Based on the analysis and synthesis of literary sources, as well as the results of a pedagogical experiment, the article presents data on the manifestations of the hypo menstrual syndrome in athletes of different ages who are engaged in athletic sports. It was noted that a significant group of female athletes who took part in the study had clinical manifestations of oligo-opsomenorrhea and hypomenorrhea, often combined.

Method and materials of the study 

To achieve the research objective, we used a set of scientific methods, including analysis of available scientific and scientific-methodical sources of information, determination of anatomical-anthropometric and morpho functional values in female athletes, interviewing. The experimental base of the research were sports sections in a number of regions of Ukraine, in which female athletes of youth age trained, engaged in weightlifting and powerlifting.

The study involved 22 female weightlifters and 24 female powerlifters. The average age in the weight lifters group was 21±1.32 years, while in the powerlifters group it was 20.14±0.87 years. All the athletes were of adolescent (n=26) and reproductive age (n=20). The duration of training in this sport was 3 to 5 years – 7 (30.44%), 5 to 8 years – 12 (52.17%), and more than 8 years – 4 (17.39%). 18 (78.26%) of the girls were students, and 5 (21.74%) were employed. 8 (34.78%) of the studied sportswomen started practicing these sports at the age of 11-15, 11 (47.83%) at the age of 15-18, and 4 (17.39%) after the age of 18. Sports qualification – 1st category – 9 (39.13%), candidates for master of sports (CMS) – 10 (43.48%), master of sports (MS) – 4 (17.39%). The intensity and frequency of training is 4-6 times a week, from 1.5 to 2.5 hours per 1 training. In conducting this study, we used such methods as literary-critical analysis of available sources of information on the issue under study, anthropometry, the index method, somatotyping, a questionnaire on the characteristics of the menstrual cycle in female athletes (author's questionnaire K.A. Bugaevsky, 2009, modification, 2018), the method of mathematical statistics. All young athletes who took part in this study gave their voluntary, both oral and written consent to participate in it.

Questions concerning various aspects of the influence of physical and psycho-emotional loads on the female body, as well as its adaptive-adaptive reactions, are always relevant when conducting medical and biological studies of female athletes [1-8]. This also applies to the study of adaptation processes in athletes involved in weightlifting and powerlifting [1-8]. Therefore, any research work concerning the medical and biological characteristics of women's sports in ontogenesis, and especially in the traditionally male athletic-strength sports, are always relevant and in demand [1-8]. Weight lifting, intensity of strength loads, features of the training-competition period structure, its compatibility with cyclic changes in the female body, adaptation processes to these loads - this is not a complete list of questions that determines the problem of studying this issue [1-8]. Among the issues concerning changes in the body of women involved in weightlifting and powerlifting, in our opinion, the issue of changes in such basic indicators of reproductive health as the menstrual cycle and, in particular, manifestations of hypo menstrual syndrome (HMS) is not fully covered. This is especially true for studies among athletes of adolescent and early reproductive ages. This was the reason for conducting our study, with an attempt to link the identified disorders in the reproductive system of athletes (primarily, menstrual cycle disorders) with intense physical and psychological stress present when practicing these sports

In this regard, the aim of our study is to present and analyze the results of the study, with identified changes in a number of indicators of the ovarian-menstrual cycle of female athletes involved in such athletic sports as weightlifting and powerlifting.

Hypothesis of the article 

During the preparation for this study, the author came up with a working hypothesis, the essence of which is as follows: in female athletes involved in athletic sports, in all age groups, as the duration, duration and intensity of the training and competition process and the increase in the severity of sports skills, as well as the intensity of physical and psycho-emotional loads, adaptively somatic changes occur in the form of inversions of their sexual somatotypes, from their physiological (gynomorphic) to transitional-adaptive - mesomorphic and, in some cases, to pathological-inverse - andromorphic sexual somatotype. These ongoing changes in sexual somatotypes gradually lead to changes and even disruptions in the functioning of a number of organs and systems of the female athletes' body, primarily in the endocrine and reproductive systems and in a number of others. The endocrine and reproductive systems, in the process of adaptive restructuring, react to changes in the somatotype with gradual disturbances in their ovarian-menstrual cycle, towards hypomenorrhea, oligomenorrhea, proiomenorrhea, with the formation of persistent hypo menstrual syndrome and, in some cases, clinical manifestations of secondary amenorrhea.

In both study groups, 12 (54.55%) female weightlifters and 22 (91.87%) female powerlifters were found to have various, often combined, menstrual cycle disorders, mainly in the form of hypo menstrual syndrome. 
The numerous, combined disorders of a number of reproductive indicators revealed as a result of the study give grounds to assert that they are directly related to intense physical and psycho-emotional stress. 
The analysis of the obtained results of the study fully confirms the hypothesis of the author of this article, at the beginning of this study.