Why Women Over 40 Need Strength Training

Nikkiey: Strength is not just an aesthetic quality that we all chase after. It is a very important functional one. And losing it does not just affect how you look. It affects what you can do. It affects your independence. It affects the lifestyle tasks that you do every single day. Women who strength train consistently have measurably higher bone density than women who do not. Cardio does not do this. Walking does not do this. Not to the same degree that heavy resistance training does. It literally improves every area of your health and your life.

What's going on, everybody? Hey, you guys. Welcome back to another episode of The WarriorBabe Show. Or if this is one of your first episodes, welcome to the show, where we talk about mindset, methodologies, and tactics that will help you lose body fat, build muscle, be strong, and most importantly, feel really, really confident in your life, in your own skin.

So in today's episode, I think I've talked about this over and over and over again. However, I think it's really important to continue to push this message out there, especially with the feedback that we got from JJ Virgin's podcast episode. If you haven't listened to that, I highly recommend that you go and listen to it. It's evident that no matter how much I talk about this topic, it doesn't get old, and it's really important for everybody to hear it.

And that is that strength training is not optional as you get older, my friends. It's a non-negotiable. It's probably the most important physical investment that you can make for your body, for your health, for your independence, and for your quality of life as you age. And most women are either not doing it, or they're not doing it consistently, or they're not doing it with enough intention to actually get what it can give them.

And so I'm talking about that in today's episode. I'm going to lean in, guys. I'm going to lean in because maybe I've been too fluffy in the other episodes where I talk about this topic. But ultimately, when I lean in, it's because I want to give you guys tough love, because I love you. And I want you guys to win. And I want you to succeed. And I want you to understand this importance, because I think it's extremely important for every single woman as you continue to get older.

So I want to start with the reality first, because I think once you understand what is happening to your body when you are not actively building and preserving muscle, the urgency of this conversation becomes impossible to ignore.

When you are in your mid-30s, like where I am now, your body begins to lose muscle mass at the rate of roughly 3% to 8% per decade. And I've talked about that before. But after 50, that rate accelerates. And by the time most women reach their 70s without any intentional resistance training, they have lost a significant portion of the muscle that they had in their earlier years.

Think about your moms or grandmoms. That's where my immediate thought went, right? You guys know that I took care of my grandmom after she had a stroke, and I lived with her. And you could tell that she didn't work out a day in her life. She didn't do strength training a day in her life, because compared to what she looked like in her early years of life, she looked frail and old in her later years of life. And I've seen this one too many times by working in the healthcare field for nine years, in long-term healthcare and dementia units and in assisted living, and then five years in the emergency room.

So you guys, I've seen this. I want to make this apparent and known. This is so important. And that muscle loss comes with a cascade of consequences that touch every single area of your health and your daily life as you get older.

One, first of all, and you'll probably notice this sooner rather than later if you don't incorporate strength training: your metabolism slows down. People say that all over. But what I mean by that is your muscle, this tissue on your body, the muscle that you have, is metabolically active tissue. Meaning you need constant fuel to keep it alive. And you need constant stress to challenge it every single week. And it burns calories at rest. It doesn't stop. It's metabolically active. It's always going. It's always looking for energy. If you're working out and you're not eating enough, your body is going to tap into it, and it does that all throughout the day if you're not giving it enough of what it needs.

Every pound of muscle that you lose, then, means that your body requires fewer calories to function. Which means that the same food that you have always eaten starts producing different results on your body. This is why people say, "Well, how I once ate in my 20s, I can no longer eat in my 40s." This is because this is happening internally to your body. And then the fat accumulates more easily.

Weight loss becomes progressively harder for you to do. And the restrict, eat, restrict cycle that never worked great starts working even less. This is what's going on internally, because your body needs muscle not just for strength and longevity, but to keep your body functioning well, especially as you age. And to that point, if you guys didn't hear me well there: what worked in your 20s isn't working in your 40s.

Think about it: are you incorporating strength training into your weekly routine? And I mean three to four times a week. If the answer is no, then that is why this is happening.

Another thing, to piggyback off what I said about working in the healthcare field for nine years: your bones weaken. I've seen one too many hip fractures. People come in, and you can look at their body and be like, you don't exercise. They are frail. Muscle and bone health are directly connected. And the mechanical loading that strength training places on your bones is one of the most powerful stimuli for maintaining bone density.

Women who do not strength train are at significantly higher risk for osteoporosis, and the fractures and loss of independence that come along with that. Do you know how many times I've sat in with a social worker who was talking about placement for an elderly woman who had just broken her hip? The weight that I not only saw on her, but that I then saw on the family. Talk about heavy, to have to make those types of choices because independence is now lost.

I'm not saying this to be scary. I'm saying this is a risk of not doing strength training as you continue to age. It is a direct consequence of skipping weights. And in your head right now, you're probably like, "Oh, I'm too afraid to pick up a weight," or "I'm too far gone." That is not true. And I'm going to squash some of those later in this podcast. So just stay with me as I continue on what's actually happening inside your body.

Your hormones shift harder. Muscle tissue plays an active role in hormone regulation, including insulin sensitivity and estrogen metabolism.

And everyone knows this, I'm talking high level: estrogen naturally declines when you start perimenopause and menopause. And that means that maintaining muscle mass is one of the most powerful tools available for managing symptoms, managing body composition changes, and most importantly, maintaining your metabolic health. There are so many testimonials inside of WarriorBabe from women who have improved insulin resistance in their older years of life just by implementing strength training.

And obviously diet is a huge portion of this. I always say that diet is king and exercise is queen. But when it comes to this topic, doubling down on both of those things is so important so that you can manage these symptoms as you age.

And I've seen this. I know that I'm set up for prime time walking into menopause, because of what I've done to my body in the last decade, what I continue to do consistently, and also the education that I have. I'm blessed to walk into menopause strong and well-developed, my body having well-developed muscle.

But I see so many women who come into WarriorBabe during menopause, and they're gaining muscle. And so that right there: it's not too late. I've seen one too many women break that narrative, make it completely false. And they're doing that inside the community for other women too. By implementing these things, if they are in perimenopause, they are now strong, well-equipped and well-developed to navigate that transition significantly better than those who do not.

Also, your functional capacity declines. The ability to do everyday lifestyle things, like carry groceries, get up off the floor, climb stairs without your knees aching, pick up your grandchildren, open a jar. I've seen strength training help, not reverse arthritis, but improve symptoms of it. The amount of times I've caught myself from falling because of this ability that I have.

But I've also seen women at the dog park who do strength training, who are strong and fit, stumble and be able to catch their balance before ultimately falling. And all of what I just said depends on muscle. Strength is not just an aesthetic quality that we all chase after. It is a very important functional one. And losing it does not just affect how you look. It affects what you can do.

It affects your independence. It affects the lifestyle tasks that you do every single day. This is what happens without strength training. All of the things that I just mentioned: your functional capacity declines, your hormones shift harder, your bones weaken, your metabolism slows down. This is what happens without strength training. And it's not in some distant future either, my friends. It's starting right now, quietly in the background, unless you are doing something to stop it.

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Now, let me tell you what strength training actually does, because I don't think most women have ever been given a complete picture of it. And that complete picture is extremely important to understand. It's not just, "Let me aesthetically look good and get toned and be fit."

It rebuilds and preserves muscle. This is an obvious one, but I'm going to say it clearly: you are not just maintaining what you have. Progressive resistance training, progressive strength training, whatever terminology you want me to use, done consistently, can actually build new muscle at any age.

Ladies, are you feeling frustrated with body changes you're experiencing during menopause? It's time to take control. If you're between 45 and 65 years old and tired of struggling with body fat and muscle loss, WarriorBabe is here for you. At WarriorBabe, we've helped over 18,000 women just like you lose body fat, build toned muscle, and understand their bodies better with personalized plans based on hormone and thyroid testing and more. Imagine knowing exactly what your body needs to see real results, and results that last. Don't wait anymore. Take charge of your health and join our community of strong, empowered women. Visit warriorbabe.com/apply today to start your transformation. That's warriorbabe.com/apply. All right, let's get back to the show.

So if your doctor is telling you, "Oh, well, this is just something you've got to get used to as you age," or "It's impossible to build new muscle tissue as you get older, post-menopause, because of X, Y, Z": BS. I am calling hard BS on that.

Women in their 60s and 70s who begin doing a properly structured strength training program, I have seen gain measurable muscle mass. The biological capacity to build muscle does not disappear as you age. It requires more intention, yes. You can't just be in the gym going through the motions.

And I know you guys are like, "Oh, I'm afraid of getting injured." Well, then hire a personal trainer to do the workouts with you inside the gym. Or inside of WarriorBabe VIP one-on-one coaching, there's accountability and weekly calls to talk about these things, and monthly one-on-one conversations with your coach to look at your form and optimize the things that can help you go into a workout feeling more confident, if one of the things in your mind is, "Well, I'm too afraid to do X." Stop with the excuses. Get past the excuses.

Because ultimately, when you're in your 70s, if you don't do strength training, you're going to look drastically different than somebody who does, along with all the things I've already listed.

And I'm saying this with tough love because I want you guys to quit just doing the classes and Pilates. You can do Pilates for functional stretching and mobility, but please stop thinking that Pilates is going to build muscle. Nothing other than strength training, and the amount of resistance that a dumbbell and a barbell put on your body, is going to supersede what strength training can give you when it comes to building muscle.

So it requires more intention. It requires you to be inside the gym challenging yourself. It requires you to eat more protein. It requires you to have more recovery. For those of you who are training six days a week, stop. It requires those things, but it is absolutely there for you to be able to build muscle. You are never too old to build something.

Also, the reason why I can eat 2,600 calories is because I've elevated my resting metabolism. Every pound of muscle that you add, and I've seen so many people do this, raises the number of calories your body burns at rest. Not during workouts, but at rest. So me sitting here filming this podcast, or you sitting at your desk, sleeping, watching TV: more muscle mass means a faster metabolic rate around the clock.

This is why the women who commit to strength training do not have to eat less and less and less to maintain their body composition as they age. This is why when you go to WarriorBabe's website and you go to our success page and you listen to testimonial videos and interviews, or you read things, the main win that we have inside of WarriorBabe is that women are eating more food than when they joined the program, which is ultimately helping them gain muscle. And now they have built the metabolic engine that keeps things running efficiently. That is the word: efficiently.

As I said earlier, it also dramatically improves your insulin sensitivity. Muscle tissue is the primary site of glucose uptake in your body. Therefore, more muscle means more places for blood sugar to go, in layman's terms, which means better blood sugar regulation, lower insulin levels, reduced risk of type 2 diabetes, and less fat storage driven by insulin resistance. That right there, you guys: if you have insulin resistance and you're not strength training, that is a huge reason why you need to be strength training.

It is one of the most powerful interventions available for metabolic health. In many cases, it is more powerful than medication for early-stage insulin resistance. I promise you that. I will lay my life on it. Why? Because I've seen hundreds, if not thousands, of testimonies inside of WarriorBabe saying that this has improved in their life.

It protects your bones. I mentioned this already, but I want to go deeper because it matters enormously for women specifically. The mechanical loading of strength training stimulates bone-forming cells called osteoblasts. I'm bringing in the clinical side of my nursing degree from when we were on the orthopedic unit. This is how bone density is maintained and even increased. Cardio does not do this. Walking does not do this. Not to the same degree that heavy resistance training does.

Women who strength train consistently have measurably higher bone density than women who do not. And higher bone density means lower fracture risk, which, as I mentioned earlier, in older age is directly correlated with your independence, with your quality of life, and in some cases even survival. Falling down could be a broken hip, or it could be a life-or-death situation.

This is why, guys, it's so much more than just aesthetics and "I want to be toned." Like I said, it literally improves every area of your health and your life. Other things it does: it improves and balances your hormones. It protects your brain. It gives you back your confidence.

Again, I'm not just talking about aesthetic confidence here, though that is real and valid. I'm talking about the deep, cellular confidence that comes from knowing what your body can actually do.

I did a Q&A on my Instagram last week, and one of the questions was, "What kept you motivated at the beginning of your fitness journey?" Guys, one was winning, because I was in the bodybuilding world. I was motivated to win. But at the same time, I was also motivated to see what hard things I could actually do and what my body was actually capable of. Me actually setting my mind to something and being like, "This is going to be extremely hard, and I don't know what I'm getting myself involved with, but I want to succeed, and I want to see how far I can go with it."

That's confidence. It comes from adding weight to the bar week after week, from picking up something heavy and feeling strong, from inhabiting your body as this capable and powerful thing rather than a problem to be managed. I talked about that a couple of episodes ago: what if you're looking at fitness all wrong?

That's why I brought in faith, and how we need to steward our body as this valuable thing that has been given to us by God, rather than looking at it like, "This is just a problem that I have to fix." You are capable, you are powerful, and we have been given this one body to do right by.

Sure, if you sign up for marathons and half marathons, there's this high, there's runner's high. But I don't truly believe confidence comes from cardio. It doesn't come from the scale. It comes from building something and knowing that you built it. Knowing that you did the hard things, that you walked into the weight room when it was intimidating and you picked up the weight and you still did it. That's where confidence comes from.

Really quick, I want to touch on a few things that I hear most often from women who are not strength training, because I think they deserve a direct response. It's more the excuses that I hear. And I just want to lean in again and give you guys some tough love on it.

There are probably some things like this stirring in your mind as I've been talking throughout this episode, when I emphasize the importance of strength training. I talk about it all the time, and there are social media posts from me about it, and still I hear, "Well, I don't want to look like a man," and "I don't want to get too bulky." We have talked about this before, and I will keep saying it until it stops being a barrier.

Building significant muscle mass as a woman is genuinely very difficult. It requires years. I've been doing this for 11 years, the right way. I have muscle, yes, but if you see me in person, I have a very beautiful, feminine structure. Getting to that kind of muscle mass requires years of intentional, progressive heavy training combined with eating in calorie surpluses in order to get that big.

Hear me loud and clear. It does not happen accidentally. It does not happen because you started lifting three days a week. The women that you picture when you think of too muscular have worked extraordinarily hard for years to look that way, and some of them are taking drugs to enhance themselves to get that look.

You will not stumble into it. What you will stumble into with consistent strength training is a body that is leaner, sexier, more defined, stronger, and most importantly, like I said earlier, more metabolically efficient. That is the outcome. Not bulk. You won't look like a man. I promise you that.

Another one that I hear, and I'm sure it's popping up in your brains too: "Well, I don't know what to do. I don't know where to start. The weight room is intimidating. I don't know what to do in the weight room." This is the most honest and most solvable objection that I hear. Not knowing is a starting point, not a disqualification.

Every woman who is strong today, me, for example, or the women that you see on WarriorBabe's website, did not know what she was doing at some point. I've told you guys this story multiple times. I had to YouTube every single exercise before I went into the gym, or even sometimes mid-workout, just to understand, because my workout programs didn't come in a fancy app with tutorial videos. It was an email with "Day one: hamstrings, glutes, calves," and the exercises listed. And I looked at these exercises and I'm like, what the heck is a side-lying single-leg leg press?

So I would YouTube it, and I would get to know what I was supposed to do. Please don't tell me that you are the woman who, at the start of something, looks at the next task that has to be done and goes, "Oh no, this isn't for me. I'm done. I'm out." And if you are, we need to have a conversation, because I will lean into you. Girl, we need to have a heart-to-heart. You can't back out of something without taking the first step to try it and take action.

You're not a quitter, right? So you can't immediately disqualify yourself from trying something. You start by learning. You learn by starting. You start with the basics and you build from there. You have so many tools and resources at your fingertips to get and feel confident in the gym. There are coaches. There are programs. There's WarriorBabe VIP. There are communities, like our free community on Facebook. There are resources that we give in WarriorBabe everywhere. They're specifically designed to take a woman from knowing nothing to feeling completely at home with macros or with a barbell.

The knowledge gap closes when you step into it, when you learn by starting. So walk into the weight room and just have a figure-it-out type of mentality, guys. That's what you need to do in order to be successful.

And then, I kind of talked about this one earlier: "I'm too old to start." No, you're not. Please. The research is huge on this. Women in their 60s or 70s or 80s who begin structured resistance training programs gain muscle. They improve bone density. They increase their metabolic rate. They improve their quality of life. You guys see it. It's on Instagram. It's on social media. You are not too old to start. The best time to start strength training was 20 years ago. The second best time is right now. The best time to do it is right now.

And then the last thing: "I don't have enough time." If this is your excuse, I just want to reach through this camera and shake you. Guys, I have seen busy moms with three different careers and responsibilities at home still make time to get in 45 minutes a couple of times a week. That is enough to produce meaningful, measurable results in muscle mass, in strength, and in your body composition.

That is maybe two to three hours per week, you guys. Per week. You mean to tell me that you don't have those hours a week to dedicate to you? I call BS again. Straight up. It's because, one, your time management is whack and you need to do better with it. And two, you're not making it a priority. You've heard me say this before: next time you say "I'm too busy," please be honest and real and transparent and say, "I'm just not making it a priority."

The return that you get from going into the gym three days a week, for three hours a week, is a faster metabolism, stronger bones, and more. The upside is crazy. Two to three hours per week is the best investment that you will ever make in yourself. Okay?

So I hope that me pouring into you right now is giving you guys a virtual shake. And I hope that you go in and do some compound movements this week. That you're progressive with it. There are episodes on progressive strength training if you don't know what that means. That you are consistent over time with it. That you actually eat enough protein. And that you challenge yourself inside the gym to not just go through the motions, but to actually put the stress on your body that it needs in order for your muscle to be stimulated to grow. And it's possible. It's possible.

The version of you at 60, 70, 80, her quality of life, her strength, her independence, her health, is being determined right now by the choices that you are making literally today. Not someday. Literally now.

And strength training is not vanity. It's not optional. It's not something that you do when you have extra time or when you feel motivated. It is, like I said, the most important physical investment available to you as a woman who wants to age powerfully instead of quietly declining. I've seen one too many people decline. But I've also seen thousands of people age powerfully.

And if you guys are like, "I'm here, I'm ready," go check out WarriorBabe. There's nothing better than when you are motivated to do something and you understand the importance of it, to take action and get yourself into a program that is aligned with what you need. We're going to meet you where you're at and get you on the path to successfully reaching the goals I just talked about in this podcast. WarriorBabe.com. Check it out. All right?

And share this episode with somebody in your life who needs to hear it. I'll see you guys in the next episode. Love y'all. Peace out.

Hey, really quick, before you go, I have one small favor to ask. If this episode brought you value or sparked something in you, take just a moment to hit that review button. Your rating and review make all the difference, helping more women discover the tools they need to transform their fitness and their confidence. It takes less than a minute, but it can change the path of someone else's journey. Thank you so much for leaving that review. I appreciate you so much.