Strength Training for Women Over 50: What Changes and How to Start

You lose strength faster than you lose muscle. A 2012 review in Frontiers in Physiology describes a study where older women lost 13% of their knee strength over five years, but only 3% of their thigh muscle. Muscle mass stays fairly steady through much of adult life. After 70, the average loss is about 0.5 to 1% a year.

The good news: muscle still grows when you ask it to. In a review of 49 studies of adults 50 and older, people who did strength training gained about 1.1 kg (2.4 lb) of lean mass on average. Kris put it best in her review of a Solin challenge: "I thought at 60 years old I wasn’t going to have muscle anymore but Cheryl’s program was exactly what I needed."

The US Physical Activity Guidelines ask adults to strengthen all the major muscle groups at least two days a week. For older adults they add balance training on top of that. That's the strength target. You don't need to live at the gym.

Most women can start without a doctor's visit. Talk to your doctor before you start if:

• You have heart, kidney or metabolic disease, like diabetes.
• You get chest pain, dizziness or unusual shortness of breath when you're active.
• You have osteoporosis and you've had a broken bone in your spine, especially if your back hurts. The experts behind the Too Fit To Fracture recommendations advise seeing a physical therapist first.
• A joint is swollen or painful right now. The National Institute on Aging says you may need to work another area or rest it for a day or two.

If none of that is you, you're good to go. The American College of Sports Medicine's 2026 position stand looked at an analysis of more than 38,000 people, over 11,000 of them older adults, and found that exercise didn't raise the risk of serious problems.

Bone loss speeds up around menopause. In a large US study of women in midlife, spine bone density fell 10.6% over 10 years, and 7.4% of that came between a year before and two years after the final period. The Bone Health and Osteoporosis Foundation says one in two women over 50 will break a bone due to osteoporosis, and it recommends regular weight-bearing and muscle-strengthening exercise.

Thin bones aren't a reason to skip strength training. Osteoporosis Canada strongly recommends strength training plus balance work for people with osteoporosis. What changes is how you move. Their advice: "Bend with knees and hips not spine," and change any move that bends or twists your spine if it is fast, repeated, done with weight, or pushed to the very end of your range. These six moves cover every major muscle group, with the swap next to each one.

If you have osteoporosis, get your form right before you add weight: in Osteoporosis Canada's words, "Learning how to lift weight more important than how much to lift." And if you've had a spine fracture and can't see an instructor trained in osteoporosis, their handout suggests bands or your body weight. Heavy lifting with thin bones is a job for a supervised session: in the LIFTMOR trial, with 101 women with low bone density, the heavy lifting was closely supervised.

This is the one that matters most for staying on your feet. A Cochrane review of 59 studies found that exercise cut falls by 23%, and the programs that worked were built on balance and functional moves, or those plus strength work. For strength training on its own, without balance work, the reviewers couldn't say. So add five minutes of balance to the end of every workout:

• Heel-to-toe stand. Stand with the heel of one foot touching the big toe of the other, a hand near the counter. Switch feet.
• Heel raise and hold. Up on your toes, hold, lower slowly.
• Single-leg stand. When the first two feel easy, stand on one foot at the counter.

Osteoporosis Canada's handout has a simple test for picking the right balance move. If you can't hold it for 5 seconds, make it easier. If you can hold it for 30 seconds without wobbling, make it harder. Patty, 61, noticed the difference in her review: "I’m lifting heavier have better balance and just feeling all around stronger."

Some soreness after a new workout is normal. In a Cochrane review of 121 trials in older adults, soreness and joint pain came up in many studies, and serious problems were rare.

If your knees ache from arthritis, strength work is on your side. International guidelines for knee osteoarthritis say strength training suits everyone who has it, and in the same Cochrane review, people with osteoarthritis reported less pain after strength training. Pain that is sharp, or that gets worse from one session to the next, isn't normal soreness. Stop that move and get it checked.

Lighter than you think, at first. For your first week, pick a weight you could lift many more times than you actually do. Yes, that'll feel almost too easy. This week is for learning how each move feels when it's right.

After that, use the rule from Stanford Lifestyle Medicine: the weight is right if you could have done just two more reps (lifts) with good form. If you could have done more than two, increase the weight. If you couldn't have done two more, it may be too heavy. There's no right number of pounds for a 50-year-old woman, only the weight that's right for you this week.

Start with two days a week. When two feel easy, our 6-week workout plan for women gives you three workouts a week with a rule for adding weight. Take the swaps above and the five minutes of balance work with you. If you're not sure which days to train, our free weekly workout planner builds your week around the days you have.

On Solin, women in their 50s, 60s and 70s review the challenges they do, and some mention their age. We searched every written review on Cheryl Coulombe's Solin page and found 161 where the reviewer says she's 50 or older, from about 123 different women. Most of them talk about the same thing: getting stronger or the results they got.

Next come the coach, the plan and the other women. No surprise to us: a simple plan, a coach you trust and a group doing it with you beat willpower.

MaryCatherine wrote: "I can carry heavy bags of groceries, swim faster and feel great. I will be 79 at the end of this month. So it’s not about body beautiful for me it’s about quality of life." And Ellen, 67, said of Cheryl: "She knows what women my age need for a healthy body today and for forever!" Results vary.

The one you'll still be using in week 6. Look for four things:

• A coach who shows the form. Videos and cues for every move, so you're not guessing with your back.
• A plan with a start and an end. Six weeks, not a year. Short enough that you'll actually finish it.
• Other women doing it with you. People who notice when you skip a day.
• A way out if it doesn't fit. A refund window, so trying costs you nothing.

That's what a Solin challenge is: a plan from a creator, started on the same day as everyone else doing it, with its own community feed and a 30-day money-back guarantee. Cheryl Coulombe's Lift to Lean is one example: six weeks, dumbbells only, three full-body workouts a week, at home or the gym. You can read her reviews first.