Strength Training and Menopause: How Lifting Weights Supports Women’s Health
Strength Training and Menopause: How Lifting Weights Supports Women’s Health
Certified Personal Trainer Kim Duke explains how strength training can combat muscle and bone loss, improve metabolism, and enhance quality of life during menopause.
If you’re going through menopause, you’ve probably noticed some changes. Many of these can be credited to the drop in estrogen, one of the primary female sex hormones. In addition to regulating your period, estrogen also helps with bone formation and keeping heart tissue healthy and blood pressure stable as well as improving muscle mass, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
With menopause your period stops, bone loss speeds up, you lose muscle mass, your risk of heart problems increases, and your metabolism slows, according to research. Plus, you can experience symptoms like fatigue, muscle aches, and hot flashes. Lots of these effects are just plain annoying. Others can spell trouble for long-term health. Ready for some good news? You can prevent and mitigate many of the side effects of menopause with strength training. Read on to learn how.
It builds muscle: Estrogen plays a role in muscle protein synthesis, or the process of creating new muscle protein, according to a review of research in Bone. When estrogen levels drop during menopause, building and maintaining muscle becomes harder, eventually leading to muscle loss. “On top of that, all of us are naturally losing muscle because of the aging process, so it’s kind of like a double dose effect for [people in menopause],” says Tina Tang, CPT, a certified personal trainer who specializes in menopause. Age-related muscle loss, also known as sarcopenia, starts after the age of 30. This is the point when we begin losing approximately 3 to 5 percent of our muscle mass per decade, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office on Women’s Health, with things speeding up after the age of 60.
The downside to losing muscle is that strength declines as well, which makes everyday activities more challenging. If your muscles keep shrinking year after year, you’ll eventually reach the point where the simplest tasks - like getting out of bed and walking - are beyond your abilities. You’ll also find it harder to maintain your balance, increasing your risk of falls. And falls are the leading cause of injury and injury-related death among adults 65 and over.
It strengthens bones: Menopause is the time to consider your osteoporosis risk. Osteoporosis is a disease that weakens the bones and makes them easier to fracture. Normally, your body breaks down old bone tissue and replaces it with new tissue with the help of estrogen. But once estrogen levels dip, your body has a tough time building bone and you wind up breaking it down faster than you can replace it. This is why the risk for osteoporosis increases drastically after menopause. Strength training is one of the best strategies for building bone. Strength training works by pulling and pushing on bone and forcing you to move against gravity while your skeleton supports a heavier weight. These actions tell your bone cells to shift into “build” mode, resulting in denser bones, according to Harvard Health Publishing.
It may lower insulin resistance: Strength training may even improve insulin resistance, a condition where your cells stop responding to insulin (a hormone that regulates blood sugar). When left unchecked, blood sugar stays elevated in the bloodstream, which can eventually lead to diabetes, according to the CDC. This is especially worrisome during menopause. Estrogen affects how your cells respond to insulin, and changes in hormone levels after menopause can trigger blood sugar spikes, notes the Mayo Clinic. Your blood sugar levels may fluctuate more than they did before menopause, and if this becomes out of control, it puts you at greater risk for diabetes or diabetes-related complications.
It helps manage weight: Another perk of strength training is it can help prevent unwanted weight gain, a common side effect of menopause and aging. In general, strength training doesn’t burn as many calories during the workout as cardio activities like running. Harvard Health Publishing estimates that a 30-minute weight-lifting session burns 90 to 126 calories, whereas running at 5 miles per hour for the same length of time burns 240 to 336 calories. However, strength training can help keep your weight in check by building muscle. After all, muscle loss is a major contributor to age-related weight gain, according to a report in Science. Muscle is metabolically active tissue, which means that your body needs energy (calories) to maintain it. Adding muscle might help you burn more calories throughout the day and prevent your metabolism from slowing down.
THE BEST STRENGTH MOVES TO DO DURING MENOPAUSE
While strength training offers plenty of benefits during menopause, not all strength moves were created equal. “You’ll get the most bang for your buck doing compound lifts, which are exercises that use more than one muscle group,” Tang says. Examples include squats, bench presses, deadlifts, bent-over rows, and overhead presses.
Compound moves are better for building muscle and bone than exercises that target a single muscle group (isolation exercises), such as biceps curls, triceps extensions, lateral raises, and calf raises. Why? Because they challenge your muscles and bones to a greater extent. And the greater the challenge, the greater the effect. None of this is to say you can’t do isolation exercises or that targeting a single muscle group doesn’t deliver benefits. Still, Tang encourages you to think of compound moves as the “meat and potatoes” of your strength routine. Sprinkle in a few isolation exercises if you want to beef up a specific muscle group.
The guidelines for progressing your strength workouts don’t change just because you’ve entered menopause. As with any other phase of life, you should consider your fitness level and strength experience when determining how to progress, Tang says. If you’re new to strength training, simply focus on learning the movements and aiming for consistency with your routine. That might mean keeping your workouts short (15 to 20 minutes) so they’re easier to incorporate into your schedule and they feel more approachable, Tang notes. Two to four strength sessions per week is ideal, making sure you target all the major muscle groups (back, chest, shoulders, arms, hips, and legs).
Once you get the hang of things - or if you’ve already been lifting for months or years - you’ll have to tweak your approach to keep seeing results. “Your body adapts to challenges,” Tang explains. So how can you tell if it’s time to progress your routine? A surefire indicator is feeling like you could have completed an additional two or three reps at the end of your sets, Tang says. If that rings true, you have plenty of options for making your workouts more challenging. The simplest method is to lift heavier weights. For example, if you usually use 10-pound (lb) dumbbells, try lifting 12- or 15-lb dumbbells for the same number of reps.
If you don’t have access to many weight options, the next size up might be too heavy for you to lift for the exact rep count. In that case, reduce the reps so you can do each with the proper form. Or stick to your usual weight and increase your rep count. Instead of doing three sets of 8 reps, try three sets of 10 or 12 reps, Tang suggests. Make strength training work for you to see and feel the benefits.
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Kim Duke is a certified personal trainer and owner of Core Performance Fitness and Training, 55 Bristol Lane, Ellicottville, NY. Kim resides in Ellicottville where she raised her sons, Zach and Nik. For more information about her studio, including private sessions and group workout classes, visit her Facebook page, www.coreperformancefitness.com or call 716-698-1198.
