The Female Body: The Most Beneficial Type of Training
Why are we not talking about this ladies?
I am someone who always tries to spread positivity to others, including my brother. However, let me provide some background: Our family is not genetically predisposed to being "slim and tall" like models. Compared to my friends, I have always felt a bit stocky. My dad is Italian-Mediterranean, and my mom is Peruvian-Chinese, so we have a lot of muscle💪 and heart ❤️(and brains too😂). Whenever I talked to my brother about losing weight and putting in the effort, he would shut me down and say, "Wait until you're 40, your body will change dramatically." I would laugh and stubbornly respond, "That will never happen to me. I work out and eat healthy." However, as soon as I turned 39, my body shifted dramatically and I started to feel chubby for the first time in my life. In just a few months, I experienced more water retention, my muffin tops became more prominent, and I started to develop back fat and cellulite. I was teaching 10 dance fitness classes and tracking my meals meticulously, but nothing was working. If you've experienced something similar, take a deep breath because I was never prepared for it to happen so quickly.
After spending a year learning about this issue, I am excited to share my findings with you all. My hope is that you will feel heard and understood and that I can reassure you that you are not going crazy. We can do something about this! I want to share something I read from Dr. Staci Sims, a hormone and athlete expert for women. It may be a bit scientific, but I will explain it in simple terms.
“ No one really talks about what’s happening in perimenopause which is actually the other end of puberty or instead of hormones coming up, they’re starting to go down. estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, primarily, estrogen and progesterone, they affect every system of our body. We have our receptor sites that are affected by these hormones. So when we start having this downturn of estrogen, progesterone, or a misstep in our ratios, we start having different signaling. And we start losing sensitivity of our estrogen receptors. We start having gut microbiome disturbance because we don’t have as much of the gut bugs to metabolize the estrogen and stick it back out. So there are so many of these changes that are happening internally.
So if we look externally, what can we do to support our body through this? We need to look for an external stressor that is going to apply the same kind of signaling for adaptation that our body will do without these other hormones. What I mean by that is if we look specifically at skeletal muscle. So we know that estrogen specifically is tied to the stem cell of skeletal muscle. And when we start having a downturn of estrogen, then we don’t have as much satellite cell signaling. So this is why we don’t … We start to lose lean mass when we hit perimenopause and it’s harder to build mass.
The other thing with it is estrogen is tightly tied to myosin which is one of our important filaments for muscle contraction. So if we don’t have enough estrogen, or we have too much estrogen, then we have a misstep in how strong our muscles are contracting.
And then the third thing that estrogen is responsible for is acetylcholine and how much acetylcholine is there to depolarize and cause that muscle contraction stimulus.
So if we’re looking at those three really basic biological, physiological responses that estrogen is responsible for, then we have to look externally. Well, what do we do that’s going to create a really strong muscle contraction that’s not only going to keep those nerves firing how they should and activating those muscle fibers, but also give the signal that we need more muscle fibers?
So this is where we look at resistance training. But we’re not looking at our eight to 12 or 15 reps that everyone talks about hypertrophy. That’s not what we’re after. We’re after a central nervous system response. We’re after women to lift heavy. So that’s that zero to six rep range with really good form. Because we want to have that external load that’s a central nervous system response.
We look at that heavy resistance training to create that muscle adaptation. It also helps with bone. And then from that cardiovascular standpoint, we need to look at really having high, high intensity. Not this moderate intensity stuff like your 45 minutes circuit classes or bootcamp or spin class or even some of the MetCon and CrossFit-type classes. We need to look at 85 to 90 percent of your max for one to two minutes if you’re doing high-intensity interval training with adequate recovery so that you can do four or five sets of that. But specifically, we need to look at that super maximal sprint and interval training where you’re doing 100 to 110 percent for 30 seconds or less. Because if we’re doing that top, top end, which is really, really hard, we have a follow through of growth hormone and testosterone responses, as well as a massive antioxidant response from that high-intensity. Which is exactly what our body needs when we’re in perimenopause.”
Did you understand that?
To see real changes in our strength, appearance, and metabolism, our bodies need more than just cute circuit training, dance fitness classes, or bootcamps. We need to push ourselves harder by lifting heavier weights and doing high-intensity, short-duration workouts like HIIT. However, this doesn't mean we should stop doing the fun workouts we enjoy. Those workouts have their own benefits like promoting happiness, staying active, building community, and improving flexibility. But if we want to see significant physical changes in perimenopause and beyond, we need to challenge ourselves in new ways.
So friends, there you have it, the reality of our female bodies, hormones, and the type of training that can help us move the needle in a more positive way if that’s the change we want to see. Now you know that you don’t have to kill yourself in the gym or do crazy diets. Understanding our bodies in a deeper way will help us go further.
