Helping Women Retain Muscle Mass As We Age
Picture Credit: IDEA Health & Fitness Inc.
With all that is going on in our world today and the adaptations we are all making in our lives and especially for those like me who make their living and career in the fitness, health & wellness industry, I wanted to take some time to take about training. Training for many of us who are anxious to get back into the gym and for those when they do come back, we will hopefully go in with a different mindset and changes to the workout routine you have been doing especially for women.
Most of us personal trainers have women clients over the age of 40. For me being a personal trainer over the age of 50, not only do I have women clients, but I also have women clients 40 years old and up, but as young at 30 years old, I see women losing muscle due to the aging process.
In the March-April 2020, ACE Fitness Journal article by Amy Ashmore Ph.D. stated that one of the primary reasons a woman’s body changes with age is the decline of estrogen levels (Collins et al. 2019). Estrogen is essential to women’s health and determined to be a critical factor in muscle health for women over 40. Estrogen works with muscle cells to maintain, repair, and build healthy muscles, and estrogen is gravely crucial to the safeguarding of muscle function (Collins et al. 2019). When you exhaust estrogen, the muscle ability to sustain and regenerate muscle fibers is diminished, which leads to a gradual loss in muscle mass and strength as well as an increase in body fat.
Although most women experience changes in estrogen levels and body composition, specific methods of resistance training can help preserve muscle mass and strength.
When programming resistance training for women over 40 Personal trainers who learn and understand training load or the amount of work, and how to best use it as an essential tool that empowers us to promote intended and desired body changes in women over 40. Programming in the mind of many Certified Personal trainers means that training load all depends on how many days per week, volume (amount per session), and intensity (degree of difficulty) of training over time.
There are two types of training loads that I want to talk about; external and internal. External training load is the amount of work done over time. Meaning, exercise types, like machine-based resistance training or plyometric exercises, and by session frequency, the number of sets and repetitions, and exercise intensity.
While external training load describes the type and amount of exercise, internal training load shows the client’s physiological and psychological responses to exercise during and after training. The standard measures of internal training load and the body’s response to it include heart rate.
Although training load is defined and measured across all populations, external training load recommendations for women over 40 differ from other groups. Since the loss of estrogen directly influences muscle tone, strength, and appearance in women over 40, the effect of loss of estrogen determines their training load recommendations.
Higher-volume resistance training programs can create an issue. Any time you increase volume, it puts you at higher risk for overtraining and injury. Therefore, exercises that are high in volume need to be well-thought-out in advance. Because of this, it is worth revisiting the value and necessity of single-joint exercises to prevent overtraining, to maintain good form, target specific muscles, and leave adequate rest days while increasing frequency and volume.
Even though multijoint exercises tend to be favored mainly to save time and to boost performance, such as heart rate and total oxygen consumption, single-joint exercises are very practical. Both multijoint and single-joint exercises decreased body fat and increased fat-free mass, with no significant differences between the two.
Which brings us to PROGRAMMING and Cluster-Set Training
Cluster set training uses short rest periods within sets instead of more extended rest periods between sets. In a cluster-set program with three 15-rep sets, there would be rest after every third or fifth repetition of each set.
Cluster-set training is an excellent choice for those who are new to resistance training because the shorter rests within sets allow for mini muscle recovery breaks that stave off fatigue, keeping good form. This is an effective way to change up workouts.
Another way to program is by Redistributed-Rest Training.
In other words, equal rest after each repetition. You have your clients do one set of 36 repetitions of a single exercise. Redistributing rest can be a programming tool for improving muscle performance while safely increasing volume.
So reducing the intensity of the load or weight when increasing volume during a set is key to safety. Although the idea of redistributed rest training is to allow the muscle recovery between repetitions, and during the set, it is important to remember that the client is performing 36 repetitions in quick succession, which can cause fatigue and use the improper form and, over time, lead to overtraining.
Which is why having adequate Recovery Periods is important.
Current recommendations suggest at least 48 hours of rest is required for a muscle to recover fully after a workout. The 48-hour rule is excellent for alternate training days. Preforming similar sets of muscles one day and other muscles the next. You can participate in active recovery activities, such as swimming, low-intensity cardiovascular exercise, and dynamic stretching.
Results
Women over 40, like myself, are a unique client group. Whether we are new to resistance training or have been exercising regularly, training-load recommendations are similar. High volume resistance training improves muscle mass and decreases body fat. The best way is to increase the frequency of training on alternate days and to boost volume is by combining multijoint and single-joint exercises using either the cluster set or redistributed rest training programs.
Strange Fitness~Fitness Blog & Contributing Writer 