Why should the type of training change as you enter your 40s?
As we gain more experience in life as a women our body change.
Actually, the body of a female might change often. Puberty, pregnancy, post-partuum, perimenopause, postmenopause.
The biggest part of the life women are in the Post Menopause, since humans are getting older.
And still, we know almost nothing about this time of a women. As soon as women are in the post menopause that’s the new normal, how the body feels and look.
That’s why it is most crucial to know what is happening in the women body to mitigate symptoms and stay in control, eventhough when you feel out off controll.
Let us have a deep dive.
This image shows the 5 years before the official Menopause, the day without having a period for over one year. You see how wild Progesterone and Estrogen are having their ups and downs? For a comparison, how the normal menstrual cycle looks like.
During this time women will have more often cycles without ovulation but they will still have a bleeding. During this time, without ovulation the body cannot produces a lot of progesterone. You can see this in the first image, when there are cycle without Progesterone. The hormones LH and FSH will rise and fire up to work harder to produce an egg for ovulation.
When you are not sure, if you are in your Perimenopause, you can check your FSH Level. It will be elevated, when you are in this time of your life.
Effects of flatlining Hormones
This hormonal shift in the body change how you are reacting to training and nutrition. So when you have the feeling that nothing is working and you do not get there where you want to be.
Don’t worry. It is because of the change of estrogen and the loss of the sensitivity of the estrogen receptors, which makes it difficult to react with a certain change of body composition and the gain of power and strength. So it is not you. Traditional methods are not adequate for improving bone, muscle and body composition.
When the hormones are slowly flatling, this is happening too
decreased sensitivity to insulin
increased body inflammation
reduces stimulus for bone turnover
cognitive changes and mood disorders
dysregulation of myosin - loss of power and strength
decrease of progesterone which helps with relaxing and calming
decrease of estrogen, which helps with bone health and muscle building
Because of these changes you have to look for an external stressor that will cause positive adaptions like estrogen and progesterone used to do.
Why you need to change your training?
These mentioned changes makes it difficult to react to a training stimulus. So you need the right training to change body composition, to build strength and power to increase longevitiy.
We need High intensity training, heavy resistance training and plyometric training.
Endurance is during this phase of life not the best way to go because it does not have the benefits we are looking for to change body composition.
For example the plyometric training aka jump training improves bone mineral density, running will NOT increase bone mineral density. We need a multidirectional force.
We need more intensity work and not long work.
When women are getting in the perimenopause their tend to get more enduranced, which why their don’t need to train more for that because with that their lose power and strength and lean body mass.
High intensity Intervall Training (HIIT)
Theres a study from 40 postmenopausal women, which trained 3x a week for 8 weeks sprint intervall training (SIT) for 20 min. 8 sec sprints, 12 sec light run. The outcome was:
increased total lean mass
decreased fat mass
increased aerobic fitness
and this after 8h of exercise over 8 weeks.
There is another study from 2010 where there compare three differentes types of training:
Moderate intense training
High Intense Training
High Intense Training and Strength Training
in Postmenopausal Women. The result shows that the high intensitiy Training burns more abdominal fat than the moderate intensitiy Training but longer one. The Strength training has ‘just’ the effect of an higher muscle mass but the combination of High intensity Training and strength training increased the total fat free mass and increased muscle mass.
The third study from 2019 shows the difference on the change of body composition and inflammation markers from different style of training. There is one group with a moderate intensity (70%) and combination with resistance training at 70% of one repetition maximum and the other group with a high intensity training (over 80%) for 12 weeks, 3x a week. Eventhough both groups reduces body fat, the group with the high intensity training reduced more significant abdominal fat and improved inflammatory markers.
Benefits of HIIT
blood glucose control
helps with inflammation in body
improves cognition
greater growth hormone response
increase estrogen and counters cortisol
decrease visceral fat and body weight
increase fat metabolism (fat is used and not stored)
There a two different styles of high intensity work. Sprint intervall training (SIT) is another way to get these HIIT Benefits but also more.
Benefit of SIT
increase lean mass
decrease fat mass
helps the body to use protein
What is difference between HIIT and SIT?
It is basically the time, the intensity and recovery.
With HIIT you should be at a maximal heart rate over 80%, in comparision to SIT, where you should have over 100% of the power output.
HIIT is not as hard as possible, it is more metabollic, the work intervall is over 1 min with a varible rest period.
With SIT you have an intense anaerobic exercise until you are too exhausted to continue. The work interval is under 30 sec. Total time is under 20 min and should not be over it. It shall be short and intense and the rest time should be only so long that you can hit the next interval.
2. Plyometric Training
Women loose power and speed and strength, especially when the hormones estrogen and progesterone are dropping, which usually supports them. Estrogen is especially important for bone health and bone mineral diversity.
But we still have a choice. A choice to support our body and our health best, with the right training.
Jump Training oder Plyometric Training as multidirectional training is an important factor for joint and bone health.
If you cannot jump yet, there a plenty options to start, with lower reps, more weight, longer rest, in the water or upper body plyo work. This work is not about reps, it is about building power.
3. Strength Training
There is a difference between strength and hypertrophy. The best benefits as a peri- and postmenopausal women are within strength training, which are not necessary increasing muscle size but force. With an appropiate strength training gives the body an external stressor which triggers the central nervous system to change body composition.
An important part during strength training is the rest time in between sets. The body needs enough rest to really trigger the central nervous system. If you just do a break of 30 seconds it will be just a metabolic stimulus and not central nervous system stress, which you need.
So the goal should be 3-5 repitions, 3-5 minutes break in between, 3-5 Sets.
And of course, if you never liftet before you should not start with this kind of strength training. Before you go heavy the quality of the movement must be good, you should feel safe while during these exercises. Quality goes all the time before weight progression. That’s why even though you can always start with lifting, the earlier you start and you get used to the exercises, the easier will be the transition to heavy strength training.
You want to start with an appropiate training for you as a women in your 40+ and you never trained before? Join the Empower40+ membership and have live workouts from home to teach you the right exercise excecution, the right training for you as a female. On top of this you have the option to join guest speakers about topics for females over 40+.
