I do strength training…but do you?
When you are over 40, you need a dedicated strength training practice. Strength training—real strength training—is critical in increasing hormone levels. As your hormones decrease with age, both men and women lose muscle and gain fat. One of the most effective ways to reverse this process is to increase hormone levels through heavy strength training.
There are two big myths about strength training. The first is: “I already do strength training; I do it in yoga or sculpt or bar.” Truth: sculpt, yoga, Pilates, and bike boot camp aren’t strength training. Neither is using 5 lb dumbbells while riding your Peloton. Sorry! Though these and other forms of exercise that use body weight as resistance are great, the truth is they don’t count as strength training and are not helpful at increasing hormone levels.
The second myth of strength training is that it will make you bulky. Again, nope. If you are over 50 years old, you don’t have enough anabolic hormones to build muscle—not enough testosterone, estrogen, or human growth hormone. To get bulky you would have to lift very heavy weights—loads you could barely move for more than five reps—almost every day. If you don’t know what it’s like to do a back squat or deadlift for five to 10 heavy repetitions that feel very heavy, I can promise you that you aren’t even close to lifting weights that will make you bulky. And you need at least one year of training to get to a point where you can handle these loads.
Furthermore, to gain muscle to the point of getting bulky, your protein intake would have to be very high to support the recovery needed. Most bodybuilders can’t get enough protein to support what they want, so they have to supplement with protein powders. So, you would have to try very hard to achieve that bodybuilder look. With all of this said, women should be able to look bulky if they want. It’s part of our culture that says anyone, especially women, can’t be attractive if they are bulky. Do what you want to do. Don’t buy into what the culture says is attractive. Train the way you want for the outcomes you want.
Weight training increases hormone production, which makes you stronger and leaner, increases metabolism, gives you stronger bones, and staves off aging. Remember that we are losing up to 8 percent of our muscle each decade starting at age 30. And at the age of 50 we start losing more bone density than we can produce, some women can lose up to 20 percent within five to seven years following menopause. It’s this loss of lean muscle and bone density that leads to injury, falls, and the inability to be ambulatory.
The only way we naturally see increased hormone production is when the brain is signaled to increase certain sex hormones like testosterone and human growth hormone. This signal comes from the nerves in the muscles asking for more hormones to produce more strength. Each movement you make requires the brain and nerves in your muscles to communicate. When movements are loaded, more nerves are needed and at a deeper level; thus, the brain releases more hormones. This doesn’t happen with bodyweight activities such as push-ups because no matter how many push-ups you do, the nerves that the muscle uses to create force only go so deep. When you start to load the same movement with weight, however, you get more muscle nerves engaged on a much deeper level and more hormones are needed to support performance and recovery.
Tune back in next week and we will go over how to get started.
See you in the gym,
Aaron Leventhal CSCS, PN1