If you spend any time on social media right now, you will probably have seen people saying that women in perimenopause should stop doing high intensity exercise.
The message often sounds something like this.
High intensity exercise raises cortisol.
Women in perimenopause are already stressed.
So HIIT and intense workouts are harmful.
It sounds convincing. But like a lot of things in the fitness world, the truth is a little more nuanced…
And for many women this kind of messaging can create a lot of unnecessary confusion. Some even start to feel nervous about exercising in the way they always have.
So let’s talk about what we actually know.
First, what is perimenopause?
Perimenopause is the stage before menopause when hormones such as oestrogen and progesterone start to fluctuate (and decline).
During this time women may notice changes in things like:
• recovery
• sleep
• energy levels
• body composition
• how their body responds to training
Quite often women say to me, “I feel like I am doing the same things but my body is responding differently.”
And honestly, they are not imagining it.
There are real physiological changes happening.
The cortisol conversation
Cortisol has developed a bit of a bad reputation online recently.
But cortisol itself is not bad. It is a normal hormone that rises when we wake up in the morning, when we deal with challenges and when we exercise.
During exercise cortisol helps the body:
• release energy
• maintain blood sugar
• adapt to training
So those short increases during exercise are actually part of how the body gets fitter.
They are not the same thing as chronic stress.
Where some of the confusion comes from
In reality, the issue is rarely high intensity exercise on its own.
What matters much more is the overall stress load on the body.
For example if someone is dealing with:
• poor sleep
• high life or work stress
• not eating enough
• lots of intense workouts with little recovery
then the body can start to feel overwhelmed.
In that situation almost any type of training can start to feel like too much.
It is not usually about one specific workout style.
What tends to work well in midlife
Most exercise guidelines still recommend a balanced approach to training that includes:
• resistance training
• cardiovascular exercise
• mobility or flexibility work
Strength training becomes particularly important as we get older because it helps counter things like muscle loss and declining bone density.
But cardiovascular exercise is still very important for heart health, metabolic health and overall fitness.
There is no strong evidence suggesting women in perimenopause need to completely avoid higher intensity exercise.
Training smarter, not less
For most women the key is not removing certain types of exercise.
It is making sure the overall training approach is sustainable.
That often looks like:
• strength training regularly
• including some cardio
• moving daily
• allowing enough recovery
• eating well and fuelling the body properly
In other words, the fundamentals still matter.
The bottom line
Perimenopause does not mean your body is broken.
It simply means things are changing slightly and sometimes we need to adjust how we train.
For most women, a balanced mix of strength training, cardio, mobility and recovery continues to work really well.
Different does not mean worse. It just means we train a little smarter.
If you are looking for structured weekly training that balances strength, cardio, mobility and recovery, with the support and accountability to help you stay consistent, you can find more information below.
PLUS, if you’d like to listen to the full podcast episode where I dive into this deeper including other topics such as reducing belly fat, improving memory, push-ups and more, check it out here.
