The Power of Strength Training in Midlife: Defying Aging with Exercise

The journey through midlife and menopause is a unique and transformative period in a woman's life. It's a time of self-discovery, reflection, and change. It’s also a phase marked by significant physiological changes as women navigate through menopause and post-menopause. 

While it comes with challenges, it's also an opportunity to take charge of one's health and well-being. It doesn’t have to be overshadowed by the negative aspects of aging. 

Engaging in recreational activities and exercise can be a game-changer during this phase, enabling women to navigate the challenges of midlife and menopause with confidence, resilience, and improved mental and physical health. There are myriad benefits of strength training during midlife that can impact both body and mind by enabling women to take control of their health and enhance their overall well-being well into their later years.

Physical Benefits of Strength Training

• Bone and Muscle Health: The decline in bone density and muscle mass that occurs with age can be mitigated through strength training. Women experiencing menopause have a higher risk of bone loss, but regular resistance exercises are the best way to help maintain bone density and reduce the risk of fractures. 

• Balance and Fall Prevention: Strength training enhances muscle strength and balance, significantly reducing the risk of falls and associated injuries. Strong muscles provide better stability, making day-to-day activities safer and more manageable. If you do fall, having good muscle strength will help prevent serious injury. 

• Weight Management and Metabolism: As metabolism naturally slows down with age, strength training can help boost it. Increased muscle mass contributes to a higher resting metabolic rate, making weight management more attainable. It also impacts overall body composition (the percentages of lean muscle mass and fat), contributing to your appearance and how your clothes fit. 

• Cardiovascular Health: While cardio workouts are crucial, strength training also can improve cardiovascular fitness. Combining both forms of exercise results in a well-rounded approach to heart health. You can do this simultaneously with a circuit-type muscle conditioning program or include strength training in your fitness routine. Women should spend 40% of their exercise time focused on muscular strengthening. 

Mental and Emotional Benefits of Strength Training

• Mood Enhancement: Engaging in physical activity triggers the release of endorphins, the body's natural "feel-good" chemicals. This can reduce stress, anxiety, and depression, enhancing overall mental well-being.

• Confidence Boost: Successfully lifting weights and progressing in strength training can be incredibly empowering. Accomplishing physical goals can translate to increased self-esteem and confidence in all aspects of life.

• Cognitive Function: Emerging research indicates a strong connection between muscle health and cognitive function. Strength training may play a role in preserving cognitive abilities and preventing cognitive decline.

• Social Interaction: Participating in group exercise classes or engaging in outdoor activities can foster social connections and combat feelings of isolation, which are common in midlife.

Reframing the Conversation: Immediate Benefits

It's helpful to shift the focus of the midlife exercise conversation from long-term outcomes to immediate benefits. Your ability to immediately positively impact your mental health, well-being, and happiness can be a powerful motivator. By focusing on how you feel in the present moment and finding accessible beginner-level activities, your path to becoming a regular exerciser is more attainable and enjoyable.

The Critical Role of Strength Training

Strength training is a cornerstone of midlife exercise due to its profound impact on various aspects of health. It counters the decline in muscle mass and strength, addressing issues like sarcopenia and frailty that often come with age. Its benefits extend beyond physical health, contributing to emotional resilience and cognitive vitality.

The Key Components of Midlife Muscle Conditioning

Incorporating strength training is essential to optimize health and well-being during midlife and beyond. Key components include:

• Lift Heavy Weights or Perform Resistance Training: Resistance exercises help maintain muscle mass, improve metabolic efficiency, and prevent the onset of conditions like osteoporosis and type 2 diabetes.

• Incorporate Explosive Movements: These movements maintain fast-twitch muscle fibers critical for stability and fall prevention. Examples could be small jumps or weighted ball slams.

• Embrace Single-Leg Balancing Exercises: Counteract muscle imbalances and enhance stability to prevent injuries. Single-legged lunges are one example.

• View Strength Training as Functional: Strong muscles enhance everyday activities, making them more accessible and enjoyable. It improves your ability to carry groceries, climb stairs, get off the floor, and lift boxes from a high shelf.

• Consider the Sweet Spot: The late 40s and 50s offer an optimal window to improve strength before the inevitable decline. Yet, it is never too late, and even octogenarians have improved strength, mobility, and balance from strength training. 

Conclusion

The decline associated with aging is not inevitable. Engaging in strength training can effectively slow down and mitigate this decline. The importance of this effort becomes especially evident as women transition into their later years. 

Strength training during midlife transcends physical appearance and muscle gains; it's about building a foundation for overall health and vitality. It plays a pivotal role in empowering women during midlife and beyond. Strength training is a powerful force for maintaining your health and independence that can positively impact every aspect of life. 

By defying the aging process through regular exercise, women can improve their physical strength and nurture their mental resilience, emotional well-being, and cognitive function. The power to shape a healthier, happier future with an increased health span and quality of life is in your hands — it's time to embrace the transformative potential of strength training and seize control of your health span and lifespan.

So, embrace the weights, lift confidently, and empower yourself to lead a healthier and happier life as you journey through midlife and beyond. 

Looking for more information on how to start a new behavior, create a new habit, and reimagine your life as you journey through midlife? Check out our blog post on Taking Steps to Reignite Yourself After 50 or our Vision Journal to guide you through exercises to live the second half of your life with confidence, fulfillment, and joy! 

Eleven Reasons Strength Training in Midlife Improves Health

Your body is a gift. Every fiber of your body — each of the eleven elements that comprise your body — has carried you through your life. Your body held hands, loved others, gave hugs, perhaps birthed babies, and cared for others. 

Indeed, it has sometimes betrayed us, become ill, suffered broken bones, endured surgeries, and as we age, has begun to creak and groan. For some, it may not move at all or how we want it to. But, your body is a gift, and moving it can be a reminder that we do so because we can.

For all but a few, our body doesn’t look the same in midlife as it did two to three decades ago. Yes, it’s ok to reminisce about that 30-year-old body, but rather than compare the current body to its younger version, be grateful for how far it has brought you in this life and for the journey still ahead. 

Movement helps a body adapt, grow, heal, and stay healthy. Just watch a baby, toddler, or young child, and you know this is true. Movement helps prevent and repair injuries. 

Your body is also the thing that can prevent you from having the quality of life you desire in your older years. With few exceptions, the better you treat your body - the more movement you give it - the better it will treat you. 

It is never too late to start. Be good to your body, and it will be good to you.

Focus now on how to move your body to stay strong and enable you to do the things you want. Think about the events or experiences our parents or grandparents didn’t get to enjoy at our age. 

How do you know what movement your body needs? Try this reflection exercise. Close your eyes for five minutes and imagine what you want to be doing in your 90s. Yes, your 90s; if you have great genes or can life hack your way towards being a centenarian, what do you want to have the capability of doing? Next, think about what you need to do in your 60s, 70s, and 80s to live out that dream? 

Chances are high that everyone imagined a life full of movement and strength rather than one where they’re sitting in an armchair watching tv or in a rocking chair on the porch watching the world pass by. Consider whatever visualization you had of your future fit and healthy self to be your version of winning the gold medal at the centenarian Olympics. And, everyone knows if you want to make it to the Olympics, you have to train for it. 

The only way to have a high quality of life is to maintain a strong and active body. If you don’t feel that is your body today, then it’s time to train to get the strong body you deserve and to have the one you need. What do you physically need to do now to have the physical life you want later?

How do you do that? You move. You train your muscles. Your muscles will adapt and grow stronger. Yes, cardiovascular fitness (aerobic) and physical activity are essential, but most women focus too much on those exercises and neglect strength training. If you love your cardio workouts, you can always combine more muscle strengthening exercises into your cardio routine. 

Strength training is one of the cornerstone things women can do to improve their health span to live vibrantly and energetically for as long as possible. As we age, the body declines first, then disease begins. The best way to offset illness is to prevent the body from deteriorating. And the best way to do that is to maintain muscle mass. 

Many things happen when you start doing resistance training, weight lifting, or even bodyweight exercises to strengthen your muscles. 

You will:

• Increase stability and balance, which helps you better control your body in space.

• Experience better bone health. After age 65, the risk of death within one year of breaking a hip or femur during a fall is 30-40 percent.

• Change your metabolism, helping to prevent metabolic syndrome (pre-diabetes).

• Manage weight because you’ll burn more calories as your body composition changes. 

• Move throughout your day more easily. Lifting heavier items, climbing stairs, bending over, and getting up from the floor will all go more smoothly.

• Stave off the frailty that comes with age. Falls due to a lack of muscle mass are almost entirely the cause of accidents and death after the age of 75

• Increase joint mobility and decrease non-arthritic joint pain, which prevents injuries,

• Have greater independence, so you tire less quickly and can do more physical things.

• Improve appearance. Most women appreciate their appearance more after starting a strength training program. Improved muscle tone smoothes skin.

• Have the energy you desire to move through your day doing the things you dream of doing. 

• Improve your mood, and overall just feel better! 

Now is the time to be your best kick-ass self and flourish after 50. 

As you strength train, it’s also important to ensure you eat enough protein. Check out our 90-Day Protein Journal for a guided tool to help you build a new daily habit that sticks!

Check out other blog posts from Rumblings Media on becoming fitter and physically active in midlife. 

Together we Rumble!

The Key to Getting Fit After 50

“Fitness is a journey, not a destination. It must be continued for the rest of your life.” Kenneth Cooper, MD, started the aerobics movement with his book Aerobics in 1968. 

As an exercise scientist with a background in health, conversations with family and friends often center around fitness and physical activity. 

This year has been especially challenging as most of the women we speak with have been sharing they were more sedentary and exercised less than they had previously. 

Combine this with the changes and effects of aging, and the body and fitness level changes have been dramatic. 

As one family member shared, looking in the mirror is shocking enough to wonder, whose body is this?!

It’s tempting to jump on the bandwagon of quick-fix diets and exercise plans. But we’re over that! Right, friends?

Just as you may have started and failed a myriad of diets or eating fads, you may have an on-off-again relationship with exercise and physical activity. Any promise for a quick fix is exactly that - fast and unstainable. Thankfully that’s in the past! 

And, unfortunately, the focus for exercising is commonly based on improving physical appearance, yet the more important benefits of exercising and being physically active come from the inside out. We need to have a long-term focus on living a healthy lifestyle. 

But, what exactly is the difference between being physically active and exercising? Which is better for us for a sustainable lifestyle approach as we age? 

Most of us have been told over the years that we need to participate in structured fitness programs - mainly cardiovascular or aerobic. For many, that means attending a class, getting on a cardio machine, running, or biking. Read our last blog post on how much exercise is optimal for health. 

The truth is, physical activity and fitness aren’t all-or-nothing propositions. And doing one doesn’t negate the benefit of the other. The real trick is to find ways to incorporate physical activity throughout our day, every day, with or without a regular exercise routine. 

Crushing it on the elliptical machine for 30 minutes, four times a week, only to spend the rest of your day sitting at a desk and moving to the sofa in the evening minimizes the health impact of your hard cardio workout. 

We’ve found that many women—whether they exercise or not—are short on meeting recommendations for physical activity. Research shows that half of all women decrease regular exercise during middle age. At the same time, women lose lean muscle mass as they age.

A key to leading a more active life and being consistent in creating a sustainable movement-oriented lifestyle throughout our lives is having a foundational base of movement incorporated through everything we do. 

The great news is it’s never too late to feel great, have more energy, and get significant health benefits from increasing both exercise and physical activity. It doesn’t take much to get results. 

All activity is beneficial, and the health and well-being benefits are additive. It’s like getting extra credit for having fun! 

Likewise, suppose you’ve been primarily sedentary. The good news is it’s never too late to begin being active. A great place to start is to incorporate more physical activity into your day. As you become a physically active person, you can add structured exercise activities that are higher in intensity and provide more cardiovascular fitness benefits. 

Read more here, in our last blog post.

Whether finding a foundation of increased physical activity or building on that base with a more intense, structured exercise routine, the key is to keep moving your feet. Move more and sit less.

We both love structured physical fitness activities. We aim to do cardiovascular exercises for a minimum of 60 minutes of vigorous activity or 150 minutes of moderate activity per week (learn how to tell the difference here.) But we also work hard to walk 10,000 steps per day. That’s how we monitor our daily activity and get inspired to build more movement into our day. Finding ways to get more steps in each day requires a great deal of creativity. But it’s also fun!

Check out the tips below to get started. 

Be prepared as you add more activity into your day; you’ll likely enjoy yourself so much that you’ll find yourself wanting to do more!

Start by setting a goal for yourself. Whether you want to maintain your current level of fitness and physical activity, start a new program, or kick it up a notch, you have to know where you want to go. Stay motivated by occasionally mixing up your routine or trying new activities for fun. 

Next, break down how you’re going to get there. Create your roadmap. One way to do that is by looking at the goals you set and working backward to map out the steps to get there. You’ve worked on this process before, and even though it seems simplistic, it works!

Write your goals down and keep them in a place (like your bathroom mirror or the front door) where you see them several times a day as a reminder. The actual act of writing down goals ignites an entirely new dimension of consciousness—your brain starts seeing opportunities that are difficult to attain if you're merely THINKING about your goals rather than actively doing something to achieve them. Plus, writing them down and in a place where you can see them consistently keeps you focused on what you want to accomplish and why. 

Review your progress regularly. Being active for life requires some creativity based on what activities you enjoy doing, your schedule, and what feels best for your body. Don’t worry about whether or not you did what you needed to achieve your goal yesterday. The real question is, what are you going to do to achieve your goal today? 

Reset your mindset to focus on your body’s exceptional capabilities. Just as food is sustenance and fuel to keep your body nourished, physical activity and exercise keep your body strong, healthy, and supple to support the life you want for yourself. 

Whether that is having fun with your friends, staying strong, chasing after grandkids, or keeping up with our teenagers or young adults, focus on the benefits and beauty of living an active lifestyle. Our bodies are a gift.

It is difficult to watch our parents and elders struggle with weakening bodies that are wearing out. However, research shows that physical activity and exercise significantly impact our strength and ability to remain independent and strong with more vigor and vitality until the end of our years. Now that’s something to be grateful for!

Discover the joy in the journey. Physical activity in and of itself can be fun and a means for living in the moment to create beautiful memories. 

Think of things that you can do with loved ones or friends centered around being active together that would be memorable. 

Moving more may also be a great goal to set together with others. It’s more fun to be active together, you’re more likely to both stay committed to your goals, and you’ll be supporting each other with a gift of health. 

Being active with someone else is an opportunity to connect and can be a new way of interacting. Make a date to hike through the woods to see the beauty of a waterfall at the end of the trail, learn to play pickleball with a few girlfriends, or share a bike ride with grandkids. 

Be consistent. Physical activity and exercise both have to be consistent to achieve long-term benefits. It truly is a use it or lose it proposition. 

Research shows that as humans if our physical activity is purposeful (gardening, biking/walking for transportation) and meaningful (things we enjoy such as hiking or pickleball), we are much more likely to maintain a healthy lifestyle. 

Use these tips to incorporate purposeful activity into your life. And, remember, when you’re ready, adding vigorous exercise and fitness activities can add even more health benefits. 

You can be a person that values fitness and health. If you need a reminder - keep a list of your goals, the activities you want to do, and the memories you want to create in a place where you can see them day after day. 

Rumblings’ philosophy on food, fitness, and physical activity focuses on the science and knowledge that your body is made for movement. Keeping this in mind will continually replenish your zest for life and enable you to thrive!

Want more ideas on ways to be active? Want to be inspired by other women? Join us this month as we get active together. Download our idea sheet. Follow us on social media as we post our ways to #moveinmay and #flourishafter50. 

In upcoming blog posts, we will cover how to measure if you’re getting enough physical activity and exercise, the importance of caloric balance and weight training for optimal health, and weight management for women in their prime time. Sign-up today to get more information on how to flourish after 50!

Rumble on!

Karyn and Rebecca

*Disclaimer: If you have doubts about your health, are experiencing signs or symptoms, have been previously sedentary, or are looking to alter your physical activity or intensity levels, please check with your healthcare professional.