#169: Can You Build Muscle After Menopause?

Today, I want to talk about the idea that women cannot build muscle after menopause, that somehow our physiology changes so much that it's just not gonna happen.

I want to talk about what the research actually shows and what you need to do in order to build muscle after menopause.

Now, I see it all the time, and I think that this is where this comes from.

It's that women are doing the things.

They're picking up the weights.

They're doing some weight training programs.

But they are not following the science.

They come into the weight room.

They don't have a program.

They aren't tracking.

They're not working out intensely enough.

They're chatting with their friends in between.

They're doing burpees.

And if that sounds like you, then you need to listen to this episode to find out what you need to do in order to actually get results from the time you're spending.

This year, so in 2026, a systematic review looked at 126 studies involving over 4,000 women, most of them post-menopausal.

And what they found was that the strength and muscle gains were virtually identical between the women who had gone through menopause and those who hadn't.

So what that means for us is that the biology is there, okay? Our bodies can do it.

And here's the other thing that showed up clearly in the research, that your metabolism doesn't have to tank with menopause, that women with more muscle had higher resting metabolic rates, burned more fat, and had more metabolic flexibility after meals.

Not related to hormone levels, not related to age, but related to muscle.

So muscle is the variable that keeps showing up, and it's not a coincidence.Now, are things completely identical post menopause as earlier in your life? I would say no.