A Rugby World Cup winner is tackling taboos about periods and how they can help you succeed in sport.

Medway-born Rachael Burford says with the right understanding of menstrual cycles, they can be a “superpower” for female athletes.

After a 13-year international career, the 37-year-old retired last spring and has been taking the time to better understand how her period could affect her performance since.

Rachael said: “Early on in my career the way to deal with it, for me at least, was to ignore it and almost pretend it did not exist, which I know now is not the right way.

“I remember distinctly, we were going into the World Cup, and I started my period and I just didn't want to deal with it, so I decided to take the contraceptive pill as a method to just put it aside, as opposed to actually understanding my menstrual cycle in greater detail.

“Back then, there wasn't any discussion. We didn't talk about our periods, we didn't talk about the symptoms, we didn't talk about how training or performance might look like when you were feeling that way.”

She says the key to managing periods is understanding what’s happening during each phase of the menstruation cycle, rather than just the three to five days of bleeding.

As Rachael does, this can be achieved by a tracking app which can break down phases and likely physiological effects.

She said: “There are certain phases in your menstrual cycle where you should be going after personal bests, and you should be pushing yourself in the fitness area.

“We should be harnessing how we can use it as a positive, not just seeing it as something that just arrives every month and causes problems – it’s so important to shift that mentality.”

Monitoring menstrual cycles in elite sports is a relatively new practice, but it is increasingly associated with on-field success.

The Lionesses used this method during the women’s Euros in 2022, which they later went on to win.

Rachael said: “With the right knowledge, women can understand and harness the incredible things happening in their bodies, turning them into a superpower.

“If you’re going to tackle your menstrual cycle, it’s all about making small changes, not big adjustments that are not management or sustainable.”

The former England rugby player says this could be adaptations around nutrition, rest and recovery, or adding supplements like iron to manage low energy levels and fatigue.

She said: "For high-performance athletes, training is weekly, and competitions happen every weekend, and these aren’t going anywhere, and nor are your periods.

“That's why it's so important to find solutions – by tracking your cycle and symptoms, you can spot persistent issues and actually deal with them, instead of just pushing through."