Although lifestyle factors such as diet, cigarette smoking, and alcohol consumption are increasingly recognized as important contributors to the risk of infertility, the role of exercise in fertility remains less clear.

Exercise is a vital part of a healthy lifestyle and  Journey to get pregnant. However, in some instances, exercise can either help or hurt a person’s fertility potential.

Relationship between exercise and Infertility :

•   It has been long known that physical activity is beneficial for overall health and well-being.
• Exercise helps in maintaining healthy weight and improves cardiovascular health. However, in the realm of female fertility, vigorous exercise can have a profound effect, more so, when there is an energy deficit.
• If your energy intake isn’t enough for your body to complete its basic functions, you are in energy deficit.
• The reproductive system is highly sensitive to energy deficit. 

Can exercises can help to recover? :

• Exercise can affect fertility because exercise has effects on multiple female hormones. This includes estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone as well as hormones like cortisol and insulin.
• These all influence ovulation, the release of an egg, and generally improve pregnancy rates and outcomes.
• A large meta analysis determined that this effect was influenced by the type, intensity and duration of physical activity as well as a woman’s own weight and hormonal status.

How Does  Weight Affect  Infertility ?

• Women with a normal weight can have improved fertility rates when they exercise.
• Regular exercise reduces the incidence of ovulatory disorders activity stimulates egg production.
• Women with BMIs over 30 are less likely to ovulate.
• An exercise program that includes regular aerobic activity of at least 30 minutes per day is enough to help improve ovulation rates in heavier women.
• This may also lead to weight loss. Even a small weight loss of 5-10% can improve rates of ovulation.
• Alternatively, women with BMI <18.5 can find that exercise impairs their ability to conceive.
• Too much exercise can change hormonal levels. In particular, we see that there is a luteal phase defect which can interfere with egg implantation.
• If you are underweight, exercise may also reduce the signals that your brain sends to the ovaries to cause ovulation.

Exercise Intensity, Duration :

 When you consider all of the research together, the bulk of the evidence suggests that moderate exercise is beneficial to all everyone and may even improve fertility. However, high levels of exercise might impair fertility, at least in some people. 

Aerobic exercise for seven or more hours per week may increase the risk of ovulation problems.
Moderate exercise (for more than one hour but less than five hours per week) was found to improve fertility in all women.
Strenuous exercise of four or more hours per week may reduce IVF success rates.
Vigorous exercise may decrease fertility in women who are at their normal weight.
Vigorous exercise may improve fertility in women who are obese.