Why Heavy Lifting Rocks for Active 40+ Women

If I could point to just one thing I did when I hit late perimenopause at age 48 or 49 that buoyed what felt like a sinking ship in terms of my training, performance, and just general enjoyment of cycling, running, hiking, etc., it would be “lifting heavy shit” (aka LHS). In a matter of weeks, I could feel more power in my pedals and over time noticed marked improvements in my strength, endurance, and resilience. I also got a bit of my swagger, which had been waning with my power, back.

I’ve been shouting it from the rooftops ever since. Recently, however, there has been a bit of online pushback, saying women don’t really have to lift heavy, which okay, sure, you can certainly make muscle with higher volume and more moderate loads. But high intensity resistance training that uses heavy loads, fewer repetitions, and longer rest periods to maximize strength, power, and muscle recruitment isn’t just about making muscle, it’s about getting strong. And as active 40+ women, we want to stay as strong as possible.

Heavy lifting also provides a host of unique benefits that can help active and athletic 40+ women take their performance and enjoyment of sport to the next level. Here’s why we recommend keeping LHS in heavy rotation.

🧨 Keep Your Power

Lifting heavy improves strength. Having a solid foundation of strength is essential for developing power, as it allows you to generate the necessary force in the first place. 

With age, we lose fast-twitch muscle fibers, which contract rapidly and generate high force, but heavy lifting helps preserve them. These fibers are crucial for explosive movements like sprinting and jumping.

Maintaining power is so important that a group of researchers recently penned a review paper calling for what they’ve coined “powerpenia” to be considered a biomarker for healthy aging. And in sport? It’s everything. Take mountain biking as an example. Being strong lets you grind up 19 percent grades while power lets you pop over obstacles and sprint to the line.

🚴🏻‍♀️  Run or Ride Stronger, Not Harder

Incorporating heavy resistance training improves running economy and endurance performance. By lifting heavy, you enhance your neuromuscular efficiency. That means better motor unit recruitment and more force with less effort. Research on performance is mixed, but largely favorable. So, if you want to better your 5 or 10K performance, it’s worth adding some squats and deadlifts to your training plan to see what happens.

Recent research also suggests that the benefits to neuromuscular function from heavy resistance training are so strong that one year of heavy training can preserve muscle function for years afterward. That’s pretty cool.

🦵🏾 Protect Your Joints

Heavy lifting strengthens and stiffens tendons, helping them better withstand load and reducing the risk of injury. These adaptations are especially important in older adults, as they help maintain movement efficiency and resilience with age. This is something I hear anecdotally in our community and among athletes (especially runners) we feature on the Hit Play Not Pause podcast. It’s also something I’ve experienced personally. Even when I was younger, it was hard to avoid overuse injuries and niggles anytime I trained for a run longer than a half marathon. Lifting heavier has helped me run longer with greater durability and resilience, and most importantly pain free.

💪 Body Composition Benefits

Heavy lifting improves body composition and power-to-weight ratio, which is beneficial for endurance and hybrid athletes. In fact, one study on midlife women specifically found that the more days, time, and effort that the women devoted to strength training, the lower their body fat and the higher their fat-free mass tended to be. The researchers noted that a significant portion of the body composition benefits may be due to the lifters being more physically active than the non-lifters, but that also tracks. When you have more strength, you have greater capacity for more and more vigorous activity. 

🦴 Stronger Bones, Fewer Breaks

Resistance training in general is good for your midlife bones. Higher-intensity resistance training–especially when combined with impact exercise like jumping–is particularly effective in preserving bone density in 40+ and postmenopausal women. 

👊🏼 Fight Hormonal Decline
Lifting heavy weights gives your body a hit of anabolic hormones like testosterone, growth hormone, and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1). IGF-1 supports brain cell growth and works with BDNF, a brain-boosting molecule that helps form and strengthen neural pathways. Translation: strength training doesn’t just build muscle—it helps keep your brain sharp, too–perfect for midlife women wanting to maintain good cognitive function. 

😎It makes you feel kinda badass

And sometimes that’s all you need.