Why strength training matters far beyond aesthetics
For a very long time, we have been taught that exercise is primarily a tool to make us smaller. I don’t know about you but it was always linked to dropping a dress size, a “snatched” waist, to being smaller…And my god, hasn’t that constant onslaught of messaging been incredibly damaging. It’s been impossible for women to experience movement, fitness and openly explore their relationship with their body without it somehow seeping in.
But, when it comes to strength training (and all other forms of exercise, but we’ll focus here on strength training), it has benefits that go so far beyond aesthetics. Whilst changing how your body looks is absolutely fine if that is something you want, reducing exercise down to “toning” or shrinking ourselves misses so much of what strength training can give women. So let’s look at it.
What happens to women’s bodies as we age?
One of the biggest things I wish more women understood is that strength training is not just about the short term. Whilst the here and now is incredibly important in how we feel day-to-day, strength training far exceeds it. It is one of the most important things we can do for our long-term health and quality of life. The things we do in our mid-30s will absolutely impact how we feel in our mid-70s.
From around our mid-30s onwards, women naturally begin to lose muscle mass and bone density. This process accelerates further during perimenopause and menopause as oestrogen levels decline.
And that matters because oestrogen plays a huge role in:
maintaining bone density
supporting muscle mass
recovery
joint health
energy
overall physical resilience
Now, we can’t change that. It is a natural process that we shouldn’t be fearful of but should spend some time understanding and preparing for. A little like our financial pension, we want to pay into it early so that when we reach retirement age, we can live the longest and healthiest (and happiest) life we can. That’s the whole point after all, isn’t it?
As those hormone levels change, women become more vulnerable to:
muscle loss
reduced strength
osteoporosis
injury
reduced mobility later in life
loss of independence as we age
Generally, women only start thinking about this once something already feels wrong. We get a bit of joint pain or a menopuase-related symptom. Maybe a health scare or even just a loss of confidence in how our body feels. And, whilst I fundamentally believe that it is never too late to start, the most supportive thing we can do is begin before we are forced into reacting to a problem.
We are still being sold workouts almost entirely focused around calorie burn, shrinking ourselves and “getting toned”, or such menopause specific workouts that we think we have to change our entire methodology when we hit a certain age. And I don’t buy into that. Whilst the conversation around long-term strength, bone health and longevity is often barely mentioned, in order to preserve those things and support us in the best way possible, we have to continue to do the basics, and one of those is strength training.
Strength training helps support women through those changes
One of the reasons strength and resistance training is so powerful for women is because it places stress on both muscles and bones in a positive, progressive way. Now, I know “stress” sounds negative, but the body adapts incredibly well to appropriate challenge and it is how we get and stay strong.
When we strength train consistently:
muscles adapt and strengthen
bones respond to load and become stronger
balance and stability improve
joints are better supported
we maintain more muscle mass as we age
Strength training has repeatedly been shown to help slow the decline in both muscle mass and bone density in women as they get older. Which is why strength training becomes about so much more than aesthetics alone.
This is supporting women to:
stay physically capable
reduce injury risk
improve quality of life
maintain independence
Being able to confidently carry shopping, get up off the floor, move furniture, travel, run around after grandchildren or feel physically capable in your own body at 70 matters a lot more to me than whether somebody has visible abs.
“Toning” is not really the point
Let’s get something straight. I have a slightly complicated relationship with the word “toning”… (don’t we all?). Mainly because the fitness industry has used it for years as a softer, more acceptable way to sell women strength training without saying the word “muscle”.
But muscle is not a bad thing. In fact, having muscle is incredibly healthy. Muscle supports metabolism, supports joints, supports movement and helps us stay stronger in all stages of our life. Women have been wary of strength training for so long because of some arbitrary assumption that it will make them “bulky” or look “too manly”. So, in that stead, only men are allowed to have health into old age then?
And yes, strength training absolutely can change body composition. But the conversation has to become bigger than simply trying to make women smaller all the time.
Strength training gives women space to focus on themselves
So we’ve covered the biological and healthy aging facts about strength training. But, I also think there is a side to strength training that is very difficult to explain unless you’ve experienced it. But, I’ll try…
Women spend huge amounts of their lives thinking about other people. We all know it, all recognise it.
Children.
Work.
Life admin.
Appointments.
Emails.
Meals.
Washing (endless washing).
And strength training can become one of the very few spaces where your brain gets to focus on one thing only. I say to a lot of my clients: “focus”. If you are trying to squat a heavy barbell, you cannot also think about:
what’s for dinner
whether you replied to that email
the school WhatsApp group
or the washing sat in the machine
You have to be entirely focused on moving that weight from A to B because if its heavy for you and you aren’t…well, things will not end up how you want them to. It forces this quiet of the mind that is impossible to recreate anywhere else. There is something incredibly powerful about that.
Finally, strength training has the ability to finally positively change the relationship you have with your body
I think one of the most powerful things strength training can do is slowly shift the focus from:
“How does my body look?”
to:
“What can my body do?”
And for a lot of my clients, that journey has been quite emotional. So many of us grew up surrounded by messaging that taught us thinner automatically meant better and that being smaller was something we should strive for at all costs. But where in that narrative did it talk about what our bodies can do? Where did it say that our bodies are the things that carry us through the world, through everything: Our P.E. lessons, getting our first period, the stress of your first job, having children, losing people you love, excelling at work, walking through life….
Strength training often allows women, for the first time, to start appreciating their body for its capability rather than constantly criticising it for how it looks. And this is not about pretending you have to love every single thing about your body all the time either.…I am a much bigger fan of working to find body neutrality. Understanding that the size of your body does not dictate your worth, is one of the most important things you can teach yourself.
And strength training often helps this process, to open the door to something much bigger than aesthetics alone.