It is thanks to high-profile women such as Oprah Winfrey and others that so much valuable and, frankly, sanity-saving guidance in navigating menopause has become widely accessible. 😅

When I entered perimenopause in my 40’s we hardly spoke of it. Nowadays my friends and I are very open about our symptoms and what we have found works and doesn’t work. However, with most things, not one size fits all and you do have to do your research to find what works for you. However, what I am going to share below are practical tips and strategies now available in the public domain on how perimenopausal and menopausal women can support themselves, is through exercise. 🏋️‍♂️

But what exercise is best for menopause?

Here’s a little-known fact…it’s not just any exercise…but exercising to increase physical power. This type of exercise is referred to as power training.  Physical power gained through power training is strength exercises but carried out at a more rapid rate than traditional strength training.
Let’s explore power training in more detail and how it can help in the menopause journey. 

The Importance of Physical Power in Menopause

Power is not just strength, but strength plus speed. Unfortunately, one of the effects of menopause is a loss of physical power.  Losing the physical power we had as younger pre-menopausal women can lead to a slower reaction time in which to exert force.

What Does Loss of Physical Power Mean?

Loss of physical power means that the chance of us experiencing bad falls can increase and, as a consequence, can lower our self-confidence.
The good news is that loss of power can be reversed through consistent power training 👍.

Exercises to Build Physical Power

An authority in the sphere of active women’s health is international exercise physiologist and nutrition scientist, Dr Stacey Sims. Dr Sims’s overarching aim is to revolutionise exercise, nutrition and performance for women (check out her website here.

Included in Dr Sims’s suite of female health expertise is the menopause …from peri right through to the post menopause stages.

In Dr Sims’s blog How to Power Your Way Through Menopause link, the focus is on what exercises are best for building power over the menopause trajectory so that women are empowered both physically and in an overall sense of the word. 💪

According to Dr Sims, there are three pillars of training that are essential for power, and which are especially beneficial for women in the menopausal phase and beyond.

These are:

• Heavy lifting – to maximise strength.
• Plyometrics – exercises where muscles exert maximum force in short intervals        of time   and with the aim of increasing power
• HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) – involves short, intense bursts of exercise followed by typically longer periods of rest.

And taking a look at each of these power training exercises in a little more detail 👀 :

Heavy Lifting

Why (is this important for Menopause)?
Estrogen provides a strength-building stimulus by regenerating muscle stem cells (also known as satellite cells) and these stem cells help us maintain our muscles. So, when estrogen levels decline through the menopause phases, this leads to a reduction in muscle mass and as a result less physical power.

Heavy lifting helps to regenerate the stem cells through taking on the role of estrogen as the strength inducer. Furthermore, heavy lifting brings about additional benefits in the form of improving fat-burning metabolism, building bones, and maintaining cardiovascular health. 🙌 

How (do I do this)?
According to Dr. Sims:

Aim for 3 to 5 sets of 6 or fewer reps with full rest (i.e. 2 to 5 minutes) between sets. Form is everything. You should be able to complete every rep with good form. When you can’t, you’re done. Heavy lifting is best done on “big lifts” like deadlifts, squats, lunges, and other Olympic lifts that spread the force out among your major muscles, connective tissues, and joints.

Check out this video on how to perform a weighted deadlift. Here

Plyometrics

Why (is this important for Menopause)?

Bone mass decreases during menopause due to a reduction in estrogen. A lowering of bone mass can increase the risk of developing Osteoporosis. Osteoporosis is when bones become thinner through loss of bone density thereby causing bones to fracture more easily. 🦴

How to build bone density.

Plyometrics can assist in reducing the risk of developing osteoporosis by building bone density. Dr Sims states that plyometrics helps build bone density and furthermore appears to wake up some otherwise very quiet genes inside your muscle cells that stimulate those cells to improve power and even the composition of the muscle itself in a way that improves the integrity of the muscle, its contractile strength, and its response and reaction time.

Dr Sims highlights two additional benefits from plyometrics which are important for women in menopause and these are:

✅ improved mitochondria function (relates to energy necessary for the cell’s survival and functioning)  

and 

✅ insulin sensitivity. 

How (do I do this)?
The suggestion by Dr Sims is to start with a simple squat jump. Do one set of 8-10 reps and work up to two sets. 

High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)

Why (is this important for Menopause)?

As active pre-menopausal women, our workout regimen may have included a couple, or more, High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) sessions each week. These HIIT sessions typically would involve very intense cardio exercises over an extended period of time and without any long periods of rest in between each exercise.
Can we continue this type of training through and beyond Menopause? According to Dr Sims, ‘no’ is the answer. Why?
Dr Sims explains that as soon as women become perimenopausal, our baseline cortisol (also known as the stress-hormone) level increases and we don’t want to further increase Cortisol unnecessarily as we navigate Menopause.

The great news is that all we need to do is to slightly modify how we do our HIIT (or SIT – Sprint Interval Training as they are sometimes referred to) workouts😀 

Instead of working out for say 45 minutes without a break, instead we break the workout down into short bursts of intense cardio activity followed by a rest interval and repeated in this way.
The benefits we gained from how we used to do our HIIT sessions will still be gained through the modified HIIT format… improved insulin sensitivity, stronger mitochondria, improved fat burning (especially deep visceral fat), and an ever-important boost of growth hormone once you have finished the session.👌

How (do I do this)?

Stacey describes this type of workout as true HIIT. Where you work as hard as you can for a short time with ample rest to recover to repeat. The aim is to complete 6 sets however start where you are and build up. 

This is an example: 

1. Short warm up
2. Set your timer for 60 sec.  
3. Start a strength-based exercise. Choose a weight which allows you to perform 10 reps. Such as squats or a deadlift or a chest press.
4. 4 Immediately after you complete your 10 reps, you perform an explosive exercise for the remainder of the minute as hard as you can. Something like squat jumps, mountain climbers, ball slams or kettlebell swings are a few good examples. 
5. Rest for 1 minute
6. Repeat no more than 6 sets. 
7. Stretch 

Another great advantage is that it done and dusted quickly so a great option also if you are time-poor! 🕐 😀         

The two most important things to remember here is 

1. As we age, and we enter perimenopausal we need different stimuli to create change. 
2. And we don’t train the same as men.