Why?

To steel from Stacy Sims’ book Next Level, “Muscle is your engine. It determines how fast you can run, how easily you can carry your luggage, portage a kayak, climb mountains, and live a strong active life.”

I don’t know about you, but when I’m 70 I want to be able to lift the the dog into the truck and go for a hike or preferably, a mountain bike ride.

However, when our estrogen levels start to decline, as they do during the menopause transition, our ability to generate muscle stem cells goes down, quickly. Thus, we get weaker, our metabolism slows down, we gain fat, and we become frail. I don’t know about you, but to me, this sounds awful.

So, we strength train and we lift heavy shit. No 5 pound dumbbells here. Heavy lifting is defined as 6 reps or less with as much weight as possible. We need to send a message to our brain that we need as many muscle fibers as possible. We need strong neuromuscular connections so more of our muscle fibers will work together.

If you want to be strong in the future, you need to work as hard as possible now. Keep as much muscle as you can.