\n<\/p>\n
I<\/span> can\u2019t remember when I first became aware of the phrase: \u201cWomen are not small men.\u201d But once I\u2019d heard it, I started hearing it everywhere. Fitness types on social media kept alluding to it. Friends would talk excitedly about the new strain of female-specific exercise research, which was smashing the template we had all held dear for years. And the originator of the phrase, Dr Stacy Sims, was suddenly on every podcast you cared to name. A highly credentialed sports scientist with a huge social media following, she\u2019s hard to avoid, if your algorithms skew vaguely towards self-optimisation content.<\/p>\n While her stance remains divisive in the sports science world, it has the kind of splashy, audacious quality that mainstream exercise advice does not. As a result, it has taken hold in a big way. You might say that Stacy Sims is to women\u2019s exercise what Dr Chris van Tulleken is to ultra-processed foods: changing the conversation almost single-handedly while undaunted by any pushback.<\/p>\n Sims maintains that not only are women not small men (we have a different muscular structure and metabolic profile, for instance) but women over 40 should exercise in a different way from men altogether. Although younger women can follow mainstream fitness advice with no ill effects, those aged 40 and above should be prioritising heavy lifting and \u201cpolarised\u201d cardio, she claims. That means either sprint interval training (very intense short bursts of exercise, followed by a break, repeated five times) or gentle walking, with nothing in between.<\/p>\n Age 40, it appears, is chosen as a proxy for perimenopause: the time when our reproductive hormones start to fluctuate unpredictably, with myriad consequences for our overall functioning. Sims doesn\u2019t give an upper age limit, though she does have slightly different protocols for women in their 60s and beyond.<\/p>\n \u201cThe women that are 40-plus who are doing the cardio \u2026 are going to be what we call skinny fat,\u201d she told Mel Robbins on her podcast. \u201cSo that means that they\u2019re not going to have a lot of quality muscle. There\u2019s going to be a lot of fatty tissue within the muscle, and their bones are going to be like chalk.\u201d<\/p>\n As a 39-year-old woman who loves cardio, I can\u2019t say I was thrilled to hear my fate. From a fitness perspective, I gravitate to what Sims calls \u201csoul food\u201d \u2013 exercise that may benefit your mental health, but supposedly isn\u2019t optimal for a midlife body. For me, that means lots of running and yoga, as well as strength training in whatever capacity I can feasibly do at home. In an ideal world, I\u2019d make it to the gym to do some heavy lifting (I completed a personal training qualification a couple of years back and recognise the benefits), but that isn\u2019t easy as a time-pressed mum of two very young children.<\/p>\n For the time being, I feel good on it \u2013 fit and strong and capable. I\u2019m able to meet most of the ridiculous physical demands that early motherhood places on me (think: hauling two children and a pushchair over a railway bridge, or manoeuvring through a soft-play tunnel in pursuit of a three-year-old). But is all that about to change the moment the clock strikes midnight on my 40th birthday? Or, to put it less facetiously, is there really a place for special exercise recommendations in the years leading up to menopause?<\/p>\n <\/span>\u2018Is there really a place for special exercise recommendations in the years leading up to menopause?\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n In 2023, a British Medical Journal editorial highlighted a range of studies showing that women are under-represented in exercise research. It found that there are \u201cdistinct knowledge gaps in areas such as sport performance, cardiovascular health, musculoskeletal health, postpartum physiology and lactation research\u201d. Another study, from the University of Melbourne, found that sports psychology research is disproportionately focused on men; while another paper highlighted that only 6-9% of reputable sports science studies look exclusively at female athletes. In other words, the research gap is very real. This has led to a wave of female-specific fitness influencers, rushing in to fill the vacuum.<\/p>\n Take cycle-syncing, the idea that women should tailor their exercise routines around their menstrual cycle. Notionally, we should do intense exercise while we\u2019re ovulating, and \u201cstrong but stretchy\u201d movements while menstruating. It sounds good on the face of things \u2013 flipping the bird to a fitness world that has classically ignored the very existence of periods. But, to date, the scientific basis for cycle-syncing is limited.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s Sims \u2013 MSc and PhD \u2013 who has dozens of scientific papers under her belt and a faculty position at Stanford. Clearly, she\u2019s far more than some kooky wellness influencer \u2013 and to her devotees, she\u2019s something of a feminist hero. As she told Robbins: \u201cI think that when we look right now at [fitness trends] all of that data is really drawn from men and just generalised to women, which is a huge disservice.\u201d Her recommendations are seductive in their certainty. For instance, she told Andrew Huberman on his podcast the Huberman Lab that the average fitness class is bad for older women because it doesn\u2019t create a \u201cstrong enough stress to invoke the postexercise growth hormone and testosterone responses that we want to dampen [our] cortisol.\u201d The average listener may find herself won over by the sheer sciencey-ness of Sims\u2019 rhetoric.<\/p>\n However, strong claims require strong evidence, and not everyone agrees that her studies make the cut. Laurel Beversdorf (a strength and conditioning coach) and Sarah Court (a physical therapist) are the hosts of the podcast Movement Logic. \u201cIt really feels good that someone is finally standing up for us, bringing attention to inequalities,\u201d says Beversdorf. \u201cBut it\u2019s actually the same misogynistic playbook that we\u2019ve seen across many decades. Let\u2019s problematise women\u2019s bodies. Let\u2019s fragilise women. Let\u2019s make it all about their hormones, and let\u2019s treat them all the same. She\u2019s saying men can do a much wider variety of things and benefit, but for women she\u2019s taking exercise options off the table.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>\u2018In an ideal world, I\u2019d make it to the gym to do some heavy lifting, but that isn\u2019t easy as a time-pressed mum of two very young children.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n Elizabeth Davies (thiswomanlifts) is a fitness coach who trains women at all stages of life, and the author of the upcoming book Training for Your Old Lady Body. She thinks that far from motivating women to work out, crafting ultra-specific recommendations can create yet another barrier. \u201cThere are lots of loud voices on social media giving very specific guidance on how women must train at different life stages, and perimenopause is a key one where I see this,\u201d she says. \u201cAs people working in the fitness industry, I think it\u2019s our responsibility not to overcomplicate movement by creating arbitrary rules for women or for certain life stages, unless there is an evidential basis to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n This tracks with me. When I did my own personal training qualification in 2024, I learned about a few \u201cspecial populations\u201d (eg children and elderly people) who might need specially tailored fitness advice. Everyone else, we were taught, could follow the same blanket recommendations.<\/p>\n The UK government advises that adults aged 19-64 should conduct 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity, such as brisk walking, every week, or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity activity such as running. We should also do at least two sessions of \u201cstrengthening activities that work all the major muscle groups\u201d. Heavy lifting is one such activity for sure, but so are yoga, pilates, gardening and carrying children. By the standards of a fitness influencer, that might not sound like much \u2013 nobody ever became TikTok famous by walking for half an hour a day with heavy shopping bags. But it\u2019s nonetheless a useful benchmark, and a challenging one for many people to accomplish. According to the 2021 Health Survey for England, 59% of women met the aerobic guidelines, while just 29% met the bar for strength training. (The respective figures for men are 70% and 36%.) Arguably, it\u2019s counterproductive to worry about the exact exercise method when so few of us are doing anything at all. <\/strong>Sims herself has said her recommendations are not designed for sedentary women.<\/p>\n For those of us who are already hitting the targets, and want to improve our fitness, the advice is clear. We should apply the principle of progressive overload, which in a nutshell means doing more over time: gradually increasing the intensity, volume, frequency or duration of our workouts.<\/p>\n Beversdorf and Court think it\u2019s \u201cpotentially extremely harmful\u201d to scare women off cardio \u2013 especially given sprint interval training isn\u2019t exactly accessible to beginners. \u201cModerate-intensity cardio has some of the most consistent and robust evidence behind it,\u201d say Beversdorf. \u201cIt delivers some of the most reliable health benefits, and there\u2019s a lot of evidence to support that.\u201d For instance, a major 2022 study, which tracked more than 100,000 adults over 30 years, found that people who engaged in high levels of moderate physical activity were up to 38% less likely to die from heart disease.<\/p>\n As for strength training, Davies notes that there are plenty of benefits to lifting heavy, meaning a weight you can only manage for between one and six reps. (Sims maintains that women over 40 should exclusively train in this way.) Still, the evidence suggests that if you don\u2019t have access to heavy weights, there are other ways to meet your quota. \u201cThe research is very clear that we can build strength and muscle with lighter weights, so long as we work close enough to the point of failure, meaning the point at which you could not manage another good-quality rep,\u201d says Davies.<\/p>\n <\/span>\u2018I\u2019d like to run a sub-45-minute 10k \u2026\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n The obvious counterpoint is this: if women\u2019s bodies are still so under-researched, of course the official recommendations would need some time to catch up. Sims says her detractors are conducting \u201ca very nasty and personal misinformation campaign against me,\u201d and that \u201cpeople need simple, science-based, agreed-upon plans they can follow\u201d.<\/p>\n Her recommendation about heavy lifting, she says, come from randomised controlled trials that focus on sex differences in ageing. \u201cEverything I talk about is to make women stronger, both physically and mentally. To not follow male data blindly. Yes, a lot is the same, but there are also differences, and they are critical, especially as we age and as our fitness level changes.\u201d<\/p>\n Sims\u2019 prescriptions remain the subject of lively debate across the sports science community, and whatever you make of them, she has at least exposed a gap in the research base that needs redressing. However, even if the science were incontrovertible, I don\u2019t think the same \u201cscience-based plan\u201d would be appropriate for every woman over 40. For instance, it\u2019s hard to know where an individual\u2019s own performance goals fit into the prescription. Personally, I\u2019d like to run a sub-45-minute 10k, and I\u2019m not sure many running coaches would advise replacing all my training with twice weekly sprint sessions.<\/p>\n That\u2019s not to mention all the other factors that affect our individual training needs. Davies is a big fan of autoregulation, or adjusting your training session depending on how you feel that day. \u201cFor most of the women I\u2019ve worked with, the challenge isn\u2019t motivation or discipline, but capacity,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen you\u2019re running on broken sleep, programmes that rely on \u2018no excuses\u2019 or ignoring fatigue can backfire, increasing injury risk or simply making exercise feel like another thing you\u2019re failing at. What actually works better is training that\u2019s flexible and adaptable, where progress is built over months and years.\u201d<\/p>\n Beversdorf and Court think that, if women over 40 do need specially tailored advice, then that has nothing to do with our physiological makeup. Rather, it\u2019s about providing an antidote to the cultural poisons we were exposed to in our youth \u2013 a culture that emphasised thinness above all else, and told women they would get \u201cbulky\u201d if they so much as eyed a barbell. \u201cThe message that you need to start weight training in your 40s is not incorrect, but it\u2019s not to say that you should be doing cardio up to that point and then switch to weights,\u201d says Court. \u201cCardio and weights are appropriate for women across their lifespan. But the benefits of strength training are a new message to us, which is why it\u2019s been emphasised so much to this age group.\u201d<\/p>\n And perhaps this is where female-specific training advice gets something right. My friend Amy, 39, who started strength training off the back of Sims\u2019 recommendations, says she has found it life-changing. \u201cHaving spent my 20s and 30s trying all types of exercise, it always felt like a slog, and it always felt like it was with the aim of being small,\u201d she tells me. \u201cFor the first time in my life really, I feel like that\u2019s no longer the purpose of my exercise.\u201d <\/strong>(I wonder, though, if this could have been just as true if she were 29 and encountering heavy lifting for the first time?)<\/p>\n Hopefully, we are all starting to move on from an era of strength training for men, cardio machines and tiny little pink hand weights for women. There is a lot to be said for a fitness approach that leaves you proud to take up space. But not everyone\u2019s going to gel with the \u201cwomen are not small men\u201d messaging. To me it feels like a diminishment \u2013 particularly since so many of the activities I love (yoga, fitness classes, long runs, lifting lighter weights) are downplayed, problematised and dismissed. <\/strong>And need we point out that some women are actually bigger than some men?<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re used to things being overcomplicated for us as women,\u201d says Court. \u201cWe have a 10-step face skincare routine that we\u2019re supposed to do every night. But it doesn\u2019t need to be that way. Chase the performance goals that you have, or meet the minimum guidelines. Either way, you\u2019re doing better than a lot of people.\u201d<\/p>\nThe research gender gap<\/h2>\n
What does the evidence say?<\/h2>\n
Do women over 40 need special messaging?<\/h2>\n