Could Estrogen Imbalances Be Holding Back Your Performance?

You train hard, eat clean, and stay disciplined—but something still feels off. Energy crashes, poor recovery, stubborn fatigue. The missing link? It might be your hormones….When estrogen is out of balance, it doesn’t just affect your mood or cycle—it can seriously impact your ability to train, recover, and perform at your best.

A Healthy Athlete Is a Better Athlete

Anything that improves general health will also enhance athletic performance. Yet, for some reason, these goals often get separated. In reality, they are one and the same, for instance:

• Poor sleep impairs both general health and your ability to recover from training (duh).

• Blood sugar instability not only affects your overall health but also leaves you dependent on sugar for energy during training or competition.

• Poor gut health impairs micronutrient absorption and therefore energy production.

• Liver sluggishness from toxins and processed food impairs your ability to manage oxidative stress and inflammation that you accumulate during training.
  
  

We could go on, but you get the point: general health and athletic performance go hand in hand.

Estrogen and Athletic Performance

Stress and Cortisol
When progesterone is low, estrogen—and the symptoms of estrogen dominance—can worsen. How do you protect your progesterone levels? By managing stress and keeping cortisol levels in check, since cortisol uses the same raw materials needed to produce progesterone.

High cortisol can result from endurance training, long workouts, strict carbohydrate restriction, or general life stress.

Connection: Cortisol reduces progesterone and intensifies estrogen dominance which impairs performance.

Toxins and Inflammation
Inflammation is a necessary part of training—it signals your body to adapt, grow stronger, and become more resilient. But when inflammation becomes chronic, you feel fatigued during workouts and your risk of injury increases.

Connection: Toxins that stimulate excess estrogen also increase inflammation, compounding the issue.

Sluggish Liver
When your liver becomes overwhelmed by toxins, inflammation, or excess hormones like estrogen, it slows everything down.

Connection: Since the liver supports energy availability and muscle protein synthesis, any compromise in liver function will impair athletic performance.

As you can see, a healthy athlete is a better athlete. If you’re an athlete struggling with estrogen dominance or estrogen dysregulation, check out atplab’s Estro Control.