Sydney personal trainer working to normalise period fitness

There is no one-size-fits all when it comes to exercise and one Sydney personal trainer is determined to normalise one big issue.

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There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to exercise and fitness, but those who menstruate are often on the back foot.

Jess Neill, who goes by The Period PT on social media, helps people reach their fitness goals by educating them on how different times of their menstrual cycle can impact them.

Jess took an interest in hormonal changes and the impact on weight loss after having her first child.

“I was only 19 when I had my daughter. I was one of those girls who was always naturally lean,” she told news.com.au.

“I never had to worry about what I was eating or exercising but once I got pregnant, and hormones changed, I put on 30kg with that pregnancy, and then had a lot of trouble losing it afterwards.”

Jess is on a mission. Picture: Instagram/@jnfit_au

By the time Jess had her second child at age 24, she was better educated about her body and found the entire pregnancy easier.

She became a personal trainer in 2014 – mostly working with women – and started to experiment with workouts.

“I just started to play around with manipulating their training cycles and training programs, like the amount of volume we were doing,” she said.

“I found that allowing that week before the period and during the period to sort of back off from the training a little bit, when their bodies weren’t feeling great, gave them time to recover a lot better.”

She said this resulted in her clients progressing faster.

Jess said there were three main hormones that impacted energy, muscle growth and recovery — oestrogen, progesterone and testosterone.

Jess Neill works with people to meet fitness goals around their period. Picture: Instagram/@jnfit_au

She said in the first half of the menstrual cycle oestrogen and testosterone are on the rise, helping build muscle, but when they drop and progesterone rises, in order to prepare for an embryo, it encourages the body to slow down.

Jess said high intensity workouts in the first half of the month should be switched to pilates and yoga later in the month. This helps the body adapt while still reaching goals.

Roxy Lehmann, who founded Dress for a Night, is one of Jess’ clients, and said the pair connected at the right time.

Roxy wanted to build muscle, and initially thought a male trainer would be best to help her.

“But I would be really bad in the weeks leading up to having a period. I’d go to the gym, and was like, ‘Oh, am I just not feeling that?’,” she told news.com.au.

She began her work after her own journey. Picture: Instagram/@jnfit_au

“And the male trainer would say ‘last week you lifted X amount, this week we should be lifting more. We’ll do something else’. Then I’d leave that session feeling really bad about what I’ve achieved.”

Roxy said it wasn’t until working like crazy for her business, having a miscarriage and having a doctor point out her hormones were “all over the place” that she wanted to work with a female trainer.

That’s when she found Jess – and she said, despite having a knee injury, she feels healthier than she has ever felt in her life.

Roxy, 36, said people need to learn how their bodies work in order to get help so they can live fulfilling lives.

“Wouldn’t it be amazing if women learned about hormones in school ... so we didn’t have to wait for our bodies to go through something we couldn’t cope with before we realised (it was related to hormones),” she said.

But, Jess makes it clear that her business – which is run through her app, face-to-face or online – isn’t just for cisgender women.

On her TikTok, she uses inclusive language such as “people with periods” to include transgender men and non-binary people.

However, she gets a lot of negative comments from people on social media about her wording choice.

“Most people are in full support of me using more inclusive language,” she said. “And, you know, hopefully we can get to a place where inclusive language is not something that people get upset about.”