While being physically active is important for anyone at any age, health professionals are urging women to pay attention to strength training as they age. The good thing about strength training is that building muscle doesn’t always have to include weights. With the right exercises, you can increase your strength using only your body weight, which can boost your health.
Why Strength Training is Excellent for Women
The key to understanding how strength training benefits women is estrogen. While you’ll generally maintain an appreciable level of this hormone in your 20s, this changes as you age. You may start producing less estrogen as you enter your 30s, but the decrease is more noticeable when you approach and enter menopause. Estrogen is linked to improved strength, muscle development, and bone density, so when its level drops, women are likely to see a loss in strength and muscle as well as weaker bones.
Although strength training can’t boost your estrogen levels, it can encourage your body to develop and maintain muscle. Studies also show that strength training can improve your bone density if you consistently work out for 45 minutes at least twice per week. Not only can this prevent significant bone loss, but it may also reverse some of the damage that has been done if you have osteoporosis.
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According to researchers, putting pressure on your bones in a controlled way can signal your body that it needs to strengthen them. Usually, estrogen acts as a trigger to tell your body that it needs to strengthen and maintain your bones. However, when your estrogen levels start to drop, your body no longer has this signal. Strength training can act as the alternative you need to keep your bones healthy.
Another great thing about strength training is that you can target the muscles that you’re having the most issues with. For example, working on your biceps can help if you’re having trouble with lifting, manipulating objects, and carrying things. On the other hand, developing your triceps helps with pushing, lifting, and throwing.
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10 Exercises You Should Try
1. Push-ups
- Get on the floor in a plank position. Place your hands a little wider than a typical plank position, aligned with your chest.
- Brace your core and squeeze your glutes. Don’t allow your back to arch or cave downward.
- Bend your elbows to lower yourself towards the floor.
- Then, push up if you can. If not, use your knees to raise up and get back into the starting position.
2. Reverse Rows
- Place your hands on the floor, shoulder-width apart. Assume a plank position with your feet wider than shoulder-distance apart.
- Drive your right arm through the palm into the floor, engage from head to toe, and row the left arm up and to the side of your rib cage—your elbow should be pointed up and back. Keep your body stable as you slowly lower your hand back to the floor. Repeat on the other side.
3. Tricep Dips
- Sit on the floor with knees bent and feet flat. Place your hands behind you, elbows bent, wrists underneath your shoulders, and fingertips facing in toward your body. Straighten your arms and lift your butt off the floor.
- Slowly bend your elbows to lower your body toward the floor.
- Straighten your arms again, using your triceps to push yourself up. Repeat.
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4. Reverse Planks
- Sit on the floor with your legs extended in front of you. Place your hands slightly behind you, palms on the floor underneath your shoulders, fingertips facing in toward the body.
- Press into palms to lift hips and torso off the floor. Keep arms and legs straight, and make sure abs and glutes are engaged. Pause for a few seconds.
- Lower back down to the ground. Repeat.
5. Superman Exercises
- Start lying on your stomach, arms and legs extended.
- Lift arms, shoulders, chest, and legs off the floor and hold. Squeeze your glutes and keep your gaze toward the floor so your neck stays neutral.
- Then lower back down to the floor. Repeat.
6. Bear Crawls
- Get on all fours into a table top position with shoulders stacked over wrists and hip directly over knees. Engage your lats (the muscles on your back below your armpits that you’d feel if you hugged yourself) and maintain a neutral spine.
- Now, hover your knees slightly off the floor.
- Next, move your left hand and right knee slightly forward while keeping your hips parallel to the floor and maintaining a neutral spine. Then, do the same thing with your other hand and knee so that you meet back in a quadruped position.
- Reverse the movement to return to the start.
7. Up-down Planks
- Start in a high plank with back flat and shoulders over wrists.
- Lower your right forearm to the mat.
- Lower your left forearm to the mat, and pause in the forearm plank position.
- Place your right hand on the mat, and press to straighten your right elbow.
- Place your left hand on the mat and press to straight and left elbow into a high plank.
8. Forearm Side Planks
- Start lying on the right side with left hand on hip, right arm bent at 90 degrees and forearm flat on the floor so elbow is beneath right shoulder—legs extended with left on top of right, feet flexed.
- Engage core, press right palm into the floor, and lift hips up into the air until your body forms a straight line.
- Hold the position, then switch sides.
9. Side Plank with Thread the Needle
- Start in a side forearm plank position, with left forearm on the floor, parallel to the top of your mat, elbow under your shoulder, right arm extended straight in the air at shoulder height, feet staggered and flexed.
- Rotate your body forward toward the mat and thread your right hand between your torso and the mat.
- Reverse the motion to return to the start. That’s 1 rep. Complete all reps, then switch sides and repeat.
10. Eccentric Push-ups
- Start in a high plank position with hands flat on the floor about shoulder-width apart and wrists stacked under shoulders.
- Keeping the body in one long line from shoulders to heels, bend elbows at a 45-degree angle to your body as you take 3-4 seconds to lower toward the floor.
- With knees on the floor, press through palms to push back up to start.
- Bring knees up to a high plank and repeat.
Studies show that strength training can help you maintain healthy muscles while increasing bone density. Better yet, you don’t always need weights to get the most out of these exercises. If you have any concerns about your ability to carry out any of these exercises, though, consult your doctor so you don’t hurt yourself.
