Why women over 40 need strength training ~ especially if you’ve lived with pain
If you’re over 40 and have spent years managing back pain, aching hips, pelvic floor symptoms or recurring injuries, picking up a heavier dumbbell might feel like the last thing your body needs.
You may have become very good at protecting yourself.
Avoiding certain movements. Keeping weights light. Sticking to the exercises you know feel safe.
But there’s an important shift I want more women to understand:
Your body doesn’t just need protecting. It needs capacity.
And appropriately progressed strength training is one of the most effective ways we can build it.
What happens to our bodies after 40?
Midlife brings changes in muscle, bone and body composition. The menopause transition is associated with changes in muscle and bone health, making maintaining strength increasingly important.
NICE specifically recommends explaining the importance of maintaining muscle mass and strength through physical activity during menopause. UK physical activity guidelines recommend strengthening activities involving the major muscle groups on at least two days every week.
And the evidence goes further than simply maintaining what we have.
The American College of Sports Medicine’s latest resistance-training guidance supports progressive resistance training for improving muscular strength and hypertrophy. For muscle growth, training needs to provide enough stimulus to actually challenge the muscle.
In other words, your muscles need a reason to adapt.
That doesn’t mean lifting the heaviest dumbbell in the room or pushing yourself until you can’t complete another repetition.
It means gradually increasing what your body can tolerate.
But what if you have chronic pain?
This is where strength training can feel frightening.
Pain can understandably change the way we move. We may become cautious about bending, lifting or loading an area that has hurt before.
Persistent pain is influenced by far more than tissue alone. Sleep, stress, previous experiences, sensitivity of the nervous system, health and our beliefs about movement can all contribute.
For many people with persistent musculoskeletal pain, appropriately prescribed exercise is recommended as part of management. The goal isn’t to battle through significant pain.
It’s to rebuild capacity gradually.
That might begin with a bodyweight squat.
Then a light goblet squat.
Then 4kg.
Then 6kg.
The movement hasn’t suddenly become dangerous because you’ve added weight. You’ve progressively taught your muscles, bones and nervous system that they can handle more.
What does effective strength training look like?
You don’t need complicated exercises.
Think:
Squat. Lunge. Push. Pull.
For our November challenge, we’ll generally work around 10–15 repetitions, choosing a resistance where the final few repetitions feel challenging while you can still maintain good technique.
And then we repeat.
That’s important.
You don’t need endless new exercises to get stronger. You need consistency and progressive overload ~ gradually increasing the challenge as your body adapts.
DON’T RELY on gym membership, or going out in the dark to build your bone density and body composition. YOu can do it from the comfort of your own home
Pilates Meets Strength: November
This November inside my Online Pilates Studio, we’re combining the movement quality, breathing and control of Pilates with progressive strength training.
You’ll have recovery and mobility sessions alongside a repeatable 20-minute full-body strength workout, so you can actually see yourself progressing across the month.
If you’ve spent years feeling that your body is fragile, my aim isn’t to throw you into hard workouts.
It’s to help you discover just how capable your body can become.
Join my Online Studio for November’s Pilates Meets Strength Challenge and start building a body that’s not just flexible ~ but strong, resilient and ready for life.
