Exercising Through Menopause: Why Strength Training Matters More Than Ever

Menopause changes what your body needs from exercise, and most fitness advice has not caught up. If you are doing the same cardio-heavy routine you did in your 30s and wondering why your body is responding completely differently, you are not doing anything wrong. You are working against biology instead of with it.

After 18 years coaching men and women through their 40s, 50s and 60s, the women who come to me during perimenopause and menopause almost always describe the same experience: the workouts that used to work have simply stopped working, energy is unpredictable, and body composition is changing despite no real change in effort. Here is what is actually happening, and what to do about it.

Why Your Training Needs to Change

Oestrogen does far more than regulate your cycle. It plays a direct role in muscle maintenance, bone density, and how your body partitions fat. As oestrogen declines through perimenopause and menopause, three things happen at once:

• Muscle mass declines faster. The natural age-related muscle loss everyone experiences accelerates during this transition.
• Fat storage shifts toward the abdomen. This is a hormonal shift, not a discipline problem.
• Bone density drops. Oestrogen has a protective effect on bone that reduces as levels fall.

None of this is fixed by doing more cardio. If anything, excessive steady-state cardio without adequate recovery can make things harder by adding stress to a system already under hormonal strain.

Strength Training Is the Single Most Important Change

If I could recommend one change to any woman going through this transition, it would be this: prioritise resistance training over cardio. Not instead of it, but ahead of it.

Strength training addresses all three of the changes above directly:

• It preserves and builds muscle, the single best defence against the metabolic slowdown that comes with declining oestrogen.
• It builds bone density. The mechanical loading from lifting weights is one of the few interventions widely recognised to support bone health during menopause.
• It improves body composition. More muscle mass means a body that manages fat storage more effectively, even without dramatic dietary change.

This does not mean abandoning cardio altogether. It means resistance training becomes the foundation, with cardio layered in around it rather than the other way round.

What This Actually Looks Like in Practice

Train with real resistance, not just movement

Light dumbbells and bodyweight circuits have their place, but progressive overload, gradually increasing the weight you lift over time, is what actually protects muscle and bone. Two to three proper strength sessions a week matters more than five light ones.

Prioritise protein

Muscle protein synthesis becomes less efficient with age, and that effect compounds during menopause. Most women I work with need to consciously increase protein intake well beyond what feels intuitive. Aiming for 1.6 to 2g per kilogram of bodyweight daily is a sensible starting point.

Respect recovery

Sleep disruption is one of the most common menopause symptoms, and poor sleep directly undermines both training adaptation and hormone regulation. This is a stage of life where more rest days, not fewer, often produces better results.

Track more than the scale

Body composition changes during menopause even when weight does not. Measurements, how clothes fit, and strength progress in the gym all tell a more accurate story than the number alone.

You Are Not Imagining It

If there is one thing I want every woman reading this to take away, it is that what you are experiencing is real, biological, and completely normal. It is not a sign that you are failing at something everyone else finds easy. The approach that worked in your 30s was built for a different hormonal environment. The approach that works now looks different, and once you find it, this can genuinely be one of the strongest, most capable decades of your life.

Neil McGuigan is a personal trainer with 18+ years of experience, working with men and women over 40 at UNTIL Soho, Marylebone, Liverpool Street and Canary Wharf. The first session is always free.