There comes a time in every woman’s life when the body seems to rewrite its own rules. Hot flashes randomly turn up the heat, nights are spent tossing and turning, and clothes don’t seem to fit how they used to. Welcome to perimenopause and menopause transition—a journey that often feels like navigating unchartered territory with too little guidance.
Even today, too many women face these changes alone, navigating endless myths and misconceptions. The biggest one of all? That all the unpleasant symptoms and bodily changes of perimenopause and beyond are inevitable—and that nothing can be done to bring relief.
In reality, exercise can be one of your best allies through this time: a way to manage symptoms, regain confidence, and set your health up for success through your golden years. From easing hot flashes and improving sleep quality to preserving muscle and bone mass, the benefits are profound (and backed by science).
At obé, we’re committed to prioritizing a woman’s wellness through every life stage, and the new Age Well Collection is your best resource for this one. Designed specifically for women in their 30s, 40s, and beyond, this progressive weekly series pairs hormone-friendly strength training with balancing yoga. To help you navigate it with ease—and to learn how to embrace perimenopause and menopause with confidence—we turned to women’s health expert and obé director of programming, Melody D to break it all down.
How Perimenopause and Menopause Change a Woman’s Body
A transitional phase leading up to menopause that can last from a few months to over a decade, perimenopause typically begins in a woman’s 40s—but can start anywhere from the mid-30s to early 50s. On average, it’s a 4- to 8-year period.
During this stage, fluctuating hormone levels (estrogen and progesterone are the biggest culprits) cause changes in a woman’s body. On the (long) list are symptoms like irregular menstrual cycles, night sweats or hot flashes, mood changes (and depression), sleep disturbances, vaginal issues, changes in sex drive, and more. Every woman is different, but all these changes are normal.
Once you go about a year without menstruating, menopause has arrived. Known for being the end of a woman’s menstrual cycle and reproductive years, it typically occurs around age 51 but is individual. Estrogen and progesterone production significantly drops since the ovaries no longer release eggs.
Many of the same symptoms above persist in this stage, plus changes in body composition, blood cholesterol levels, skin and hair, joint health, and more. These symptoms can continue for years after your last period—but once they settle, you’ll feel the relief of the postmenopausal stage.
“As we look at overall body composition, there tends to be a shift in the percentage of muscle to body fat, as well as where our body stores fat during this phase,” explains Melody. “Before, you may have had more subcutaneous fat, typically centered around the hips and butt; now, you may see more abdominal fat, a visceral fat which can lead to poor health outcomes.”
The fluctuations of our sex hormones can also negatively impact our energy levels and movement quality. Plus, adrenal hormones and cortisol may go into overdrive during this time, putting the hormonal system out of whack.
“Perimenopause is a roller coaster,” says Melody. “You’re up and down in your body as it tries to rediscover homeostasis. The good news is that you can do things to mitigate the intensity of the ride through diet, lifestyle choices, and exercise.”
Managing Perimenopause and Menopause with Exercise
Physiologically, two of the biggest concerns during perimenopause and menopause are losing muscle and bone density. The natural shift of hormones makes you naturally susceptible to both—increasing chances of developing osteoporosis (a bone disease four times more common in women) and sarcopenia (loss of muscle mass, strength, and function).
Luckily, using exercise to place strategic stress on your body during this time is a game changer. Strength training in particular is a super powerful remedy for maintaining (and building) muscle mass and bone density (more on why every woman needs to strength train, here). It also supports your metabolism and how your body uses energy to facilitate different internal processes, paving the way to a good quality of life for years to come.
Which brings us to those pesky hot flashes… While you can’t completely eradicate them, exercise does help with thermo-regulation and managing overall body temperature. “Think about it: You get super hot, your body releases sweat, and you learn how to cool down,” explains Melody. “You’re teaching your body how to handle and regulate temperature differences, including the vascular changes that lead to hot flashes.”
Plus, exercise has been proven to support sleep quality—particularly by improving the amount of deep and REM sleep you get per night. Even a little daily movement can help offset sleep disruptions, getting you back in tune with your circadian rhythm.
The benefits aren’t only physical, either. Sharp fluctuations in estrogen can increase anxiety symptoms (so much so that ‘perimenopause anxiety’ is a real thing) and put women at risk of mood disorders. Besides supporting body confidence, working out has been scientifically proven to dramatically mitigate anxiety symptoms and significantly boost mood.
The Best Fitness Plan for Perimenopause and Menopause
That being said, there’s definitely a right and a wrong way to exercise during this time! Thanks to the myth that cardio will lead to weight loss, most women gravitate towards excessive cardio to try and offset the body changes that come from perimenopause and beyond. Unfortunately, too much cardio with zero strength training may only perpetuate muscle mass and bone density loss.
Strength training—specifically, lifting heavy—should be your foundation now more than ever, recommends Melody (and by the way, strength training changes your body composition way more effectively than cardio). “When we’re going through menopause, we develop anabolic resistance,” says Melody. “You can’t stimulate muscle protein synthesis as well as you could before perimenopause. You need to train differently than you did in your 20s and 30s because your body won’t respond the same way.” That’s why strategic workouts are so important.
As you look to Strength and Power, you’ll want to lean into the mid-rep range. It’s good to push yourself, but leave a few reps in the tank, says Melody. Since the adrenal system is changing and cortisol levels are rising, you don’t want to make your workouts so intense you’re taxing an already stressed system. (By the way, that’s true for cardio, too!) Aim for 2-3 weekly sessions.
The next ingredient—cardio—is a tool to maintain your cardiovascular health, particularly for thermo-regulation (because hi, hot flashes). Turn to your steady-state, Zone 2 cardio like dance cardio, walking, jogging, or cycling to keep your heart healthy (more so than regulating your weight). Select higher-intensity moments—like sprint runs, HIIT, or power conditioning—will train you to better handle and recover from stress. Overall, strive for 150 minutes of weekly cardio.
Finally, you also want to finesse movement quality, focusing on balance, flexibility, stability, and mobility. Going for a weekly Yoga class, incorporating Express mobility or Prehab classes into your routine, or sprinkling in some Pilates and Barre works wonders.
The Age Well Collection and obé Programs for Perimenopause and Beyond
That was a lot, but don’t stress—you don’t have to navigate this journey alone! obé’s new Age Well Collection naturally incorporates these pillars so you can cut the guesswork. A progressive weekly series, it features three 45-minute classes (take one per week!) pairing Strength and Yoga, plus one 20-minute Power conditioning workout.
“Strength supports your bones, metabolism, glucose regulation, and more,” explains Melody. “Meanwhile, the yoga sequence at the end supports mobility, balance, and stability. It down-regulates stress after lifting heavy, giving the body some TLC and ensuring you’re not living in a high-stress state and spiking cortisol levels.”
Power is the first thing that goes as we age, so incorporating conditioning is also vital to supporting your body through perimenopause and beyond.
Besides sampling the Age Well Collection, a progressive training program is the easiest way to tap into all the benefits of exercise (bonus points: you’ll have months of workouts planned for you). Melody recommends going for the Elevate program—which focuses on building strength, or Transformation, which zeroes in on body composition change and incorporates Power and Strength workouts. These programs also give you the flexibility to add the cardio and recovery modalities you love!
“No matter what, know there are things you can do to mitigate the impact of this shift and find a sense of control over something,” says Melody. “Committing to movement won’t just improve your body composition or reduce hot flashes, it will set your older self up for success as well. You’ll have a foundation of strength, cardio, and mobility to carry you through the other side.”
Additional Holistic Wellness Resources
For many women, hormones aren’t the only things changing in mid-life. Kids may be growing up or going off to college, parents may need more assistance and support, a career transition may be in the cards—a lot is happening, and all at once. Feeling overwhelmed and stressed is okay (and so normal).
“The reality is you’re going to be perimenopausal, menopausal, or postmenopausal for half your life,” says Melody. “The fact that this topic isn’t widely discussed and that women aren’t given all the appropriate resources to navigate it feels neglectful. We need to know how to maintain a healthy body, not just for the first half of our life, but for our entire healthspan.”
To support your journey, here are a few additional resources on obé:
- Nutrition: As women see their bodies shift, they think they need to restrict calories. But drastically reducing calories means you’re reducing what your body needs to sustain muscle and healthy metabolic function. “For so long we’ve been told that if you just eat less, you’ll be fine,” says Melody. “That is not even remotely the case when we look at menopause.” Protein and other micronutrients all work together to mitigate hormonal shifts, for example.
To help you navigate nutritional choices, check out blogs from our in-house nutritionists and talks in the Wellness 101 Collection. - 7 Days to Better Sleep: Workouts help you get more out of sleep, but there are other things you can do to level up your sleep hygiene during this time! This collection features Express Meditations that guide you through the best ways to prime your body, mind, and space for truly restorative sleep.
- 7 Days of Self-care: This mini-challenge has plenty of Breathwork and Meditation strategies to help with anxiety and stress management. You have to take care of body and mind!
- Wellness Essentials: If you’re looking for more structure, this program gives you 3 weeks’ worth of Meditation, Breathwork, and gentle Yoga to focus on your mind-body connection. It’s a perfect supplement to any movement routine.
- The Cycle Syncing Collection: This seems like a curveball, but hear us out. Perimenopause is where your cycle starts to get really funky, so while you may not know exactly what phase you’re in when, you will absolutely feel shifts in your energy levels. Whether you’re up or down on the hormonal rollercoaster ride, you can find a workout to match your vibe.
Above all, remember to give yourself grace. Start small, start short, start with bodyweight, and work your way up as you build consistency. You don’t have to go from zero to one hundred.
“Listen to your body and know things will feel extra sensitive some days,” says Melody. “The shifts will happen, so honor them. But also know that you can be strong, you can feel good in your own skin, you can move your body. It’s important to maintain that sense of self-competence and pride in what your body is capable of.” You’ve got a whole life ahead of you!
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