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Fitness

How Oral Contraceptives Affect Endurance Performance

A new study looks at the effect of long-term oral contraceptive use on endurance performance in active women. Is the pill interfering with your oxygen uptake ability? Well, yes, science says it is.

Joshua Wortman

Written by Joshua Wortman Last updated on Oct 20, 2021

Odds are if you are an adult female, then you have taken an oral contraceptive at some point in your life. Many women, athletes included, take oral contraceptives for long periods of time. Could this be affecting athletic performance? A recent study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research examined the effect of long-term oral contraceptive use on endurance performance in active women.

There were 16 women who participated in the study: 8 women who had used oral contraceptives for an average of 32 months were placed into one group, and the other group consisted of 8 women who were normally menstruating women not using oral contraceptives. Each participant had blood tests performed, and then performed an incremental exercise to exhaustion to find peak VO2 and estimate anaerobic threshold. This test took into account cyclic fluctuations in blood hormone concentrations and took place on the second day of menstruation for women in the group who were not using oral contraceptives, and on the second day after pill cessation in the oral contraceptive group.2

The women in the study also completed a continuous submaximal cycling test that covered three work stages: two 6-minute work stages below anaerobic threshold and one above anaerobic threshold performed to exhaustion. Throughout the tests, pulmonary gas exchange, heart rate, blood pressure, blood lactate concentration, and ratings of perceived exhaustion were measured, and cycling economy was also calculated.3

The results from the study showed similar physical characteristics between both groups. However, peak oxygen uptake and oxygen uptake at the anaerobic threshold were significantly different between the groups. The group not using oral contraceptives was considerably better than the oral contraceptive group. Previous studies have reported significant reductions in peak VO2 after 4-6 months of oral contraceptive use, and this study was consistent with those findings. VO2 was 22% lower in the group using oral contraceptives. Expired minute ventilation, heart rate, blood pressure, and cycling economy for all constant-load work stages were not much different between the groups, and time to exhaustion for severe-intensity cycling was similar as well.4

So what does all of this really mean? The results of this study suggest that long-term oral contraceptive use (longer than 12 months) negatively affects peak VO2 and VO2 at the anaerobic threshold, but despite this reduction, long-term oral contraceptive use does not affect all measures of endurance. Consequently, there is no need for female athletes to be concerned about the effect of long-term oral contraceptive use on endurance performance.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

Joshua Wortman

About Joshua Wortman

Joshua began lifting in high school, but really doesn’t consider his effective training to have begun until the last few years. Joshua was always very strong for his bodyweight, but he didn’t just want to be strong, he wanted to look strong. At 140 pounds, no matter how strong he was for his age and weight, the size wasn’t there.

During his last year of college, Joshua began research on bodybuilding, and since his graduation, he has taken his bodybuilding to a whole new level. Josh experienced a minor setback in 2009 when he experienced an L5-L6 disc herniation while doing deadlifts. Consequently, his lower body training was very limited for almost a year. Thankfully, he has self-rehabbed his back to pretty much full strength.

Since he graduated from NC State University with his Bachelor’s in Civil Engineering, Joshua has taken his bodybuilding to a whole new level. His knowledge has increased ten fold since when he began, and both his knowledge anpersonal progress have also bred success in the fact he started up Get Right Get Tight Fitness.

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