Over time, women have to deal with the different physical changes that the natural aging process brings. At age 40, a woman’s body is significantly different than it was at 20. You cannot deny the changes that occur with time if you want to stay healthy. It’s much better to maintain your fitness by adjusting your exercise routines to cope with the changes that age brings and minimize their impact on your life. Proper weight training for women over 40 can help meet that goal and keep you feeling better for many years to come.
The good news is that strength training has become much more popular for women of all ages. The old gender divide between the weight rooms and the aerobics studios is eroding; everyone is recognizing that both men and women need a mix of strength and cardiovascular exercise. You just need to make sure that you take your age into account when engaging in weight training. There are plenty of people over 40 — both men and women — who are doing their strength workouts the wrong way.
Form Beats Speed
As you get older, it becomes increasingly important to maintain proper form when doing strength training. In weight training for women over 40, speed is no longer a prime concern. Healing gets harder as you get older, so preventing injuries is far more important. Understand the right range of motion for each of your exercises and focus on moving through it with slow, steady control.
Boot Camps? Not Now!
Boot camps, CrossFit, and other high-impact forms of blended strength/cardiovascular training are all the rage with the younger set today. At your age, it’s not a good idea to indulge in workouts that involve too much challenging running and jumping. The competitive nature of these kinds of fitness programs invites you to end up hurting your knees, back, or other joints accidentally. High impact exercises don’t do any favours to your breast tissue, either, especially without ironclad support.
Home Workouts
It’s possible to do very effective weight training for women over 40 at home because the core equipment requirements are minimal. Strength training at home is also a great idea because it suits even the busiest of schedules. Getting healthy in your own home is an excellent way to minimize the time-wasting hassles involved in strength training.
Benefits Of Weight Training
There are many positive things that weight training does for your body. It builds new muscle tissue and tones your existing muscles. There are also improvements to the strength of your tendons, ligaments, and bones. You can also achieve real psychological benefits by increasing your sense of self-esteem and confidence through strength training.
When you do weight training regularly, the increased levels of power, endurance, and strength you achieve will give you more energy. For women over 40, some of the incidental benefits like better digestion come in handy, too. Strength training will even help keep your mind sharp. By occupying yourself for a little while with physical challenges instead of mental ones, you can give your brain the break it needs from modern life’s hectic stresses.
Other benefits of strength training for older women include higher mineral density in the bones and more consistent, healthier sleeping habits. The positive endorphins released during a productive workout can also help stave off depression and elevate your mood. Taken together, the physical and mental effects of weight training are excellent for dealing with stress and elevating your mood.
There’s one important caveat you should pay attention to before starting an exercise regimen that includes weight training for women over 40, though: Make sure you discuss your plans with your doctor in order to ensure that you aren’t going to put your health in danger. With that being said, take charge of your fitness and do what it takes to look & feel as healthy as possible.
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