Here’s What Every 40-Something Needs To Know About Strength Training

Strength training! You are either in it or you are not! From what I hear from most people is, you are either doing it or you just don’t If you are not familiar with Strength Training, it is a system of physical conditioning in which muscles are exercised by being worked against an opposing force (as by lifting weights) to increase strength. So recently I put out a poll on my Instagram and asked if you would rather Lift or do Cardio’ And to my surprise, 87% of the people following me were more about lifting!

BUT if you are a cardio person, I am going to talk to you about why strength training is also really important to add into your workout routine.  Plus, I am going to give you some things that you can start to do so that we can really focus on strength training and also why you should start to strength train, like yesterday! 

One of the biggest things about strength training is that it helps to build your muscles and our muscles are metabolically active, which means….. It helps our metabolism!! Our muscles contribute to our metabolism and the more muscle you have, the higher your metabolism will be.  [Learn all about what I have to say about your Metabolism in this episode]

The more muscle you have, your metabolism gets faster and then your Basal Metabolic Rate increases as well.  Your Basal Metabolic Rate is the base level of calories your body burns to keep you alive. So lying in bed, blinking your eyes, heart beating, etc. The more muscle I have on my body, the higher that number is and the higher the number means there are more calories we can consume without eating in a caloric access. And this is one of the biggest reasons I wanted to bring up strength training on my most recent podcast because so many people focus on that caloric deficit, but it focuses mainly on food! 

With strength training, it helps to boost your metabolism, it helps you to eat more food, but it also helps you to lose more weight because you are building up your metabolic rate. And listen, the last thing I want to hear is that you don’t want to do strength training because you are going to get toooo big and bulky.. You aren’t going to get too big OR bulky. It is impossible to get big and bulky unless you have an insane amount of testosterone. And STOP using the word TONE when it comes to this! This makes me roll my freaking eyes people!

You WANT TO ADD MUSCLE! MUSCLE is metabolically active, IDK what the hell tone is. All I know is that it is from the 80s and they don’t make it anymore!

I challenge YOU to start lifting heavy for muscle and this is why.

This is a biological fact that once we hit 30, we lose anywhere from 3 to 5% of our muscle every 10 years and that muscle loss speeds up significantly once you hit 75.  So, if you can start to build your muscle bank and lifting to help match or beat what is happening biologically then you are able to do more things as you age.  Strength training helps you to be able to do more things as you get older, it helps you to keep moving, to be able to walk on your own, lift your groceries by yourself, get up and down in the garden.  It keeps your muscles active so that as you age, you can live a good, quality life. 

Strength training also helps to balance your hormones.  For many of us over 40 we may be going through some of those hormonal imbalances and strength training is definitely something that can help us in a natural way combat that.  Insulin and estrogen work together, and they are either going to be burning or building. In excess they are building and telling your body to bring on the fat and store it up.  But when I start to strength train, it helps improve your insulin sensitivity and the more it improves, the more your body is able to send out insulin to break up the sugar, the less likely I am to store that sugar into fat.  We also get HGH, which is a natural fat burner, just by strength training and getting adequate rest. And ONLY comes out at rest, so on top of strength training, you need to make sure you are sleeping!

IF YOU ARE A RUNNER!

I want you to focus more of your strength training on your legs.  Which means you should have a leg day each week, because runners lose on average 4.4 pounds of muscle from their untrained areas, which means their legs!  So, if you are making sure you work on them, you will keep that muscle there.

So why.. WHY is it that I care so much about strength training” 

Because first, it helps you to up your bone density! As a woman we all know that as we age, our bone density goes down. So, when you strength train, the muscle pulls on the bone and this makes the bones stronger.  The stronger your bones are, the less likely you will experience osteoporosis or bone breaks as you age! 

Second, it helps us not to look frail, skinny or fat when we get older!! You want some muscle on our body to fill our skeleton. And if you want that lean sculpted look, you have to lift!  And even now, before you start age, strength training seriously gives us a  better sense of confidence!! You see these results as you work your butt off and you are like HELL YEAH! I feel amazing!

So I challenge you to start lifting weights at least 3 times a week!  I challenge you to  lift weights so that the last 2-3 reps of the 8-12 are challenging with good form. So if you are up for a challenge, I want you to check out my new program and it is all about movement. How do you create quality movement’ So, check it out and let me know when you join! I want you to feel kick ass about yourself and the best way to start is moving and getting into the routine of adding strength training to your schedule!

Of all the things in fitness, weight training is more linear than anything else I can talk about.  It shows every 6-8 weeks so that you can increase the amount of weight you are lifting.  When was the last time you changed your weights”  When was the last time the last 2-3 exercises felt challenging but with good form’  And if you don’t know, pick up heavier weights!  That is the only way to build muscle… by adding heavier weights as you go! You have to continue to challenge your body mama!!

{If being home is a challenge for you right now and you don’t have the ability to get heavier weights, try using water jugs to lift, or add sand to bottles. Find ways to think outside of the box with this.}

Lastly, in order to build good quality muscle, you need to add in good quality protein into your diet. This means that you need to add 20-30 grams of protein to each meal.  And by good quality protein, I mean fish, shellfish, eggs, greek yogurt, cottage cheese, lean animal protein. (but don’t count cheese… cheese is not protein. It is a good fat!!)  Protein is the building blocks of our muscles so need to make sure we are fueling those workouts with protein!  It is so so important!

As you age you want to say yes this totally makes sense, you want to be able to age without issues. My goal for you is to start working on this stuff NOW so that we don’t have to play catchup down the line when a lot of damage has been done.

Let’s be that strong badass that you see in the mirror!!

Let’s be able to lift and thrive well into our golden years!

And I want to help you do all of this and more magic makers!

So grab my latest guide.. It is the over 40 and invincible guide called The Resource Guide to Help You Beat the Mid Life Spread! And let me know how this all sits with you! And if you need more help or more information or any questions reach out to me!! I am here for you! Shoot me an email at hello@kimbarnesjefferson.com and we can chat more about this!  And of course, you can find me on all the socials, so tag me when you get going on those lifting days so I can see how you are killing it!

LINKS

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/FabFitSquad

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/fitgirlmagic/

Website: https://kimbarnesjefferson.com/

Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fit-girl-magic-healthy-living-for-women-over-40/id1476883661