Why You Don’t Need to Lift Heavy (If You Don’t Want To)
There’s more than one way to make muscle in midlife and beyond.
Midlife women are encouraged to maintain and build muscle and with good reason. But all too often, they’re told to lift heavy weights, which isn’t best advice for everyone.
Why You Must Make Muscle
In addition to helping you get around, skeletal muscle, the kind found primarily in your arms and legs, plays a key role in helping reduce the risk for certain conditions that are more prevalent with age, including type 2 diabetes. Check out this post about the many ways muscle supports health.
You accumulate muscle mass until about age 30 to 35, when it starts to slowly decline. Around age 65, muscle loss accelerates in women. Sarcopenia, the term for muscle tissue loss, is most often age-related. Sarcopenia occurs when muscle breakdown outpaces muscle production.
You can’t stop aging, but you can help offset its effects on your skeletal muscle.
How to Make Muscle
Any activity that requires muscles to work or hold against an applied force, including lifting weights, can strengthen them. Muscle-strengthening activity is also called resistance training.
According to the 2018 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans (PAG) adults should do muscle-strengthening activities that are of moderate or greater intensity on two or more days a week, and should involve all of the major muscle groups – legs, hips, back, abdomen, chest, shoulders, and arms. This is in addition to the recommended minimum of 150 minutes of weekly moderate- to vigorous-intensity aerobic exercise, such as brisk walking, running, or singles tennis.
In addition to regular resistance training, adequate protein intake as part of a balanced eating plan is a must for protecting against muscle loss. Figure out how much protein you need every day here.
The Truth About Lifting Heavy Weights
There’s nothing wrong with lifting heavy weights if that’s your goal, but it’s not the only way to make muscle.
“The idea that women in midlife (or any adult for that matter) must lift heavy weights to build muscle mass is not rooted in science,” says Lauren Colenso-Semple, PhD, a muscle physiology researcher. “The data indicate that high, moderate, and low load training effectively build muscle in women (and men) of all ages.”
Muscle-strengthening activity, including lifting weights, has three components.
• Intensity (or load): how much weight or force is used relative to how much you’re able to lift.
• Frequency: how often you do muscle-strengthening activity.
• Sets and repetitions: How many times you can do the muscle-strengthening activity, like lifting a weight or doing a push-up.
One 2023 British Journal of Sports Medicine study analyzed 192 randomized trials about resistance training programs to determine how different combinations of intensity, frequency, and sets and repetitions affected muscle strength, muscle growth, and physical function in adults. Among the findings: any combination of these elements is better than no exercise for strength and muscle tissue growth, and all resistance training programs included in the study increased muscle strength and growth. According to the authors, adults can adopt a resistance training program of their choice and preference.
“Lifting heavy loads is effective, but no more effective than lifting lighter loads, provided the stimulus is sufficient,” says Colenso-Semple.
Challenging muscles stimulates tissue growth. As you gain muscle and strength, it’s important to keep progressing by adding more weight or keeping the weight the same but adding more repetitions or sets. Colenso-Semple notes that proper form is paramount to progress. Without good technique, heavier weights may lead to injury, which could put you off resistance training.
How to Get Started and Keep Going
Weightlifting allows you to progress with time and continue building muscle and strength. But if you’re not into lifting free weights, the PAG says weight machines, resistance bands, and even your own body weight qualify as resistance training.
Women new to resistance training should consider group fitness classes or work with a personal trainer to get started. Consider that what’s challenging for one woman may not be for the next. Work at your own pace and don’t compare yourself to others.
Resistance training is about more than toning up. A 2022 British Journal of Sports Medicine review found that 30 to 60 minutes a week of resistance training was associated with a lower risk for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, lung cancer, and death from any cause in adults 18 and older. And a 2024 Journal of the American College of Cardiology study found that women who did strength training exercises two to three days a week were more likely to live longer and have a lower risk of death from heart disease compared to women who did none.
What do you think? Is resistance training part of your routine? Let me know!
Yes on the bodyweight and bands. I tell this to clients all of the time, especially ones who live in smaller spaces. I'm a huge fan of tempo training with time under tension. If you can do a push-up with a 4 count on the lowering portion of the movement, that's pretty darned good!
And you can start with doing push-ups off of a wall... So much to work and to build up to without needing free weights or machines!
Yes to weight and resistance training, but be careful since some women in the menopause transition are prone to the musculoskeletal syndrome of menopause which is characterized by tendonitis and muscle tears if weights or reps are too high or increased too fast. As is stated, DO NOT COMPARE your progress with others' and go at your own pace by listening to your body.