Ideal Movement for Midlife - Peri Menopause and beyond!
The key components to ideal movement in your midlife are:
Cardio - HIIT Training (2 x week)
Resistance - Lift Heavy (low reps 2-3 / week)
Plyo - impact training (2-3 / week)
Supplementary - mobility, stability, core (accessory to your lifting)
REST - recovery activities (yin yoga, walking, doing nothing)!
As we approach midlife, and menopause there is a message to slow down, don’t hurt yourself, take it easy. The training (if any) you have done in the past is likely not the same that is going to serve you best in the future.
But just because you need to tweak what you are doing, does not mean, slow down, you actually NEED the opposite… in the right doses. You need to turn up the intensity and dial down the volume.
Cardio - HiiT Training
What is it: Short bursts of intense exercise alternated with generous recovery
Why: There is so much research to support the benefits of HiiT training for all people.
Increased insulin sensitivity
Increased metabolic function andimproved body composition
increases Human Growth Hormone & testosterone
Reduces estradiol
Reduces inflammation
Helps with iron storage
Has been shown to help to reduce stubborn belly fat
Stress reducer - cortisol rises during menopause (one factor in belly fat) there is a relationship between fat and cortisol and it cycles around making each other worse - HIIT helps to break this cycle.
Improves blood pressure, increases your overall cardiovascular health - linked to reduction in hot flashes (because it makes your red blood cells more responsive, your body can cool and heat effectively)
Hiit is SO important for peri & menopausal women (pre & post) as it can provide the metabolic stimulus to trigger performance boosting & body composition changes that your hormones took care of in earlier years.
Effective HiiT training coaxes your body to into using fat for energy when you’re not exercising, because HiiT is intense it demands carbohydrates as fuel, which means at rest your body uses fat because it was every ounce of carbs stored ready to deploy when you ask it to perform HiiT again.
The key is INTENSITY. In these years you want the shortest, sharpest form of hiit.
How: THE KEY - DO NOT OVER DO IT!
The right amount works wonders! But too much can backfire and work against you.
2 x sessions / week are enough
Pick the type of exercise that works for you best - which is the one you can push yourself the hardest
Sprints, squat jumps, mountain climbers, snatches, KB swings, or some other full body exercises that you can push yourself hard in.
Start with:
5 Rounds - 20 seconds of work + 40 seconds of rest
3-5 mins rest
5 Rounds - 20 seconds of work + 40 seconds of rest
DONE
Work up to:
5 Rounds - 30 seconds of work + 30 seconds of rest
5 mins rest
5 Rounds - 30 seconds of work + 30 seconds of rest
5 mins rest
5 Rounds - 30 seconds of work + 30 seconds of rest
DONE
Resistance/Strength Training - LIFT HEAVY
So even though HiiT is super important, if you do nothing else STRENGTH TRAIN
What is it: Increasing the maximum force your muscles can produce
Why: Muscle is your engine. You need it to do life.
Muscle is very easy to lose, especially once you hit the menopause.
You lose 8%/decade from the age of 30 and that is accelerated after the age of 60.
Estrogen is essential for building muscle mass and strength.
While everyone will lose some strength and muscle over time, even though estrogen is declining, you most definitely can put muscle back on, and retain more of it through properly performed strength training, and the most effective way to do this is to LIFT HEAVY.
Lifting smaller weights for higher reps builds muscle endurance, which is important, but what you need is STRENGTH. Building true strength is a matter of increasing the maximum force your muscle can produce in a single contraction - how much you can move or lift in one go. To improve that you need to send your brain a serious message that the muscles have important work to do and you need all the muscle fibres available to do this work. You need to get those nerves firing and establish neuromuscular connections to create a really strong contraction and produce explosive power.
Heavy Lifting is just really good for your health:
Increased Metabolic Rate - strong muscles take more energy to exist, which means you use more calories while at rest which speeds up your metabolism.
It also helps you burn more fat while exercisingImproved Posture and Stability - joint strength and stability become an issue with age, and the onset of menopause. Higher levels of inflammation commence in peri menopause and your tendons lose a bit of strength and tension. Lifting heavy weights can combat this and improve it.
Stronger Bones: improves bone mineral density
Better Blood Pressure: Weights improve your cardio. It makes your blood vessels dilate and contract more readily which gives you better blood pressure control, better blood flow to and from your muscles, and better blood flow to and from your skin.
Also helps with hot flashes because your body can cool and heat effectively.Maintenance of healthy body composition: helps maintain lean muscle and reduces fat gain. Lifting HEAVY sends your muscles a message saying we need to be as strong as possible to overcome this stress!
Fewer Sick days: Helps with immunity - it stimulates the growth and activity of immune cells, which also helps to reduce inflammation.
How: Lift heavy for big compound lifts (squat, DL, bench etc)
You are not lifting like this for every exercise in your program.
Resistance Training 2-3 / week
With 4-6 sets of 3-5 reps
This is something you do need to build up to and I suggest doing it with a coach, at least initially because you need to learn to do it safely.
You will need guidance on load and technique as you build up to lifting in the lower rep range effectively and safely.
Other key elements:
You need to warm up properly
You need to have REST between sets up to 2 mins or more - 1 min as the absolute minimum, the lower the reps the higher the rest required
Plyo - jump training
What is it: Plyo is about impact. It's jumping, hopping, bounding or any other way you can intentionally give your bones and muscle extra stimulus in different movement planes, that comes when you push off against gravity and land back down. It is those impacts that produce results.
Why: A 2019 study on adults 58 - 79 who did plyo showed improvements in strength, bone health, body comp, posture and performance. The study did not report increased injuries or any other adverse effects.
Plyo stimulates genes inside your muscle cells that stimulate them to improve power and improves integrity, response and reaction time, also stimulates and builds energy producing cells
It preserves metabolic health, and improves insulin sensitivity
Creates a strong skeleton - this is so important - important for bone development and maintenance. Women can lose up to 20% of bone density within 5 years post menopause - that is 1/5 of skeletal strength!
Resistance training helps but to improve this you need to JUMP!
You want to create multidirectional stress on your skeleton (tennis, squash, basketball, volleyball, netball all give multidirectional Plyo stress)
How: You need to build up to it, but you can get there relatively quickly with the right guidance.
You only need a small amount to get huge benefits, 10 mins - 3 x week is enough.
Some example exercise: squat jumps, star jumps, side hops, skipping, jump lunges, hopping, mountain climbers, skaters, death jump (sounds scary hey but you just jump off a box or step landing on the ground)