Muscle, energy and the menopause: what training changes
Nobody warns you about the strength. The hot flushes and the sleep, yes. But the moment the shopping bags feel heavier, or a jar refuses to open, or you notice your arms have changed shape while your weight has not, that one tends to arrive unannounced.
It is not in your head, and it is not laziness. It is what the menopause does to muscle when nobody is asking the muscle to stay.
What is actually going on
Oestrogen does a quiet job of helping your body hold on to muscle. When it drops, the body becomes much better at losing muscle and much worse at keeping it. Strength drifts. So does the energy that comes from having it, because a body with less muscle works harder to do the same day.
The frustrating part is that most of the advice at this stage is about weight, and weight is not the problem. Several of the women I train lost a good deal of weight with the injections everyone is talking about and came to me because they didn’t like what was left. The weight had gone and taken the strength with it.
What strength training changes
I have watched this happen enough times to be plain about it. Muscle responds to training after the menopause the same way it did before; it just needs to be asked, properly and consistently. Ask it, and four things change.
Strength comes back first, and with it the everyday things: the bags, the stairs, getting up from the floor without a hand on the sofa. Energy follows, usually within a few weeks, because a stronger body spends less of itself on ordinary life. Sleep tends to settle; women tell me this before I ask. And confidence returns in a way that is hard to describe until you feel it: the sense that your body will do what you ask of it.
It also protects your bones, which is the part that matters most for the next thirty years. Bone adapts to what you ask of it too.
What a first month looks like
Two sessions a week, one-to-one, at Horizon in Guildford. The weights start light and the technique comes first. We squat, because chairs exist. We lift from the floor, because life keeps putting things down there. We carry, press and pull, because that is what a week is made of. Nothing is rushed and nothing is a test.
By the end of the first month most women notice the stairs before they notice the mirror. That is the right way round. If you want the longer version of why strength matters so much from here on, the Stronger for Longer page explains it.
Where to start
A free taster session is a good place to start. It’s relaxed and friendly: we talk about your body’s history, try some movement together, and there’s no obligation either way. Sessions are one-to-one at Horizon Guildford, and you don’t need to be a member.