Why strength training for women during/after menopause
This topic comes up regularly during my coaching conversations.
What is the reason that (among other things) strength training is so important during menopause?
Let's start with what happens in the body during menopause.
During menopause, the production of the female hormones estrogen and progesterone is reduced by up to 50 percent. These hormones play a major role in the energy balance and composition of your body. The consequences are physical changes; in particular an increase in fat around your organs, a decrease in bone density and a decrease in muscle mass and strength.
The increase in fat storage also increases your risk of cardiovascular disease.
What is the best thing you can do?
We can restore the balance through training on the one hand and nutrition on the other. Any form of exercise is of course better than staying seated, but exercise with a load is more beneficial than exercise without exercise. More specifically, power training (lifting in combination with speed) probably has an even greater influence on the physical constitution as we get older than traditional strength training (relatively slow lifting).
Due to menopause, as a woman you lose the stimulus from estrogen for strength building. The hormone is essential for regenerating the cells that are needed for this and to give these cells a boost, resistance training is needed. Heavy lifting gives you just the stimulus you need when estrogen decreases. Other benefits are that you will burn more fat, it stimulates the production of bone cells and it also benefits your cardiovascular system.
With a view to the 'power' part, given that the female body is basically more adapted to endurance training and the speed and power in the body decreases as we get older (both in men and women), it is important to aim high intensity to sit down. That high intensity, fully opening the throttle, not only ensures activation in the muscle, but also ensures that the body does not store extra fat around the organs, or visceral fat. Instead of it going to the abdomen, muscles can now use it as fuel during exercise.
To level the playing field a little more, it is also important to pay close attention to your protein intake. And if you combine that with carbohydrates from vegetables and fruit, your intestines will also thank you.
So, to compensate for that hormone fluctuation and imbalance you need strength training in combination with high intensity training and extra protein. Due to menopause, your body no longer receives a number of signals that it normally received, but with the right training we can give your body the push it needs!
Björn Aertssen
Enforce Master Trainer
bjorn@enforce.nl
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