Wondering which workout plan is best for women going through menopause? Here are the tips from us, the experts.
We’ve worked with so many women in their 40s and 50s who felt stuck because they didn’t know what type of workouts would work for them. After a long week of exercising, they would step on the scales and see zero movement.
When you’re not seeing results, it’s very hard to stay motivated.
Women’s bodies and hormones start to change as they approach menopause, which can make it easier to gain weight and harder to lose it again.
But with the right workout plan? You can quickly and easily get the scales moving, drop a couple of dress sizes and feel incredible wearing anything you like in as little as 12 weeks!
In today’s blog, we’re going to reveal the best exercise approach for women during menopause – so you can do exactly that! You can also listen to these tips on our podcast.
First things first
Before we get into the best exercise, it’s important to understand what’s happening in the body around menopause. This affects what works (and what doesn’t), and it’s very different to what does and doesn’t work in your 20s and 30s.
Significant changes happen physiologically around menopause. Changes in female hormones – oestrogen and progesterone – start to happen, which can start to have an impact, even years before clinical menopause.
This leads to a whole plethora of symptoms including the commonly-known ones: hot flushes, night sweats, and brain fog.
This also leads to things which affect your ability to exercise, such as joint aches and pains or mobility issues. These are both made worse if you are carrying a bit of extra weight, as it puts more load on the joints and causes more inflammation.
Muscle mass and bone density decreases with age
Another factor which might impact your exercise approach can be muscle mass and bone density changes. This can lead to feeling less toned and more flabby, and having less shape to your body. You might also start feeling weaker, have poorer balance and feel less energetic.
A slower metabolism can also occur, as the more muscle you have the more the faster your metabolism – and vice versa.
Stress hormone sensitivity
Your sensitivity to the stress hormone cortisol increases in the run up to menopause, and this increases 3 times more for women than for men.
If cortisol levels are too high, it makes losing weight very difficult, as it leads to 3 major problems:
- Leptin resistance, which causes increased cravings and not feeling full even after eating
- Insulin resistance, which makes it harder to lose weight, especially from around the middle
- Thyroid deregulation, which slows your metabolism down, meaning you have to eat a lot less to lose weight
All of this makes it much harder to avoid gaining weight, let alone lose weight.
The key three
The best workout plan must achieve three things. It must keep cortisol levels low to moderate, as this blocks weight loss. It must not overload the joints, as this will quickly lead to injury and having to give up. And it needs to maintain muscle mass and bone density, to keep your metabolism high and maintain your health.
What not to do
This rules out a lot of exercise. Firstly, we don’t recommend long distance cardio, e.g. running, or cycling. While they are good for improving cardiovascular fitness, they tend to reduce muscle mass and be too high impact.
We also don’t recommend HIIT training and high-intensity gym classes. These are great for getting fit quickly, and for younger people who aren’t carrying excess weight. However, high-impact exercise has a high injury risk for anyone carrying extra weight or with existing joint problems.
So what is best?
In our experience, low-impact strength training (LIST training) is by far the most effective training for women over forty. This involves slow, controlled movements with body weight or moderate weights.
The benefits are huge, and include keeping stress on the body low, meaning your body stays in an optimum state for losing weight. It builds muscle, which tones you up all over, reduces bingo wings, flattens your stomach AND increases your metabolism! This means you can eat more and still lose weight easily.
It’s very efficient too. Our clients only train 3 times a week for 40-45 minutes and they lose roughly 1-2 stone in 12 weeks.