faced similar struggles as a young athlete.
Now running coaches themselves, the pair want to share what they’ve learnt with other women to prevent them from ending up in the same place.
“I just have a huge passion for keeping young girls and women in sport because we know what it can do for their confidence. Movement and exercise is one of the most incredible tools and one of the most accessible tools we have to build confidence in ourselves,” she says.
How does the Femmi app work?
Femmi began as a one-on-one coaching service, using several different platforms to manually track cycles and create programmes catered to each individual. But the founders quickly realised there was a need for a female-focused exercise app among the hundreds available.
“We know that very little technology in sport and exercise has actually been built by women and been built for women,” O’Donnell notes.
In early 2021, the pair started developing ideas for an app and a “pretty crazy” 18-month journey followed. Work on building the app itself started at the end of 2022, and it’s now finally launched.
O’Donnell describes the app as a “menstrual cycle tracking and training tool”, where you can input information about your own cycle and create a “running profile”. Whether you consider yourself a runner or not, and whether you want to build endurance, train for a marathon or simply get a bit more active, you’ll get a personalised programme to follow.
“We want to be able to inspire those who are already in love with the sport, but also those who have the potential to fall in love and get there as well.”
While the app was initially built for women with natural or “regular” menstrual cycles, O’Donnell acknowledges that these can vary and plans to continue building the app to serve all kinds of cycles — whether you’re on contraception or at a different hormonal phase of life.
“A lot of women, and a lot of people, have not been educated enough in terms of how they can become better runners and just feel better and enjoy the sport. There’s definitely this idea that to get better at running, you just need to go out and run as fast as you possibly can all the time,” she says.
But when it comes to running, a routine that’s sustainable and consistent is key.
“So the only way that you can do that is making sure you are balancing your hard days with your easy days and focusing on recovery just as much as the actual training,” she says, adding that Femmi’s programmes aim to help women avoid overdoing it or getting injured or burnt out.
“It’s all about just taking time and being super patient with your body.”
And while you’ve probably heard that running isn’t great for your joints, O’Donnell says that it can “actually be so beneficial for your bones and for your joints over time”.
“But it is just [about] being super smart in how you approach your training.”
A screenshot of the Femmi app shows how it offers guidance for your exercise routine depending on where you're at in your menstrual cycle. Photo / Femmi
Taking charge of your menstrual cycle
O’Donnell hopes the app can inspire women to take charge of their cycle instead of letting it hold them back.
“Everybody experiences their menstrual cycle and the changes of their hormones quite differently,” she explains.
“So we give you insights into why you might be feeling particular ways throughout the cycle. We give you guidance on nutrition that you can take on depending on where you’re at in your cycle, things that we think will benefit you to make sure that you’re in the best possible state to be able to train.”
O’Donnell notes that Femmi’s approach isn’t to be confused with cycle syncing — the practice of tailoring your diet, exercise or routine to the four phases of the menstrual cycle. It’s popular with fitness influencers, but there’s little scientific research to prove it’s actually beneficial for you. It also doesn’t recognise those who are on hormonal birth control, pregnant, going through menopause or don’t have a “regular” cycle.
Instead, keeping track of your own individual cycle can remind you that how you’re feeling is normal, even if it’s different from those around you.
“Before I started tracking my cycle and training in line with my cycle, I would try to go and execute running sessions at the wrong time of my cycle, not be able to hit the intensities, and walk away from the session feeling disheartened,” O’Donnell recalls.
“I lost confidence and felt that I needed to either train harder or lose weight. And those two things — restricting my diet and overtraining — are the two things I didn’t need at that time of my cycle.”
Now, she hopes to help give other women the confidence that comes with understanding their bodies.
“It just allows you to feel more in control, and then actually make the right decisions for your health and wellness needs.”
