Happy New Year and welcome to the first show of 2019! To celebrate the new year I am going to be joined by my husband, Craig Zielinski or ‘Z’, who is here to talk to us about women's strength training and hormones. Today we are recapping Craig’s discussion about women's strength and hormones at the recent Ancestral Health Society of New Zeland’s conference, as it is an incredibly important issue for so many women today. About Craig Zielinski We are diving into everything surrounding female strength training and understanding your basic menstrual cycle and how it affects how you may feel in the gym. Craig is bringing a rare male perspective into creating a training regime around your menstrual cycle and intuitive strength training for women. While you may not be able to go hard at the gym all month, Craig’s training program is designed to focus your training around those times of the month where you can go hard, and letting you rest when your body needs it most. Craig focuses around helping his clients feeling the best they can throughout the entire 28-day cycle. Get ready for a description of the 5 cycle training regime Craig has designed around the menstrual cycle, an explanation of the Prilepin chart, and why the lunar phases may be the key to better understanding the menstrual cycle, plus much more. If you are sick of feeling ignored or basing your training expectations of a spreadsheet instead of real life, Craig has a new and better way to adapt your training to be more intuitive to the fluctuations of our bodies. It is time to create a positive atmosphere around strength training by asking questions, thinking analytically and tapping into what your body is telling you. How has your menstrual cycle affected your workout regime? Let us know in the comments on the episode page! On Today's Episode Bringing in a male perspective on intuitive female strength training Dismantling the societal taboo around periods How to develop a training regime around your menstrual cycle Figuring out what volumes you should be lifting at different points during your cycle Why the lunar cycle can potentially be used as a heuristic for the menstrual cycle Quotes “Its incredibly important that women understand their own cycle, and it is incredibly important that coaches, male and female, but primarily from my perspective male, understand the female cycle” (14:10) “I’ve just objectively talked about a training cycle, but also about when a woman has their menstrual cycle, this is a good way of training around it. It's that straightforward.” (17:43) “The sort of primary underpinning construct of my entire talk was the lunar cycle and how the lunar cycle can potentially be used as a heuristic for the menstrual cycle” (23:30) “When you start getting used to a more intuitive way of programming, you carry around less weight on your shoulders of what you are supposed to be able to do (36:22) Resources Mentioned In This Show  HTK 100: Steph + Z HTK 077: Dr. Stacy Sims Working Out with your Menstrual Cycle by Steph Gaudreau Strong.af Magic: The Gathering Pie Fights Check out the full show notes here! Follow Steph on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube | Pinterest I'd really love it if you would take 1 min and leave us a rating and review on iTunes!