How Women Build Muscle: Considerations That Can Be Game Changers!


Through the 80s and 90s the goal for most women was to be skinny and as small as possible.

Unfortunately that mindset and goal does very little for you as you approach perimenopause and beyond. 

Muscle is your new best friend if you want to remain active and live a strong, healthy and independent life in later years. My 80+ clients lacked this knowledge and despite being active all their lives, they now find life very difficult with low levels of muscle, especially in their legs.

Times have changed and now the knowledge is there, women understand the importance of building muscle and getting stronger. 

Here's some tips if you have started your journey to building your strong old lady body.

1. Do cardio like running/cycling or swimming for your heart health, not to try to lose fat or make up for overeating.

2. If you want to see visible muscle on your body, it needs a fuel source. You will need energy to give your best effort in training, muscle needs nutrients to grow and repair. Do not expect to see a dramatic change in your body composition while dieting (unless you have significant body fat to lose) by that I do not mean 4-5kgs!

3. Energise yourself with exercise and daily movement during the day and getting enough sleep at night. Living off caffeine all day is an endless cycle of feeling exhausted and dependant on it. 

4. Alcohol is a progress killer (as no amount of it is safe to drink). Understand you will not reach your full physique potential regularly drinking (even in small amounts).

5. A calorie deficit only works if you can adhere to it consistently for several weeks. Don't make drastic, aggressive changes that you can't adhere to (please be honest with yourself). You can still enjoy the foods you love in moderation and with portion control.

6. Skipping meals, hoarding calories or always trying to eat as little as possible leads to over consuming convenient, highly palatable, calorie dense foods due to extreme hunger. To reduce "food noise" try filling up on balanced, satisfying meals (starting with breakfast) and cut out snacking (unless you are physically hungry).

7. You have to challenge yourself in your workouts and make progress/improvements in some way if you want to build muscle. You can't just throw weight around and go through the motions (well you can but it will take forever to see results). Just because you "lift weights" doesn't mean anything is happening.

8. Time under tension matters. Think slow and controlled to lower the weight (or cable stack) to lengthen the muscle and more explosive movement to contract the muscle (weight or cable stack goes up). If you can't control the time under tension (known as tempo) then there is no need to increase weight yet. You also have a higher risk of injury if you are moving heavy weight that you cannot control!

9. We lift weights to build/maintain muscle, not to burn as many calories as possible (that's a very disordered way to view any form of exercise). The goal should be how can I apply full effort and make progress during each session? Am I getting adequate nutrition and sleep, not over training and using rest periods?

10 Things will fall into place with time when you make this a lifestyle that has no end date. You will be constantly starting over if you only care about your health for events like holidays and weddings etc x


Comments