Yesterday one of my favourite instagram accounts made a post about fitness for menopausal women, the woman who runs the account is not quite 30 (but she does have a phd in exercise science & specializes in menopause). 

Another one of my favourite accounts about menopause run by a woman in her 50’s made the observation “ya, sure… come back & talk to me when you are in your 50’s”.

Now let me just reiterate, I absolutely respect the work both of these women are doing because they are empowering all women to make intelligent choices for their health & wellness throughout the menopause transition.

I have been teaching movement to people 20-30 years older than me since I was in my late 20’s & I recognize that I had no idea what 50 was going to feel like at 28 in the same way that I have no idea what 75 is going to feel like right now.

The intent of the original poster was that the things we need to do to be strong, move well & have above average cardiovascular health are always the same no matter what our age & she was making this point because middle aged women are often being sold expensive interventions that are wholly unnecessary & possibly even harmful.

I think the disconnect shows up when there isn’t much nuance.

A lot of 50 something women haven’t jumped in decades & have never picked up a weight over 5 lbs. in their lives. I know this because at 44 I was one of those women.

Weight lifting came pretty easy because it is slow & mindful & I get to take lots of rests. But holy moly trying to add speed & plyometrics hurt!!!! & actually ended up causing injury.

Does that mean it’s bad for me. Maybe? Definitely when introduced with too much too soon. 

One of the most helpful things I have learned is that fitness is a life long endeavour & should always be approached in terms of years & decades. 

When I think of it that way it’s easy to scale waaaaaaay back on movements that feel impossible or dangerous. I can stay curious, I can take breaks, I can take one step forward & two steps back over & over again.

I can experiment with different ways to get similar outcomes. 

For instance, if jumping on the ground feels impossible something like a rebounder might make it more accessible. Or I can practice something like a heel drop that is much lower load while I build up the capacity for more.

& in the end I can also choose to leave some movements in my youth.

But I think we are doing ourselves a disservice dismissing young people because they don’t know what it feels like to be our age & only learning from elders because we risk being limited by their limitations.

Stay curious, be optimistic, you never really know what you are capable of if you never try & fail & try again.

I am not the kind of person who makes New Years Resolutions, however, in 2020 I chose a word for the year. That word was consistency & I happened to stumble across this Colour Your Year Calendar at the same time. Every year I choose a colour to represent an activity I want to be consistent at & colour the day accordingly. For example, in 2024 pink represents strength training & blue represents time spent on snow or water.

For me it is a fun way to keep consistent & I especially like to look back & see how many days I spent doing the water sports I absolutely love!

Would you like to colour your year too? You can find a blank copy here.

2024 In Colour

Generally speaking modern life requires a lot of sitting & looking slightly down. The resulting posture can leave our neck & shoulders feeling stiff & sore. It can also change the way we breathe.

Here is a short class to get your upper back & shoulders moving. Better Posture in 12 Minutes or less

Give it a try, let me know how it goes.

If you are under 50 the answer is probably not very much unless you’ve broken one.

If you are over 50 it’s possible your doctor has mentioned osteoporosis (OP) but likely only if you have gone through menopause or treatment for cancer.

I’ve been thinking about bones a lot lately.

A few months back a student stayed after class to talk to me about Jefferson curls. I had recently fallen in love with this particular exercise and was teaching them a lot because they can be great for reeducating a weak/sore back into tolerating load. However, what I didn’t know is that they are an absolute no-no for someone with an OP. This conversation sent me down an internet rabbit hole and lead me to enroll in the Bonefit course for movement teachers. I have learned a lot about bone health in the last few months.

And since November is Fall Prevention Awareness month & fall prevention is an integral part of living well with an OP I thought I would share with you a few of the things I have learned.

Wait!!! Don’t scroll past or unfollow because you are too young to worry about this just yet…

Strong bones are built in our youth so you are never too young to start.

What’s even better is a lot of the things that build strong bones also help us:

Get fit
Build muscle mass
Increase mobility
Improve balance

Who knew!

So follow along for the month of November & maybe you’ll discover new fun ways to move better & get stronger while also improving or maintaining bone health.

If you know someone else with bones who might benefit from this information please share this post in your timeline or tag them in the comments below.

Winter walking can create some new sensations in our feet, knees & hips! Very often our go to solution to foot pain is stretching. Sometimes what we really need is a little bit of strength. Try the foot resistance exercise below to see if a bit of strength creates the change you are looking for.

Remember consistency is key, add this exercise into your daily routine for a few weeks for best results.

If you have ever experienced back pain you will likely have been told to strengthen your “core”. But what exactly does this mean? I think most people imagine doing crunches and planks and picture a six pack of abs when imagining a strong core.

To me a strong core is so much more than abs, in fact developing a strong responsive core requires us to investigate how we breathe, how our hips function and how/how much we move on a daily basis.

Over the next few weeks we are going to take a look at the hips, core & pelvic floor creating an awarenesses of what is going on in our bodies and creating the conditions for change where needed so we can build a strong responsive core.

Let’s get started by defining what the core is.

The muscles fo the core.

We should start small and then we’ll expand in further blog posts. For this post let’s stick to the abdominal and pelvic cavities. At the top of the abdominal cavity we have the diaphragm, a dome shaped muscle that facilitates breathing. As we inhale the diaphragm moves down as the lungs expand and as we exhale the diaphragm moves back up to help empty the lungs. The pelvic floor at the bottom of the pelvic cavity moves in a similar but more subtle fashion, as we inhale the pelvic floor expands to make room for the internal organs shifting down as the diaphragm move down, as we exhale the internal organs move up and the pelvic floor lifts back up into neutral.

In the front of the abdominal cavity we have the transverse abdominis (as well as the other abdominal muscles) which should be moving out as we inhale and draw in as we exhale. Finally we have the multifidus in the back along the spine (again this is a simplified model, obviously there are many more muscles in the back helping to create this container).

Now that we have an idea of what the core is, lets take a look at how it functions and why it might be important to observe our ideas around good and bad posture and why breathing might be important when we are experiencing persistent pain related to a “weak” core.

As we begin to redefine what it looks and feels like to have a strong core lets be easy with ourselves. Postural habits are deeply ingrained and can be very tricky to let go of, change can be slow but it is definitely worth it.

Keep an eye out for the next post on the core and breathing.