Jönsson The Hague: "Took help to keep track of the time"

The majority of female skiers and cross-country skiers in Norway said in a study, published earlier this week, that they perform worse during menstruation.

In the study, which is based on 140 elite athletes, 47 percent responded that they experience worse physical shape during the menstrual period, a third of which thinks performance is negatively affected.

In the Winter Studio, they delved into the issue on Saturday. There, Professor Angelica Lindén Hirschberg and former cross-country skier Anna Jönsson The Hague had been invited.

- I didn't have such big problems myself. But just jumping in a white race suit on the days you had men did not make you feel like a powerwomen that day, says Jönsson Haag.

She goes on to say that there was a bit of a culture of silence around the people.

- I felt we talked very little about it. The people you lived with could not avoid talking about it, but it would have been nice to have been able to talk to their coach.

How did you think about menstruation and the regulation around it if it was vanished eg. a championship?

- I used contraceptives to get menstruation. I had such incredible irregularities. Then I got a little check on when it would come and not. I came to that stage at the end of my career when I wanted to keep track of my period and that my body would work. I got organized when I started eating better. I made sure to get enough of the nutrients I needed to avoid nutritional deficiencies. I took help because I had no control myself.

Lindén Hirschberg does not quite buy what the Norwegian study has concluded.

- It would be crazy if everyone would exercise after their menstrual cycle. Not everyone is affected. It must be individualized. It is very important that we do more studies to gain knowledge, but we must not generalize. It's so much more complex.

However, she believes that it is most common in endurance and aesthetic sports that you get a disturbed and irregular mens cycle.

- The most common reason we know today is energy shortages, that you do not compensate for the energy expenditure you have in getting enough energy. In the short term, it has no major negative effects, but in the long term we know that it can increase the scope for various types of injuries such as stress fractures.