#100: 10 Reasons Weight Training Is Essential for Women Over 40 (Benefits of lifting weights)

Weight training after 40 is one of the best things you can do for your health and well-being both in the short term and long term. If you haven't started yet, here are some compelling reasons to finally get going!!

In this episode, I go over just some of the benefits of weight training (10 of them) Though lifting weights is beneficial to anyone at any age, I'm focusing on the reasons that strength training is especially important for women in perimenopause and beyond. 

The benefits of weight training in midlife that I talk about include:

• How weight training affects body composition
• How weight training strengthens muscles
• How weight training strengthens tendons & ligaments
• How to increase your bone density by lifting weights
• How weight prevents frailty and functional decline
• How weight training reverses mitochondrial aging
• The mental health benefits of weight training

Enjoy the show - and please share with your friends so that they can learn more about what's going on with their bodies in midlife too!

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to 40+ Fitness for Women
• 0:38 The Menopause Transition: A Personal Journey
• 1:54 Understanding the Fundamental Changes in Menopause
• 3:16 Back to Basics: Starting Your Fitness Journey
• 4:54 The Importance of Weight Training for Women
• 5:31 10 Benefits of Weight Training
• 8:47 Improving Body Composition and Reducing Visceral Fat
• 12:55 Increasing Strength and Bone Density
• 19:57 Maintaining Joint Health and Preventing Frailty
• 24:19 Mental Health and Mitochondrial Benefits
• 26:52 Conclusion and Next Steps

Transcript

#100: 10 Reasons why weight training is so important for women over 40

[00:00:00] Welcome to 40+ Fitness for Women. I'm Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto, your host, and I'm a certified menopause fitness coach, 
so it is January and This for me is starting off the fourth year that I've been weight training. I can't believe it's actually been that long. The years just fly by at this point in our lives, don't they? And the reason why I started this podcast and why I am here is to help people start, women in particular, start weight training.
Because what I hear over and over again is the exact same thing that I heard when I talked to a 51 year old fellow podcaster the other day. She said she has always been muscular and looked really fit. And now all of a sudden she's lost her muscle tone [00:01:00] and she's just feeling like the rules of the game have changed and the things that used to work are not working anymore.
And I think that is exactly a point that. Every one of us will reach, and it may not happen for you in perimenopause. For me, it didn't happen until postmenopause. I was going along happily, looking toned and fit and being happy until all of a sudden everything changed. So it comes at different times for every one of us.
But you notice a point where, wow, I used to be able to just do a little bit more cardio, burn some more calories, maybe cut down on what I'm eating for a couple weeks and my body would respond and I'd be back to where I want to be. And now all of a sudden that is not working anymore. 
The thing is that your body has actually gone through a. fundamental [00:02:00] change in menopause as your hormones shift. And I'm not going to go into all the things that change right there, but it is such a big change that you need to learn how to work with this new body of yours. The same way, I mean, the other side. Uh, menopause was back when you went through puberty, your body went through a huge change when the sex hormones started to be more present in your body.
And you no longer had a child's body. You had a woman's body and you had to learn how to work with that. And now in menopause, okay, it's not as. Obvious a change from the outside. You don't have these kinds of metamorphosis that you do when you're in puberty, but the same way it is a fundamental change in your body.
And once you learn how to work with your new body, and this is not like all kinds of [00:03:00] supplements and crazy things you, you don't, it's, it's some basic lifestyle changes. And when you get those in place, all of a sudden your body starts cooperating with you again, and you don't feel like you're fighting against it anymore.
So in the beginning of this year, I want to kind of go back to basics with this podcast, because generally in January, I get a lot of new listeners, women who, because of the new year, Are excited to get fit again, and I hope that if you are one of the new listeners, that your enthusiasm won't die in February, because the thing that is going to make the biggest change, the long term difference is lifestyle changes.
And I want to help you to understand what those need to be so that you can be really happy with your body. I [00:04:00] started weight training well, this is the beginning of my fourth year and it has really been a huge game changer. The weight training was the first thing I did. And because I did the weight training and because I wanted to support the weight training and the building of the muscle, I started to shift other things in my life.
And through that series, Of shifts have gotten to a place where my body and I we're like in a happy relationship with each other. Okay. And I hope for that, for every single one of you who are listening to this podcast, because it's no life to go through and feel like you hate your body or that your body hates you and feeling out of sync with your body.
So with that preamble today, we're going to talk [00:05:00] about weight training and why weight training as an exercise form is so important for women in perimenopause and menopause. It's important to do even before that, but I mean, this is kind of like where you really, really need to sort of wake up and start doing it.
And next week we're going to be talking about why muscle is so important to have on your body, the benefits of having more muscle on your body. So let's get into it.
So I have ten reasons or benefits of weight training for women in perimenopause and beyond. And we'll start with the ones that probably interest you the most that are addressing the current pain points you are having. And the first is you probably noticed that you're losing muscle tone and getting weaker.
And what is going to fix that? It is to [00:06:00] start Building muscle and building up your strength. And that is exactly what weight training does. And here I want to say that it is systematic weight training where you are applying progressive overload. And I will do an episode on progressive overload few forward.
So please subscribe. So you don't miss that one. I want to remind you. If you are new here, that just picking up weights is not going to necessarily build muscle. There is a science to it and following a systematic program and progressively overloading is the way to go.
And especially if you're in perimenopause and menopause. building muscle is harder than it used to be. So you need to do it kind of in the right way using a system and shameless plug here. I have a learn to [00:07:00] lift course, and I also run learn to lift group programs. I'll be running the next one here in January of 2025. So if you're interested in those check the show notes, but systematic weight training, 
I started actually by doing an online program where it was more like a group fitness class in that there was an instructor there and then you were doing the exercises with her and she, claims to be, you know, a strength training class and a hypertrophy class.
In other words, muscle building class, but it is very, very difficult to really make progress in a group class format, i. e. Where you've got a teacher and then they're leading the exercises and you need to do it for a certain amount of time and yeah, it really is quite challenging.
There's a reason why [00:08:00] bodybuilders Don't go to group fitness classes to build their muscle. There's a reason they're in the gym and they're lifting alone and they're following a program. It's because that is the right way to build muscle. And even if you don't want to become a bodybuilder, and I certainly don't want to become a bodybuilder, that's how you're going to build the muscle that you want to build. Okay. Following a progressive, consistent strength training program.
All right, so let's get into the 10 benefits of weight training. And actually this is a really tough, uh, list to make because yeah, there are different ways to look at the different things, but here we go. So number one is. Improved body composition. So what does that mean? Right now? probably what you've noticed is that you have lost muscle tone and Gained body fat, right?[00:09:00] 
So that is a body composition of having more fat less Muscle when you start weight training what you are doing is you are putting Building muscle. So you start to bring more muscle onto the table that makes you start to look more toned. So that's one piece of looking more toned is that you have more muscle on your body.
Then the other piece of looking more toned is losing some of that body fat, some of that subcutaneous subcutaneous fat, which is, you know, hanging out between your muscle and your skin. And that is something that you will be able to achieve through doing a little bit of a calorie deficit. So, for example, for me, for my age, My journey from looking blobby to toned again after menopause was that I spent the first year and a half building muscle, [00:10:00] like really focusing on that.
And even during that time I was able to do body recomposition. In other words, my fat percentage dropped and my muscle percentage. Went up, I was doing body composition measurements. And then after a year and a half of weight training, I did a cut. So went on a diet and lost 10 pounds in about 10 weeks. And that's when my muscle became more obvious, right? Because I took away that layer that was hiding it. So. Improving your body composition is a huge benefit of weight training.
Second thing is decreasing visceral fat. So visceral fat is that fat that you have around your midsection and it's in between your organs and it makes your pants feel [00:11:00] tighter. Your waist has gotten bigger and is a consequence of. Estrogen decreasing in your body, your body starts to shift the fat stores around and it moves your fat into visceral fat stores and that kind of sucks.
That's one of the things that women really, really complain about is they're getting this belly fat, this meno belly and What weight training does when you are lifting heavy weights, not these tiny weights that you go into group fitness classes and you're feeling the burn, but when you start systematic strength training and applying progressive overload and lifting heavy for you, it actually triggers your body to start using that visceral fat.
And that way you can start to lose it. In fact, I had one, client who did my 10 week learn to lift at home course. And in 10 weeks of weight [00:12:00] training twice a week, just twice a week at home with only dumbbells. So it doesn't even require much equipment. She sent me her before and after pictures. Which, by the way, I don't normally collect from people, but it was unbelievable.
The change in her visceral fat amount.
Her side view had shrunk like significantly and it wasn't that she was standing there with her. tummy poking out in one picture and sucked in in the other. It was really a significant change. Now, I'm not saying that everybody is going to see that big a change in 10 weeks, but that was like an amazing kind of proof of this fact that you lose the visceral fat.
And it was something that I noticed as well, right away when I started weight training. In fact, in the body composition measurements that I was doing, it measures visceral fat. And that was the first thing to drop like a stone for me.
Okay. And number three should kind of go without saying is that when you're a strength [00:13:00] training, you increase your strength. And that is. useful for doing everything around the house. So your muscles actually get stronger because they're growing and they're learning how to lift heavier things. So they are going to get stronger, but in addition to your muscles, your ligaments and your tendons, which get weaker as estrogen walks out the door, they are stimulated to get stronger as well.
Because your tendons and your ligaments, get stressed, i. e. they have like pressure put on them when you're lifting weights and when pressure gets put on them, then your body's response is that, Hey, I need to make this stronger and more resilient to handle this pressure that Lynn is getting on her body. And therefore those areas get stronger as well. So, strength training, like the actual [00:14:00] exercise of strength training, gets not only your muscles, but also your tendons and your ligaments stronger.
And by the way, one of the other things, number four, is it helps your muscles to contract more strongly. This is another thing that happens as estrogen walks out the door, is that your contraction, like your muscles change in how they contract. Strongly, they can contract and when you're lifting heavy for you, you are retraining your muscles, your body basically to be able to get that kind of strong contraction out of your muscles so that you can open those jar lids so that you have some power to boost yourself on to a Bench or into a bus or whatever it may be that you need to do so that strong contraction This is something that's not talked about very many places I don't hear about it on social media, but that is one of the things [00:15:00] that changes with the menopause Process is that your ability to contract your muscles gets weaker and strength training gets that back for you
All right, and then number five is bone density. Now this is a big one because osteoporosis is a scary thing and probably you haven't even given it much thought, but the fact is that our bones are, our bone density is at its highest level in our twenties. And when we hit about age 30, our bone density starts to decline and the decline is gradual.
It's about 0. 4 percent per year. Okay. That's still not great to be like getting less and less dense bones because you need those bones to be strong. Now, when you hit those years right around age 50, that [00:16:00] decline in bone strength increases tenfold. So ten times faster you are losing your bone density. If you imagine that your bones are like a container that has little amounts of bone tissue, imagine it's like filled with beads, right?
I mean, this is just a visualization, but imagine that those beads are taken out at a certain rate. So there's a lot more just air in there. It's going to be much more brittle, right? And then around menopause, they take them out 10 times faster. You have a huge decline in your bone density around menopause and weight training has been shown to be able to increase bone density even post menopause.
So really, really important and it has to do the same kind of mechanism as [00:17:00] what I talked about with the tendons and the ligaments that because they are. Feeling the additional strain that you're putting on them when you're doing the weight training, then the bones start to respond. Your body says, Hey, wait a second. My bones are getting tugged on harder, so I better make them stronger so they can withstand being tugged on. And therefore your body starts to make your bones, stronger again.
I have a friend who had an unfortunate incident in a bar where a drunk guy was like falling on her. She reached out with her hand to stop him and broke her wrist, which is a little bit like really just stopping somebody from falling on you. You can break your wrist,
but that's how she discovered that she has osteoporosis and it turns out that her mom had it, her aunt, her uncle, you know, like is in her family [00:18:00] history, but she never really thought about it and doctors are not proactively asking that. Hey, do you have a family history? So please, now that you've heard this, please ask your own mother.
And your parents, whoever, you know, is around still of your older generation, uh, that you're related to, how is their bone health? And if there are any signs of osteoporosis up there, then get your own bones checked out. And weight training is a great way to start getting your own bones stronger.
And I recommend that you train, of course, your whole body. But focusing also on things that are training your lower body, your legs, your leg bones and your pelvic bone, your hip bone. Those are really important to keep strong. So doing lower body exercises, doing glute exercises are important for that.
It's [00:19:00] been estimated that over 40 percent of women will experience a bone fracture after menopause. So this is not a joke. It is very likely that you will break a bone if your bones are not strong. And most of these people have not been weight training. Most women are not weight training or doing anything to keep their bones stronger.
And hip fractures, for example, are associated with a 15 to 20 percent higher risk of mortality in the year after you fracture your hip. So that is huge, right? You think about like you fall. You break a hip and that could be the end of it for you, right? So please take that seriously as well. And it's a great benefit of weight training.
Okay. We're up to number six. And that is that weight training is a [00:20:00] great way to maintain joint health. So you may be noticing your knees are not so happy, elbows, shoulders, whatever, and especially knees. So that's one of my weak points has been my knees, actually my hips as well. I had, I had probably a decade of hip issues until one physical therapist noticed that, oh, it's because your left hamstring is totally not doing any work here. And then once I started strengthening my left hamstring, then everything got better. And a little over a year ago. So I got some real pain in my knee and the orthopedic surgeon said, Hey, get back into the weight room is really important for you to maintain your leg strength to support this arthritic knee that you have.
So super important, of course, if you do have age related wear and tear [00:21:00] injuries and all those kinds of things, please do consult your doctor, physical therapist or orthopedic surgeon, some specialist before you get started, there may be certain exercises that they recommend more or certain things that they tell you you shouldn't be doing.
But generally, I would say that you can work with your aging body. There are so many exercises out there that you can do. Even when I couldn't bend my knee, I found exercises that I could do to keep my leg muscles, my glute muscles, Strong and functional as I slowly worked back to being able to bend my knee properly.
Number seven. So prevents frailty and functional decline. You may have noticed that it's not so fun to carry in the groceries anymore. Or maybe you're having trouble picking up your son's hockey bag [00:22:00] or the suitcase, putting it on the conveyor belt. You're asking for the red cap to help you when you're traveling. Well, this is decline that is happening already. And we have decades to go. Do you want to be dependent on other people or do you want to be able to manage on your own? One story from one of my clients who was in my group program for 10 weeks, strength training twice a week at the gym. And by the end of the 10 weeks, she was like, I just feel so much better about the fact that I can manage on my own. And she gave the example of she'd been dog sitting. And so she had this huge crate in her house and the dog was big. And she realized that. Hey, she could actually even pick up this big dog, which she hadn't been able to do before. And then some man had come over and been like, Oh, do you want me to help you [00:23:00] move that crate, you know, from one place to another? And she was like, you know, I don't need help. And that is so empowering, you know, that you can do it on your own, that you can manage. And. Means that you can feel a lot more secure about your future, that you don't need to be dependent on other people if you can keep your body and your muscles strong.
And by the way, it affects things that you wouldn't even think of, like, for example, being able to cross the street before the light changes. I mean, have you ever seen an old person who's like really struggling to get across the street? I mean, imagine how stressful that is for them. That they know that. Oh my God, if I cross the street, that car is going to have to wait or I'm not going to make it across. It's going to turn red before I get there. A lot of the frailty comes from their muscles just not being powerful enough. Your glute muscles are important for you to [00:24:00] be able to stand upright and to be able to propel yourself. Forward faster. So, you know, big glutes ain't just to fill out your jeans, though. That's nice too.
Number nine is something that you maybe haven't thought of or even known about. They have now studied that different types of exercising does have an effect on your mood and weight training is one that has been associated with alleviating depression. Now, I'm not saying that skip going to therapy or stop taking your anti depressants, but it can really help to elevate your mood to go strength training.
And number nine is just the way you feel when you are strength training. So many women think, Oh, I'm not really the lifting type. And then they start lifting and they're like, wow, it just [00:25:00] feels really so good. You know, you just feel kind of badass out there lifting, being strong, you know, in control of those weights, pushing yourself. It really makes you feel, I don't know. It's very hard to describe, but it is an amazing benefit. Gives you some confidence, better posture, all the things. Plus, you look a little nicer in your clothes, too.
Okay, and number 10, now this is one that you probably haven't really heard much about because it is more technical, biological, and this is reversed mitochondrial aging. Now, you can think of the mitochondria as tiny power plants in your cells that produce the energy that you need to do everything. So moving, thinking, breathing.
And what happens is that as we age, these [00:26:00] little power plants become less efficient. And that's one reason that we feel more tired, that our metabolism slows down. But what strength training does is it's like a tune up for these little power plants and it helps your body to create more of them and make them work better. So what that means for you kind of in your daily life is that you have more energy, more muscle endurance, improved recovery. and reduced risk of metabolic diseases like type two diabetes. So actually you'll not only feel stronger and more energetic, but you'll be better equipped to take on life. So whether that's hitting the gym or keeping up with your family or thriving in your busy day to day.
Now, given all that, isn't it the year to really actually [00:27:00] get started, add the weight training to your life because what happens if you don't do it? Remember that too. If you don't weight train, if you don't start strengthening your muscles you'll get weaker, If you're not weight training your ligaments and your tendons, they will get weaker. Your joints will start not functioning quite as well. You will become less equipped to handle everyday life. If you get sick, it's going to be harder for you to recover because what small amount of muscle that you have is going to be taxed by not moving and it's going to be harder to get back up and going. So having A strong body is not only about like [00:28:00] looking great, which is amazing, but it's also about getting through life better and preparing for aging and maybe illness that comes up ahead and being able to survive that better. And every day that you wait, your body is getting weaker. I mean, I hate to sound alarmist, but that is the fact. It doesn't stop declining. Your muscles every single day, a little bit weaker, your bone density, a little bit weaker. So just stop that, right? Get started weight training. And it doesn't take a lot. Much twice a week of following a progressive weight training program, and you will halt the decline and start to get stronger. Get your bones stronger, get your joints and ligaments stronger and start feeling stronger. Okay. [00:29:00] All right. I'll get off my soapbox now.
But I will quickly run down the list of what we covered today. So the 10 benefits of weight training, like actual, the exercise of going in and lifting weights, applying progressive overload and lifting heavy for you are, it will improve your body composition, decrease visceral fat. Strengthen your muscles, your tendons, your ligaments. It will allow your muscles to contract more strongly so that you can do things like taking the lids off of jars. Increase your bone density, so you're less likely to fracture a bone. Improves your joint health. Makes you feel great. Can alleviate depression. It prevents frailty and functional decline. And finally, reverses [00:30:00] mitochondrial aging. So huge benefits that you can get twice a week, 45 to 60 minutes sessions. And if you want to get started, I have the programs for you. Just check the show notes. And with that, I leave you till next week when we're going to talk about why it's so great to have muscle on your body.
And until then, I wish you happy training.