Why Lifting Is A Must In Menopause

Strong is the New Skinny. Here’s Why.

Skinny might have been the goal in the 90s.
Today? Strength is the standard.

Because strength = muscle mass, and muscle mass = health.

Let’s break it down:

💪 Muscle is metabolic gold — It burns more calories at rest and supports insulin sensitivity.
🦴 Muscle protects your bones — Strength training helps prevent osteoporosis and fractures.
🧠 Muscle supports your brain — Studies link higher muscle mass to better cognitive function as we age.
🛌 Muscle improves sleep and energy — Regular strength training is tied to deeper sleep and reduced fatigue.
❤️ Muscle reduces chronic disease risk — Including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and sarcopenia.
🌟 Muscle = independence — It keeps you mobile, steady, and strong into your 80s and beyond.

But here’s the kicker:
After 40, you lose up to 1% of your muscle every year—unless you actively work to maintain it.

Lift Your Way to Longevity: Strength Training for the Menopause Years

Keeping our muscle mass is important for many reasons, during menopause, a decline in estrogen makes us vulnerable to muscle loss, among other physical changes to our bones and joints. In fact, we can think of muscle, bone, and joints as Siamese triplets: they are inseparable, a change in one, impacts all of the others. There are many critical functions of muscles, including:

• Mobility & Motion. Muscles are essential for coordinated movement, stability, and balance. They allow us to move efficiently and help prevent injury through supporting joints and risk of falls and other injuries.

• Metabolic Manager. Muscles are active tissue that consume energy. They promote better glucose utilization, support healthy fat metabolism, helping with weight management and lipid balance. They are the fuel burners of the body. 

• Mood Moderator. Exercise, especially strength training can stimulate a training effect, or a short-term spike in testosterone, therefore promoting muscle growth and strength. When you stress the muscles through strength training, the body releases testosterone to recover and grow. Muscle also influences other hormones, indirectly benefiting estrogen and progesterone ratios. Exercise also causes the brain to release ‘happy chemicals’ such as endorphins which improve mood, reduce anxiety, and enhance cognitive function. This is why if you are feeling down or having troubles focusing, walking away from your work desk to exercise makes you more productive, effective, and a much more delightful colleague!

Muscles serve as a foundation for a woman’s overall wellness, influencing everything from metabolic processes to mental health and long-term independence. This means, we need muscles to keep us mobile, support healthy body weight, and prevent chronic disease such as heart disease, diabetes, and a host of other health issues. 

Women over 40 are however, highly sedentary. When researchers examine “NEAT” activities, these are all the things we do during the day such as house chores, walking around the office, and getting groceries, our activity level is higher but our strength training remains low. We require two to three times per week of heavy weights.

We sat down with Terri Marucci, owner of Perfect Form Personal Training Studio that has specialized in personalized strength training for over 20 years with a focus on peri and postmenopausal women. Here is some advice she shared for adding consistent strength training. 

Adding strength training consistently into our hectic lives is not easy. Here are some tips:

• Start small but focus on consistency and build from there

• Complete it first thing in the morning so life does not get in the way

• Find a friend to buddy with, if not doing the workout together, keeping each other accountable

• Hire a personal trainer or coach to make sure your efforts are doing what you need them to do

• Incorporate into your daily routine, if you have to take your child to practice, can you fit it in while you wait?

• Break it up into shorter workouts and complete throughout the day

• Drop the 'all or none' mindset. As women, we often think if we cannot complete something fully or perfectly, we should not do it all that day. If life has hijacked your workout, aim for a short do it where you are workout.

Weighted VEST

If you are looking for an easy way to start incorporating resistance training, consider an adjustable weighted vest. Weighted vests have been shown to improve bone mass, reduce fat mass, and improve lean body mass in some research studies. Here are some of the benefits:

• It is portable and you can fit into your activities of daily living already

• You can increase the weight in small increments. The goal is to have 8-10% of your body weight while using for walking. You can add weight to the vest after the walk and use it for a strength program

• It is one equipment purchase versus a set of dumbbells or other gym equipment

What Does It Mean to Lift Heavy?

It’s not about how much weight is on the dumbbell.
It’s about how you feel by the last rep.

💥 If you’re doing 10–12 reps, and by the final one you truly couldn’t do another without sacrificing your form—you’re lifting heavy enough.

That’s it. That’s the rule.
Form comes first. Always.

Lifting heavy isn’t about ego.
It’s about intensity, challenge, and muscle stimulation—especially important in perimenopause when muscle loss accelerates and strength becomes your superpower.

Don’t chase the number.
Chase the effort.

🧠 Your brain will say “I’m tired.”
💪 Your body will say “I’m getting stronger.”

Where to Start

Ready to start strength training but not sure where to begin?

 Start with a full-body workout that target your big muscle groups.
Why? 

Because working large muscle groups like your legs, glutes, back, and chest gives you the biggest return on your time—boosting strength, metabolism, and bone health.

Here’s a simple and effective structure:
💪 Choose 2–3 exercises per major muscle group🏋️‍♀️ Do 10–12 reps of each🔁 Repeat the whole circuit for 3 rounds
Examples:
Glutes/Legs: Squats, step-ups, deadliftsBack: Bent-over rows, pull-downs, reverse flysChest: Push-ups, chest presses, incline dumbbell pressesCore (bonus): Planks, dead bugs, bird-dogs

🎯 The key: By the end of each set, you should feel like you couldn’t do one more rep with perfect form. 

That’s how you know you're lifting "heavy enough."
This approach builds strength safely, supports muscle and bone health, and sets the foundation for longevity.
✨Start where you are. Focus on form. Feel yourself getting stronger.

Beavers KM, Walkup MP, Weaver AA, et al. Effect of Exercise Modality During Weight Loss on Bone Health in Older Adults With Obesity and Cardiovascular Disease or Metabolic Syndrome: A Randomized Controlled Trial. J Bone Miner Res. 2018;33(12):2140–2149. doi:10.1002/jbmr.3555 [PubMed: 30088288] 

 Blocquiaux S, Gorski T, Van Roie E, et al. The effect of resistance training, detraining and retraining on muscle strength and power, myofibre size, satellite cells and myonuclei in older men. Exp Gerontol. 2020;133. doi:10.1016/j.exger.2020.110860 

Roghani T, Torkaman G, Movasseghe S, Hedayati M, Goosheh B, Bayat N Effects of short-term aerobic exercise with and without external loading on bone metabolism and balance in postmenopausal women with osteoporosis. Rheumatol Int. 2013;33(2):291–298. doi: 10.1007/ s00296-012-2388-2 [PubMed: 22441962] 

Jessup JV, Home C, Vishen RK, Wheeler D Effects of Exercise on Bone Density, Balance, and Self-Efficacy in Older Women. Biol Res Nurs. 2003;4(3): 171–180. doi: 10.1177/1099800402239628 [PubMed: 12585781] 

Hakestad KA, Torstveit MK, Nordsletten L, Axelsson ÅC, Risberg MA Exercises including weight vests and a patient education program for women with osteopenia: A feasibility study of the osteoactive