No, you’re not imagining things! Perimenopause marks a major shift in a woman’s body – with hormonal fluctuations impacting muscle tone, metabolism and energy levels. The right training approach can help counteract these changes, keeping you strong, lean, confident and even looking and feeling better than you’ve ever felt before! But you should educate yourself ahead of time and have a set “game plan” in place to remain on track. This perimenopause workout plan should help get you started.
Meet The Expert: Angelique van der Linde is a personal trainer for Legallyfit, a lawyer and mom of two.
Why Is It Important To Exercise During Perimenopause?
Call it the revenge of the middle-aged women if you will, but the fact is that women are taking better care of their health than ever before. And according to Discovery, the focus on women’s health is increasing worldwide.
Many women between the ages of 40 and 50 are fully embracing their “health-era” and it’s an important time to do that. Research published in found that women in their 40s and 50s who consistently exercised had better health-related quality of life than those who didn’t. But it’s also never too late to start. The researchers reported that the benefits were the same for women who began to consistently exercise at age 55 as those who always had.
READ MORE: “This Is How I Conquered Perimenopause Symptoms And Lost 14KG”
In the season when you are fortunate enough to move, ensure to make every movement count!
It’s empowering to know that the movement you incorporate today, will sustain your body and health for years to come. Personal trainer Angelique has seen it herself. She’s worked with many women who lived healthily and trained all through their life, and when they then suddenly fell ill, their body was able to sustain their health and help them fight through life’s challenges. In the season when you are fortunate enough to move, ensure to make every movement count!
How To Exercise For Perimenopause
The key to navigating perimenopause with ease is a balanced approach. In this fast-paced and ever-changing phase of life the word “balance” may not be a huge part of your vocabulary but it’s worth working towards. A hybrid training approach incorporating strength, cardio and mobility/recovery is what’s recommended during perimenopause. But it’s important to note that how long and how often you do each component matters, too.
Strength Training
How Often: 3-4x per week.
Strength training is a non-negotiable. This is your number one tool for preserving lean muscle mass and keeping your metabolism humming. The more muscle you have, the more effectively your metabolism works and therefore the more calories you will burn while resting. In order to promote muscle growth, you need to stimulate your muscles through lifting weights. That’s because lifting weights stimulates muscle protein synthesis, helping you retain strength and shape while preventing excess fat gain.
As oestrogen levels dip, muscle breakdown accelerates, making it crucial to engage in resistance exercises. Don’t be afraid to lift too heavy. When you are young and your testosterone levels are high and you have a combined high muscle tone, the fear of gaining too much muscle too fast could be more justified. But during your 40’s and 50’s this fear is no longer valid.
Focus on compound movements like squats, deadlifts and presses to work multiple muscle groups efficiently.
READ MORE: Less Sex Could Lead To Early Menopause, According To This Study
Cardio
How Often: 2-3x per week.
Opt for a mix of steady-state and high-intensity interval training (HIIT) for heart health and fat metabolism.
High Intensity Interval Training
An academic review of over 50 studies showed that two weeks of continuous HIIT reduced insulin resistance more than traditional continuous exercise. HIIT is great for the perimenopausal phase as it promotes an increase in insulin sensitivity and therefore could reduce weight gain.
Aim for one HIIT session of a maximum of 20 minutes. Anything longer than 20 minutes isn’t truly HIIT as you aren’t able to maintain the maximum training effort required by HIIT. Plus, overdoing it with the intensity could exacerbate the already existing hormonal imbalances that come with being perimenopausal by increasing your cortisol levels.
Steady-State Cardio
Steady-state cardio is where you sustain the same level of effort over a long period of time. There is no need to outrun the person next to you on the treadmill or even do the fastest sit ups in the room. Slow and steady wins the race and preventing injuries from occurring is far more important. Sustained workouts are where it’s at! Even just a moderate walk up and down a bench, will do.
READ MORE: When Menopause Impacts Your Productivity
Mobility & Recovery
How Often: Daily
Yoga, Pilates and stretching enhance flexibility, reduce injury risk and support joint health. And as you go through perimenopause, your muscles may not recover in the same way they used to. Your muscle stem cells (aka satellite cells) are crucial in muscle regeneration and repairing damaged muscle fibres. And these cells need oestrogen in order to function optimally but as we know, your oestrogen levels decline during perimenopause, which is why you need to prioritise recovery during this period.
That’s easier said than done, of course. Finding time every day to fit in an hour-long yoga session while humming Enja can be challenging. But there’s an easy way to get in some self-care stretching. When you sit in the bath – alone – try touching your toes and doing small basic stretches while your body is warm and during a period in the day when things have hopefully calmed down.
Then, once a week try to do a 45- to 60-minute yoga session. A study in the found that yoga can soothe hormonal symptoms in perimenopausal women – including changes in your body composition. The study showed that yoga stimulated the glands responsible for regulating your hormones.
NEAT Exercise
How Often: Daily
Staying active outside of your dedicated sweat sessions is important too. And that’s where Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis or NEAT comes in. NEAT refers to the energy you burn when you’re not eating, sleeping or formally exercising. Some ways to increase NEAT would be walking more, getting a standing desk, doing some gardening or playing with your kids.
READ MORE: What Exactly Is NEAT And How Can It Help Me Shed Weight Without Exercising More Or Eating Less?
According to Dr James Levine, known for his research on NEAT, someone with high NEAT could burn up to 2000 extra calories per day compared to a similar person with low NEAT. And in a 2006 research paper, Levine found that obese people tended to spend 2.5 more hours each day sitting than sedentary lean people. This is important because a 2014 study showed that just two hours of sitting can cancel out the benefits of a 20-minute workout.
Weekly Workout Schedule For Perimenopause
Need a visual reminder to help you schedule your weeks? Here’s the type of exercise you should be doing as well as how often throughout your week.
