Menstrual cycle and archery: Akyol 2020 study

The study used a questionnaire to collect what 142 female archers at the 2019 Turkish championship reported about their menstrual cycle and how they linked it to shooting. Mean age was 25.21 years and the first period had come at 13.27 years on average. Of the archers, 47.2% reported a cycle of 21 to 30 days, 38% under 20 days and 14.8% between 31 and 90; 57.7% reported bleeding lasting 2 to 5 days and 42.3% six days or more. In general 53.5% described their cycle as regular, 21.8% as sometimes regular and 24.6% as irregular; when asked about competition periods, "regular" answers fell to 27.5% and "sometimes regular" rose to 50%. Among archers with a body mass index above 25, 41.2% reported long cycles of 31 to 90 days, against 12% and 9.1% in the other two bands (p = 0.006).

On performance the answers are perceptions. As their best period, 52.1% named the days before menstruation, 42.3% the days after and 5.6% the days of the period itself, with a borderline difference between age bands (p = 0.048): the youngest mostly chose the days after, the other two groups the days before. For the days of menstruation, 25.4% reported an always negative effect on training and competition performance and 54.9% a sometimes negative one. Asked directly whether their cycle affected their shooting, 43% said yes, 32.4% no and 24.6% were unsure. The author concludes that it cannot be said with certainty that menstruation harmed performance.

The questionnaire, already used in two earlier studies, asked about age at first period, cycle and bleeding length, regularity in general and during competition periods, the time of the month when the archer felt best and worst, and the perceived effect on performance before and during menstruation. Height and weight were also recorded, giving body mass index; the paper does not say whether they were measured or self-reported. Taking part was voluntary for the athletes competing.

The archers were split into three age bands (15 to 18, 19 to 25, over 26) and three body mass index bands, and the answers were compared with chi-square tests; height, weight and age at first period with analysis of variance. There is no measure of shooting at all: no scores, no arrows, no comparison between cycle phases within the same athlete.

Everything about performance is the athletes' recollection and impression, gathered at a single point in time: the study does not measure shooting and follows no one over time. Information that matters a great deal here is missing, such as hormonal contraceptive use, discipline (recurve or compound) and level. Cycle length is reported from memory, and the 38% who reported under 20 days is an unusually high share, which suggests the question was understood in different ways.

The numbers are not always consistent. The age bands hold 30, 51 and 61 athletes in some tables and 39, 54 and 49 in others. The text reports a difference in bleeding length between age bands, but the value given is p = 0.09. For the time when archers felt worst, the text names the days of menstruation at 59.9%, whereas in the table that figure sits in the column for the days before. The comparison between regularity in general and during competition periods is not tested, and the link with competition stress is the author's hypothesis, which the study does not examine.

The study cannot say whether or how much the menstrual cycle changes shooting, because shooting was not measured. What it does describe is how the archers experience it: nearly eight in ten reported at least a sometimes negative effect during menstruation, yet only 43% said their cycle affected their shooting, and a quarter could not say. Almost none named the days of their period as the time when they performed best.

For coaches and archers this is information about perception, useful for knowing that the subject exists and is experienced very differently from one athlete to the next, not a basis for planning training or competition. The greater irregularity reported during competition periods is likewise an impression gathered through a single question, with no records kept over time.