Libsyn Directory

Why Movement Prep & Balance Matter in Strength Training Over 40

Release Date: 12/03/2024

Pre-Workout Nutrition for Early Morning Training Sessions

Fuel Your Strength

If you train early in the morning, you might be wondering what to eat before your session to arrive fueled and perform well. In this episode, you'll learn how to approach pre-workout nutrition for early morning workouts, especially when you’re short on time but still want enough fuel to make it through your session without gassing out. You'll learn how to factor in training intensity, how much time you have before your session, hydration, and what you did the day before. This is a practical episode for athletes over 40. What you’ll learn in this episode: How to fuel early morning...

How to Strength Train as a Hobbyist Athlete

Fuel Your Strength

If you’re a hobbyist athlete over 40 who loves your sport – cycling, running, pickleball, martial arts to name a few – but you’ve been hesitating to start strength training, this episode is for you. In today’s episode of the Fuel Your Strength podcast, you'll hear exactly how to strength train as an athletic woman over 40 without sacrificing time for your sport. This is a simple, sustainable blueprint for building muscle, improving power, preventing injury, and staying in the game long-term – without living in the gym five days a week. What you’ll learn in this...

How to Stop Quitting the Gym

Fuel Your Strength

Story time! I'm sharing a personal story from my early triathlon days that still shapes how I coaches lifters today. What started as a scary open-water swim became a powerful lesson about progress, patience, and why perfection is not required to move forward. In this episode, you'll reframe how you think about missed workouts, imperfect weeks, and all-or-nothing thinking in fitness. If you’ve ever felt like skipping one session meant you blew it, this episode offers a grounding reminder: that forward progress counts, even when it doesn’t look pretty. What you’ll learn in this episode: ...

Strength Training Lessons from 15 Years of Lifting Weights

Fuel Your Strength

If I could go back and talk to beginner-me in 2010, there are a handful of strength training lessons I would absolutely whisper in her ear. Not because I did everything wrong, but because so much frustration, second-guessing, and spinning my wheels could’ve been avoided with a little context and coaching. In this episode, I’m reflecting on more than 15 years of consistent lifting, coaching, and learning the hard way. Whether you’re brand new to strength training, a few years in, or coming back after a break, these lessons will help you train smarter, progress more confidently, and stop...

Rebuilding Strength After 80? Change How You See Aging

Fuel Your Strength

Is it really never too late to start strength training – even if you’re in your 80s and you’ve never touched a barbell? You'll hear from journalist Clare Johnston of the “Rebuilding Mum and Dad” project, about what happens when older adults begin true progressive strength training from scratch – and why the results can feel straight-up miraculous (without being magic). Clare shares how her parents started lifting in their 80s after years of mobility decline, osteoporosis concerns, and “we’ve tried everything” frustration. Together, they built a simple garage setup, worked...

Women’s Fitness Over 40: Cutting Through the Confusion with Nikki Naab-Levy

Fuel Your Strength

If you’ve been feeling like women’s fitness over 40 is a nonstop back-and-forth debate - like you’re courtside at Wimbledon watching the ball whip from one hot take to another - you’re not imagining it. Social media is loud right now, especially when it comes to what women should or shouldn’t be doing in midlife. That noise can make it hard to trust your instincts or know what actually matters for building strength and aging athletically. In this episode, I’m joined by strength for hypermobility & nutrition coach Nikki Naab-Levy. Together, we unpack the most confusing fitness...

How to Be More Consistent in the Gym Over 40

Fuel Your Strength

Life is life-ing especially in midlife. One day you’re fired up, smashing your lifts, and thinking the whole week will be a highlight reel; two days later you’re sleep-deprived, stressed, and wondering who parked a bus on your quads. In this episode, you'll learn a structured-yet-flexible strategy to use with your lifting to ride the wave of real-life energy swings so you can keep showing up, build muscle, and actually enjoy the process. We’ll break down how to anchor your week with strength, layer in cardio, and use auto-regulation (RPE/RIR) to dial intensity up or down without ditching...

The 5 Hard Truths Your Lifting Needs After 40

Fuel Your Strength

If you’ve ever heard a coach say “it’s not wrong, but it’s not right either,” you’ll resonate with this episode. Dive into the nuance that gets lost in punchy social media hot takes – especially for athletic women over 40 who want strength, muscle, and better performance without the fluff. Get insight into why your progress may feel stuck, what to do about it, and how to build muscle with less frustration. Get practical coaching on progressive overload, program hopping, hypertrophy, auto-regulation, and why DIY training isn’t actually “free.” What you’ll learn in this...

How to Adjust Workouts When You’re Short on Time

Fuel Your Strength

Life doesn’t always respect your perfectly planned training week. If you’re a woman over 40 following a strength training program, you might be juggling sleep swings, work crunches, hormonal shifts, caretaking, and everything in between. This episode breaks down how to keep your momentum without falling into the all-or-nothing trap so you still get a damn good training stimulus on busy days. Steph explains a simple framework for structured flexibility – keeping the big-picture plan while adapting the day’s session. You’ll learn three practical ways to modify workouts using RPE / RIR,...

The Over-40 Lifting Formula I’d Follow If I Started Again Tomorrow

Fuel Your Strength

Feeling like the Tin Man when your feet hit the floor – and winded on a single flight of stairs – doesn’t have to be “just your 40s.” In this episode, we call BS on the idea that midlife means inevitable decline and lays out a clear, doable plan for rebuilding strength, muscle, and pep in your step over the next six months. No doom and gloom here – just evidence-informed training that respects your real life. You’ll learn exactly how to structure your workouts for results: which compound lifts to prioritize, how to sprinkle in isolation work the smart way, and why adding power...

More Episodes

When it comes to creating a progressive overload plan, we have touched on a lot of elements so far. However, when it comes to how to specifically create your program, whether you are creating a program for yourself, finding one online, or looking to work with a trainer in person, there are some nuances that need to be discussed.

Key Takeaways

If You Want to Improve Your Strength Training, You Should:

Give yourself the freedom to warm up and work on balance as a key part of your strength training program
Focus on the type of exercises that will help you feel good for longer
Challenge yourself with where your current ability level is and up the ante over time

Consistency is the Name of the Game

When you are doing a deadlift, overhead press, bench press, or squat, you need to familiarize your body with the movement pattern you are going to be doing that day. Movement prep and balance work will help you prepare your body for what is coming next, and create positive changes in how your body and brain relate to each other more effectively when things get heavy. Giving yourself the freedom to warm up, be consistent, and listen to your body, is what is going to get you further in your progressive overload plan.

Strength Training for Every Age

Movement prep and balance work are two things that I program into every session of Strong with Steph. Especially as we transition from perimenopause to postmenopause, we need to work with the changes happening in our bodies to help ourselves stay strong for longer. The truth is, that our body loses strength, hormones, and energy as we get older, which is why we need to have a strength training plan that helps us combat what we are losing and instead helps us find gains. Implementing a well-planned program takes the burden off of you so that you can focus on feeling great.

Are you ready to reevaluate your strength training plan as a woman over 40? Share your thoughts with me in the comments on the episode page.

In This Episode

A recap of what we have spoken about so far when it comes to strength training over 40 (2:45)
The importance of balance work for longevity as we age (6:45)
How movement preparation can improve your training program (14:52)
Understanding the role of estrogen when it comes to your joints and their needs (20:16)
Examples of balance work and movement prep that show up in the Strong with Steph Workout Plan (30:15)

Quotes

“Having these guide your strength training is super, super important, and not something you want to gloss over when you are either writing a program for yourself, finding one online, or looking to work with a trainer in person.” (2:35)

“Movement preparation and balance work create a foundation for building strength and are so important when we are considering longevity in training and safety and mitigating risk to the best of our possible influence, especially as we are aging.” (6:13)

“Research strongly supports the idea that warming up with the actual lift you plan to perform but at a lighter load is an effective way to prepare your body for heavier lifting.” (21:20)

“Addressing these things through training is very important, and there is something that you can do about it.” (29:08)

“Movement prep and balance work are essential, and we know they are going to play an important role in joint health, mitigating the risk of injury and enhancing our experience of progressive overload.” (39:24)