Strong for Life: How Women 30+ Can Build Muscle, Protect Bone, and Stay Resilient Into Menopause and Beyond
Real Talk
In society, pretty much on a global scale, for a long as we can remember, women have been valued for how small they are. How small are their feet? How small are their waistlines? Can a man wrap his hand around her upper arm? Does she have a thigh gap? The list goes on and on.
Novels as iconic as Gone With The Wind add to this obsession when, very early on in the book, the author describes one of Scarlett O’Hara’s virtues as being her 27” waist. Like…are you kidding me? Ladies, this should not be a goal! Then we take a look at the practice of foot binding in China! It doesn’t matter where you live or where you come from, the mandate to be small came down on you the moment you left your mother’s womb.
To make matters worse, the health care industry is definitely hanging out in the same “Bruh Cave” as society. Doctors are constantly telling women they need to lose weight at every chance they get, justifying it using idiotic measures like BMI without knowing the first goddamn thing about their body composition. Just to make matters worse, this whole “smaller is healthier” “eat fewer calories” bullshit we’ve all been getting from our doctors isn’t working. Obesity rates are rising [US obesity rates have tripled over the last 60 years], rates of metabolic and cardiovascular disease are rising [Heart disease remains leading cause of death as key health risk factors continue to rise | American Heart Association] [Metabolic syndrome is on the rise: What it is and why it matters - Harvard Health], and the average American life expectancy is DECREASING [Life Expectancy is Declining in the U.S. | Johns Hopkins | Bloomberg School of Public Health]. As you can probably tell…I’ve had enough.
This social expectation of “smaller is better” is failing women. Now, on top of bodies that are not healthy, we also have minds that are not healthy, we have relationships with our bodies that are not healthy, and we have relationships with food that are not healthy. This has to stop.
So, what do we do about it? Well…we don’t wait for society to change. We don’t wait for medicine to catch up to science. We’ve tried that route and it’s just gotten us sicker and more depressed. So, they only thing left to us is to “Save Yourself”.
Understanding the Enemy:
1) Sarcopenia (age related muscle loss)- begins around age 30 with a 5-10% loss of muscle mass PER DECADE (NSCA’s Essentials of Personal Training, 3rd Edition, p 499)
2) Osteoporosis (loss of bone mineral density)- begins around age 30 with a 10-30% loss of bone mineral density PER DECADE (NSCA’s Essentials of Personal Training, 3rd Edition, p 499)
How to Save Yourself:
Let me be clear about who I am and what I believe in. I am a personal trainer who works exclusively with women. Why? Because women deserve to have at least one person on their healthcare team who is actually an expert on women and doesn’t treat them as an afterthought . I am an anti-diet culture, anti-weight loss personal trainer and the techniques I use to help women get strong and healthy include a gentle progression to the following:
3x/week of heavy lifting
2x/week of high intensity interval and/or sprint interval training
1 day of yoga
1 day of mobility
Clean, protein-forward eating
In addition to these fitness practices, I also incorporate effective testing in the form of advocating for DEXA scans and functional bloodwork at LEAST annually, as well as integrating various aspects of functional medicine and recovery techniques to address the whole person: body and mind. And I do this for very specific reasons.
REAL Strength Training: Your Best Defense
Similar to my thoughts and feelings about the medical community, I am just very done with this ridiculous fad of light weight and high reps. It does nothing. I meet so many women who tell me that’s what they do because they “just want longevity.” Welp…that’s not what you’re getting, no matter what your favorite influencer or group fitness instructor is telling you. It’s complete bullshit. The only thing that light weight and high reps give you is that burn everyone is so obsessed with. Does it increase muscular endurance? Yes. So, if you are a swimmer or a runner, great but if you are a woman who is trying to live your best life, you are wasting your time and energy. The two muscular adaptations that have been scientifically shown to increase HEALTH SPAN (high quality of life until the day you die) are increased muscle mass and increased strength. Here’s how you get those:
1) Increased Muscle Mass (hypertrophy): The basics of eliciting the hypertrophy response in your body is at least 3 sets of 8-12 reps at a weight so heavy you can barely bang out that last rep. If you’re hitting rep 13-14 in your last set, you need to increase your weight.
2) Increased Muscular Strength: The basics of eliciting the strength response in your body is at least 3 sets of no more than 6 reps at a weight so heavy you can barely bang out that last rep. If you’re hitting rep 7-8 in your last set, you need to increase your weight.
In order to give your body time to make these related but different adaptations, do them in 8-12 week cycles. So, for example, you would focus on hypertrophy for 12 weeks and then move on to a 12 week strength cycle. If you flip-flop more often than 8-12 weeks, you’ll see some gains for a while but plateaus will happen faster and you won’t gain as much as you would from concentrated effort in that one area. Remember, this takes time.
Now, let’s cover weight training’s relationship to osteoporosis:
The types of exercise that will protect and preserve your bone mineral density are high load and high impact: lifting heavy, multi-directional jumping, and sprinting are the keys to bone health. Obviously, you are not going to get there overnight but it should be the goal and here is why:
“Resistance training enables older adults to increase bone mineral density by about 1% per year, which effectively reduces or even reverses the bone loss experienced by older adults who do not perform this type of activity.” (NSCA’s Essentials of Personal Training 3rd Edition).
So, how heavy is heavy enough to affect change on the skeletal system? 80% of your one rep max. Ladies…that’s heavy.
For those who have never heard the term “one rep max” before, this refers to the amount of weight you can lift once and only once. Take for example my deadlift. My one rep max deadlift is 330 lbs. I lift that once and I am done for the day. That barbell is not coming off the floor again.
So, that means that in order to put enough stress on my bones that they maintain their density, I need to deadlift 264 lbs regularly. Like I said, it’s heavy.
Can you get these results in a group fitness class? Maybe. For awhile. Follow those principles I gave you and as long as the right equipment is available and the polished wooden floor can handle it, great. However, there will come a time when you will need to move into a gym setting. I also highly recommend a personal trainer from either the NSCA or ACSM. Safety is a HUGE deal when lifting weights this heavy and most group fitness instructors lack the training necessary to see, cue, and correct movement especially under heavy loads.
If you have questions about this article or would like to schedule a consultation, you can do so by clicking on the “Book a Consultation” link below or emailing me at info@saveyourselfcoaching.com.