feisty
Hit Play Not Pause is a podcast built for one specific person: the woman who trains hard, takes her health seriously, and keeps running into a wall of vague advice whenever she searches "menopause and performance." Created by Feisty Menopause, the show sits at the intersection of endurance sport and hormonal health, and it fills a gap that most fitness media hasn't bothered to address.
What the show actually covers
Each episode pulls in a researcher, clinician, or elite athlete to tackle a specific problem. We're talking bone density loss during perimenopause, the effect of estrogen decline on VO2 max, how strength training loads need to shift as progesterone drops. The topics are granular. That's the point.
Host Selene Yeager keeps the conversation grounded. She's a longtime endurance athlete herself, which means she asks the questions that come from actually racing and training, not from reading a textbook summary. Guests don't get away with platitudes. They get pressed on mechanisms, timelines, and practical takeaways.
The show doesn't treat menopause as a winding-down. It treats it as a training variable. That framing alone separates it from most content aimed at women over 40.
Why it matters for performance
There's a common assumption that performance declines in midlife are inevitable and uniform. Hit Play Not Pause pushes back on that directly. Episodes cover topics like how hormone therapy can preserve muscle mass, why recovery windows lengthen in perimenopause, and what the research actually says about fasted training for perimenopausal women. Not "here are some tips." Here is the data, here is the mechanism, here is what to do with it.
For anyone thinking seriously about what it really takes to get better as the hormonal picture shifts, this show is one of the few places offering answers grounded in sport science rather than generic wellness advice.
The episode archive is deep. There are episodes on sleep disruption and cortisol, on cycling cadence and joint load, on the specific demands of triathlon training during perimenopause. The breadth is real.
Who listens, and why they stay
The audience is mostly women in their 40s and 50s who race, ride, run, or lift. They're not beginners. They already know what a tempo run is, they track their HRV, they've read the books. What they don't have is content that respects both their training background and the specific biology they're now working with.
Hit Play Not Pause respects both. Selene Yeager doesn't explain what carbohydrates are. She explains why carbohydrate metabolism shifts during the luteal phase and what that means for fuelling a long ride. That level of specificity is rare. It's why the listener base is loyal rather than casual.
If you're already thinking about what's actually happening during menopause and how it affects your training, this podcast closes the gap between general information and actionable guidance faster than most books or articles will.
How to start listening
The back catalogue is worth digging into rather than just picking up the latest episode. A few places to start: the episodes on bone stress and load management, the ones on hormone therapy and endurance capacity, and the conversations with sports dietitians who work specifically with perimenopausal athletes. Hit Play Not Pause releases new episodes weekly and is available on all major podcast platforms.
It's a practical show. Start anywhere, but start.