2 women lifting weights to show importance of strength training for women

Why women need to strength train

Building and maintaining lean muscle is the best thing you can do to improve your health at any age. Strength training, sometimes also called resistance training, is how we build and maintain this essential lean muscle.

For women, in particular, strength training is critically important for 5 key reasons.

1. Feel strong and confident with how you carry yourself through space.

From the boardroom to the class room or coaching soccer, standing taller and stronger improves your confidence. Yoga, Pilates and any form of functional strength training (where you hold your own body weight and don’t sit on a machine while using dumbbells, kettlebells or other free weights) build core strength. Core strength translates into standing taller with better posture. A strong core also means your shoulders can relax down your back and not hunch by your ears trying to hold up your spine (and compensate for weak core muscles).

Researcher Amy Cuddy published the groundbreaking book "Presence” revealing her research that “power posing,” a.k.a. standing tall and taking up space, increases performance by measurable amounts.

Women are prone to curvature of the spine and slouching over time. Strength training combats both shrinking and rounding by keeping your core strong and the muscles in your back strong and activated to prevent rounding.

2. Metabolic currency

This is where the rubber really hits the road in terms of the importance of strength training for women. Lean muscle is responsible for burning, or metabolizing, the food we eat. The more lean muscle we have, the more calories we burn at rest. The more lean muscle we have the more efficiently we can utilize carbohydrates in our food. Un-utilized carbohydrates are a key source of fat that gets stored around the midsection, visceral fat, which is a common complaint of women as they age and a huge predictor of negative health outcomes. Lean muscle makes it easier to maintain a healthy weight and burn calories more effectively at rest.

Increased metabolism via lean muscle lessens the risk factors for common metabolic diseases – including diabetes, heart disease, neurodegeneration, and some cancers.Both the act of strength training and the addition of lean muscle mass help the body to regulate blood sugar (glucose) more efficiently and lead to improvements in insulin sensitivity.

In particular, women use insulin less effectively as we age and as our estrogen declines (beginning in our 30s). This means our muscle cells have a harder time using the glucose we eat. And, it makes it even more important for women to strength train regularly.

3. Injury prevention

Running, hiking, pickleball, biking, you name your favorite way to be active (or your cardio activity of choice) and strength training is essential to staying injury-free. One of the most common things we hear from new members is how their aches and pains subside when they start strength training regularly. Estrogen is a powerful anti-inflammatory, as levels of estrogen start to decline in our 30s, women experience more aches and pains. Many women feel they need weekly or monthly massages to help with aches and pains. A properly designed strength training program can be one of the most powerful preventative measures against nagging, recurring aches and pains

Increased strength and coordination also helps to prevent falls and daily life injuries, and gives the skills to get up off the ground if you do fall. The luxury of being able to get up off the ground is something we don’t think twice about when we are young, but it is a real concern for the aging population. While it is never too late to start strength training, maintaining lean muscle through the aging process is much easier than starting from scratch in your 60s or beyond.

Everything you do with your body in life, be it a sport or daily living, is improved with regular strength training. Just as strength training helps avoid injury, it can also be a key element of improved performance on the trails, roads or courts.

4. Bone density

As our estrogen declines, our bone health is at risk. Strength training is a key component of weight bearing exercise that builds our bones. It also keeps us injury free (see #3) to do the walking, running and cardio exercise that ALSO builds our bones.

The diet/thin culture so prevalent among women also impacts bone health. Significant calorie restriction starves our bones for the calories and nutrients they need to maintain healthy bone density. This shines a light on the many reasons for women to strength train that are interrelated. Building muscle burns more calories, supporting women to maintain their target body size while also eating enough calories to maintain bone health. More about building bone
density here.

5. Sleep

I can confidently say, I don’t know a woman alive who wouldn’t appreciate a little better sleep. And strength training supports women here too. Research shows that strength training improves both quantity and quality of sleep. A recent study found that regular resistance training increased sleep duration by an average of 40 minutes at night, and also decreased sleep interruptions improving sleep efficiency by 15 minutes each night. Read more here.

Quality sleep supports women in all aspects of their lives, and is gaining more and more awareness for the important role it plays in overall longevity and preventative health.

Putting it all together

Strength training is the cornerstone of a smart exercise prescription. Two to three days of strength training each week following a program of progressive overload with adequately heavy weights is the key way to build and maintain lean muscle mass. Other elements to include are: 1-2 days of interval training, 2 days of steady state cardio, mobility work and a healthy dose of non exercise movement like walking the dog after dinner or taking walking breaks throughout the day. Not sure where to start? I’d love to help!


About the author

Lee Carson

Author Lee Carson is co-founder at both Hyatt Strength + Wellness and Florasophy soluble fiber blends. She is a NASM-certified personal trainer and yoga teacher who believes lean muscle and soluble fiber are key elements to optimal health. She loves sharing ways to use strength as a catalyst and tool to live your best life. Get in touch with her by email at Go@HyattGym.com.

Hyatt Strength + Wellness is a personal training gym that specializes in one-on-one strength and conditioning sessions to maximize success. Along with her husband, Jeremy Hyatt, Lee leads a team of 12 strength + wellness professionals from their flagship studio location in NW Portland.