What Should You Track in Perimenopause?

Sims explains that when you start tracking HRV and resting heart rate with notes, you create a feedback loop. Although more data is better initially, the biggest insight comes from comparing across weeks. She emphasizes that this is an objective method to validate subjective feel—when you see your HRV dip after specific stressors, you can safely skip a hard session without guilt. Over 3-4 months, you'll know your personal patterns. This is a direct alternative to blood hormone monitoring, which she dismisses as too variable in perimenopause.

Sims tells women to become intuitive, noting that when you wake up with a low physical rating but high mental drive, a longer warm-up might reveal that you can do the hard session. If the physical score doesn’t budge or mental drops, it’s a sign to manipulate the workout. This protocol is her practical solution to the perimenopausal variability, blending subjective self-assessment with a physical trial. It sidesteps the futility of hormone tracking and the rigidity of fixed phase-based plans.

Sims mentions that perimenopause can bring a week of feeling 'really flat and awful.' If that drags out, she suggests trying a short burst of intensity to see if it brings the body back online. The idea is that the stress response from high-intensity exercise can temporarily elevate cortisol and adrenaline, potentially breaking a low-energy cycle. However, she then immediately ties this to the broader permission to rest: if it doesn’t work, the body is sending a clear signal to reduce load.

Sims dismantles this by describing the pulsatile nature of progesterone after ovulation. If you measure on day 21 as often recommended, a single value could be eight times different 90 minutes later. This makes single-point blood tests or daily hormone tracking for training decisions unreliable. She pivots to accessible metrics like HRV and resting heart rate, noting that for perimenopausal women HRV can change almost weekly due to high stress. The key is to collect weeks of data with handwritten notes about stressors (illness, travel, poor sleep). Then you can spot patterns: for example, a bad night’s sleep consistently drops your HRV and recovery score to 20, so you know not to plan a hard session the next day. Over three to four months, trends become robust. This shifts the focus from chasing hormone numbers to building a personalized, context-rich data set of recovery markers.

Sims acknowledges that with a regular menstrual cycle you can sometimes pick out days when you feel worse, but in perimenopause the variability is so extreme that phase-based manipulation becomes impractical. She pulls women back from over-relying on data and instead teaches them to become intuitive: rate how they feel mentally and physically upon waking. If the physical score is low, a longer warm-up, coffee, and mobilization might bring it up to a 6 or 7, and then a hard session is fine. If it doesn’t rise, or mental state stays low, modify the session. Consistency means showing up, but the 'what' of the session can flex. The deeper message is that the 'just push through' mentality, ingrained from competitive sports and high-achievement culture, is especially harmful for perimenopausal women carrying high stress loads.

Sims notes that perimenopause can bring a week of feeling flat and awful. If this state starts to extend, she suggests doing a couple of high-intensity sessions just to 'wake everything up' and gauge response, with a longer warm-up. But ultimately, the most important message is giving oneself permission to back off. She frames it as a temporary blip, not a derailment. When you've been conditioned to hit every metric—pool, run, ride—it’s a mental shift to pick just one thing to focus on and accept that you can't be the best at everything all the time. Rest days become part of long-term consistency.