This is the third part of my three- part series, Gym for Girls, Ladies that Lift, and now, Women and Weights. (Do you see the theme here?)
In my first article in this series, I talked about the benefits of training for young girls. I then spoke about lifting for ladies, and that applies to all of us past our teens and well into ‘middle age’. I note that I’ve used the terms training, gym and weights interchangeably in these articles, but today I am specifically talking about lifting weights. Resistance training with dumbbells and barbells, to be precise. And those resistance machines if you have access to them are good too.
Today’s article is for women of a certain age… the age I’m now approaching, after spending five decades on this beautiful planet and now navigating ‘the change’, I’d like to talk about weights for women my own age. By the way, I don’t know why they call it ‘the change’. By the time you get to this age, you have come to realise that the only true constant in life is change; everything changes, so having your own personal summers in the middle of winter is just one more on the list of surprises life throws at you, right? If you’re already lifting and approaching this age, I am here to tell you to carry on, this is not the time to stop! And if you’ve never touched the weights before, I’m here to tell you that this is definitely the time to start!
Firstly, I want to address the small but real cohort that still believe that lifting weights is only for men. Let’s knock that stereotype on the head right now! Strength is feminine. To be feminine is to be strong. Seriously, how could women do all the amazing things they do if they were not strong? We run corporations and households simultaneously, often carrying the mental loads for the entire family. Not only is strong sexy and feminine, being strong is an essential requirement for women to function in society today. Even if you’ve never thought of yourself as strong, if you reflect on all you have achieved and overcome by this point in your life, I’m sure you’ll agree that you are in fact strong.
But Jenny, you say, ‘I’m over 50, I am confident, I have had a good life, I love every inch of my body and how every line and scar and wrinkle is a testament to a life lived fully.’ To which I say, ‘Go you. Keep that energy and share it with all around you.’ Confidence is something we do tend to achieve by this age, and that healthy art of not giving a f*ck what others thing has developed in most of us, and long may it last. But I’m not talking about weights for aesthetic purposes or even to compete at this point. I am saying hit the weights so you can continue to live life to its fullest. Because lifting weights has amazing health benefits, especially for women our age, i.e., women who are experiencing a pronounced drop in estrogen. As you no doubt know, estrogen is a hormone that plays a part in reproductive health. But what you may not know is that it plays a part in a fair few other processes. So, lifting weights at this age can have dramatic benefits that directly combat that drop. Here are just a few:
- Lifting weights builds muscle. Estrogen plays a part in muscle synthesis, so as our estrogen levels decrease, we need to lift weights just to maintain what we have, and definitely need to life if we want to build more. Muscle mass is also a primary indicator of longevity. I’m not talking about walking around looking like something off the set of Gladiators, I just mean basic functional muscle. We take our muscles for granted, but use them for literally everything, from getting out of bed and walking to driving a car to pushing a shopping trolley to lifting something off the top shelf of our closet. We need muscles to function. They also help us maintain our balance and loss of muscle mass is directly correlated to increased risk of falls in older women. Muscle tissue also burns more calories than soft issue, so lifting weights improves our metabolism and helps us maintain a healthy body weight when hormone fluctuations may make it harder to stay the same size.
- Weightlifting strengthens bones and staves off osteoporosis by increasing bone density. Few people realise that estrogen also plays a part in bone maintenance and growth. So, when it declines, we are at increased risk of fractures and breaks. This can be mitigated by adding in resistance training. Cardio won’t do here girls. It has to be weights. It is the tension placed on our bones when we lift weights that tells them to get stronger, thus helps maintaining and increasing density.
There is a growing body of evidence and studies indicating that the latest weight loss drugs have an unwanted side effect of osteoporosis. What does that mean? You guessed it. Anyone, of any age, that has been prescribed one of these medications should be lifting weights to mitigate bone loss!
- Estrogen also affects how our bodies respond to insulin, which is a hormone that regulates blood sugar. Resistance and weight training uses lots of energy, thus moving sugar out of our bloodstream faster and improving insulin sensitivity. So, long story short, weightlifting lowers risk of adult onset diabetes.
- We normally think of cardiovascular exercise for decreasing and maintaining body weight. But as we build muscle, our metabolism increases and we burn more calories throughout the day, not just during the workout itself. This is because muscle tissue requires more fuel overall than adipose, so weightlifting increases metabolism, which is something that often slows with hormonal changes. Therefore, lifting weights helps maintain body weight.
- Weight training may actually reduce hot flashes! In one May 2019 study in Maturitas, postmenopausal people who completed a 45-minute resistance workout three times a week had half as many hot flashes as inactive people after 15 weeks. The study authors surmise that neurotransmitters released during lifting may help our brains control and stabilize body temperature, ultimately cutting back on the number of hot flashes.
So there are just a few reasons why weight lifting is for women. This article is meant to be a quick read, so I have not cited all the science and sources here. But anyone interested in the sources is welcome to get in touch with me, or google it yourself. I know it sounds too good to be true to think that something as simple as weightlifting can have so many benefits, at every single stage of a woman’s life, but the facts are the facts.
Now that you know, what time are you going to the gym?