Welcome back to Fit Body Happy Joints. My name is Shannon. Today we're talking about if women have to lift heavy. Do women have to lift heavy weights to stay strong, to improve health, and to see body composition changes.

In this episode, I'm going to speak primarily to peri menopausal women and

postmenopausal women, but if you aren't there yet, maybe you are a woman in her 20s or 30s or 40s,

I still want you to listen to this episode so that you can better understand what to do when you approach this age.

I think part of the reason that so many women get frustrated at this age is because of the lack

of education.

I've heard from so many women who have told me I wish I would have known sooner. I wish I would have known in my 20s what I was going to go through in my 50s so that I could have better prepared myself and so I could have exercised differently and made

better choices for my health.

So I want you all to listen to this episode even if you are not going through that pariimenopausal or post-menopausal transition.

We all need to be focused on building muscle, or at the very least maintaining muscle mass.

And I actually had a friend who it's so funny I try not to

talk to my friends about exercise unless they ask me because you know I'm very

opinionated but I had a friend who I was trying to convince her to focus on gaining muscle and not just do like cardio and yoga and she basically said like I'm just not going to worry about that until I you know get older and then I lose all my muscle and then I'll focus on it then.

And I was really trying to convince her that that was a huge mistake, that building the muscle now,

while it's easier to build, is going to set her up for so much of a better experience later in life.

And not only that, but I was trying to convince her that she'd probably be happy with her body composition

and it would feel really good and strong if she did focus on building muscle but you know you win some you lose some but I wanted to

answer this question for those of you who are not yet

peri post-menopausal. Do you have to lift heavy to see results as far as body

composition changes or as far as muscle strength or muscle growth? The answer is no. You do not

need to lift heavy to see results. You do need to adequately challenge your muscles for sure. And if you are

adequately challenging your muscles and you're getting close to failure at

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