79% Of Athletes Kept Exercising During IVF — Here's What Happened
Starting egg freezing or IVF can make even a familiar workout feel like a question mark. Is your usual run still okay? What about heavy lifting? Should you skip exercise altogether?
For athletes, that uncertainty can be especially frustrating. A new survey1 suggests that many people undergoing fertility treatment are scaling back or stopping exercise, but not necessarily because research shows they need to.
About the study
Researchers surveyed 216 recreational and elite athletes, with an average age of 36.5, who had undergone egg freezing or IVF within the previous five years. Most participants lived in the U.S., Canada, or the U.K.
Between March and December 2025, participants reported how much they exercised before and during treatment, whether they experienced any health complications, and whether a medical provider gave them advice about exercise.
The researchers wanted to understand whether staying active during fertility treatment was associated with a higher likelihood of complications.
Staying active wasn't linked to more complications
Most athletes did not stop moving altogether. In fact, 79% continued exercising in some form during treatment.
Across the group, participants reported 38 adverse events. But when researchers compared athletes who continued exercising with those who stopped, they found no significant difference in the odds of experiencing an adverse event.
In other words, exercising during egg freezing or IVF wasn't linked to more complications in this group.
That doesn't mean every workout is appropriate during every stage of treatment. It does suggest that automatically stopping all exercise may not be necessary for everyone.
Why athletes were scaling back
So why the big pullback if exercise wasn't linked to more complications?
For many athletes, it came down to caution. About three-quarters of participants received exercise guidance from a medical provider, and 78% followed that advice.
Trusting their care team was a major reason, along with concern about doing anything that could interfere with an expensive and emotionally demanding treatment.
Most athletes who kept exercising also changed how they trained. Nearly four in five of those who remained active reduced their intensity, frequency, or workout duration, or switched to lighter activity such as walking. Meanwhile, 31% stopped exercising entirely.
How to approach your workouts during treatment
If you're undergoing egg freezing or IVF, this research doesn't mean you should automatically keep doing your usual workouts at full intensity. It does suggest that complete rest may not be necessary for everyone.
Instead, ask your fertility provider how your exercise routine should change during treatment. You may need to adjust your lifting, running, or other workouts by reducing intensity, frequency, or duration.
The right approach can depend on your treatment, health history, and how you're feeling, so there isn't one workout prescription that applies to everyone.
It's also important to keep the study's limitations in mind. This was a survey based on participants' self-reported experiences, not a controlled trial. It can't establish exactly how much or what type of exercise is safe for every person undergoing fertility treatment.
The takeaway
You may not need to put your workouts on pause the moment IVF or egg freezing begins. In this survey, continuing to exercise wasn't linked to a higher likelihood of complications, although many athletes chose to scale back or stop anyway.
Rather than assuming you have to give up exercise completely, talk with your fertility provider about what makes sense for your specific treatment.