Why More Women in Perimenopause Are Quitting Extreme Workouts and Choosing “Gentler” Fitness Instead
-
Click here to listen to this article - Share via
Many women in their late 30s and early 40s say the perimenopause fitness advice they encounter online tends to look the same: lift heavier, train more often, push harder. For women trying to make sense of what their bodies are doing, that volume of advice is hard to translate into something they can realistically do on a weekday morning.
On a recent episode of the ‘Live & Well’ podcast, host Melissa Magsaysay spoke with Megan Roup, founder of The Sculpt Society, an online fitness platform that combines low-impact sculpt, strength training, mobility, and dance-inspired cardio, about why the dominant advice for perimenopause fitness has skewed toward intensity, and what a more sustainable midlife routine can look like.
Why Perimenopause Fitness Advice Is Heading Toward Extremes
Until recently, talking about perimenopause wasn’t very common in everyday conversations about women’s health. As Magsaysay framed it on the show, the cultural conversation has expanded quickly, aimed at women who were rarely given good information about perimenopause to begin with.
RELATED: Eating Enough Protein? Why Your Body May Not Be Absorbing It
Roup, who has trained Kate Hudson, including the routine that sculpted Hudson’s abs before the Oscars, recently turned 40, and shared that this has been shaping her own feeds. “A lot of the experts out there, who you know, have great advice...but I think when you think about it realistically, it felt like to me like the advice out there was like, train for the Olympics, you know, barbell off 150 pounds,” she told Magsaysay. For some women, that prescription might fit. For most, she suggested, it doesn’t match the life they are actually living. Magsaysay noted that when the conversations around under-discussed topics open up this fast, it tends to attract a lot of brands and influencers competing for the same audience. Some of that information is useful. Some of it can leave women feeling like they are already behind on a routine they never signed up for.
Discover the new insights in perimenopause and menopause
Common Misconceptions About Midlife Strength Training
Roup is not anti-strength training. What she questions is the assumption that there is only one acceptable way to build it. “Where I disagree sometimes is just that there’s only one way to build muscle,” she said. “We know that there are so many ways that we can build muscle, and we can strength train, we can resistance train, we can add an ankle weight, a Pilates ball.”
RELATED: The New Midlife Glow-Up Isn’t Cosmetic. It’s Metabolic.
Her wider concern, she told Magsaysay, is the tendency in fitness culture to pit modalities against each other, with heavy lifting framed as the serious option and lower-impact work treated as somehow less effective. That all-or-nothing logic, she said, echoes diet thinking many women have spent years trying to unlearn. “I just don’t resonate with the extreme versions of some of the advice out there,” Roup said, “because I know, just like a diet, just like any workout plan that’s extreme, it doesn’t work.”
Roup, a former Brooklyn Nets dancer, spoke openly on the episode about her own struggles with body image and her relationship to food and movement in her 20s, which is part of why she is cautious about fitness advice that pushes women toward extremes.
What an Effective Perimenopause Workout Routine Looks Like
The Sculpt Society is built around a mix of low-impact sculpt, strength training, mobility, deep core work and short stretches of cardio. Lighter weights paired with higher reps can still build muscle, she explained on the show, when the programming is well-designed. “The muscle needs to be fatigued at a certain amount of reps with low, with lower weight,” she said. “You really do need to get to about 30 reps for the muscle to be fully fatigued.” Paired with functional movement like squats and lunges, she argued, low-impact training can produce real results without asking women to rebuild their week around the gym.
RELATED: Why Eating Less Isn’t Helping You Lose Weight Anymore
The platform’s midlife program, designed specifically for women in perimenopause and menopause, sets the week around two days of strength training and two days of sculpt. Every session offers a slower, more controlled option alongside the regular pace, in recognition that hormonal shifts, poor sleep and night sweats can throw off a morning before it starts. “Maybe you didn’t have a great night’s sleep last night, so you need something slower,” Roup said. “Thinking about a faster-paced class makes you feel overwhelmed. So I’m going to give you those two options, and you’re going to feel supported today.” Educational videos with doctors and women’s health experts are folded into the program as well. As Roup noted on the episode, perimenopause is diagnosed based on symptoms rather than a single test, and many women begin experiencing symptoms as early as 35 without being told that is what they are dealing with.
- Share via
How a Mindset Shift Can Improve Workout Consistency
One line in the conversation captures Roup’s approach more than any other: “Commit to less so that you can show up more.” Her reasoning is practical. The workouts that produce results over time are the ones women actually keep doing. Ambitious plans tend to fall apart when they meet a real schedule, while shorter, more flexible plans tend to outlast the motivation that started them. “I would so much rather you do 5 or 10 minutes than absolutely nothing,” Roup said. “Because those 5 or 10 minutes, you’re going to create the habit. You’re going to energetically shift how you feel both in your physical and in your mental health.”
RELATED: After 40 Heres What Women Should Know About Protein
She described her own evolution out of over-exercising in her 20s, when she believed a workout only counted if it ran more than two hours. Today, she said, her approach looks very different. “I’ve never felt stronger, I’ve never been stronger, and I’ve never been more consistent with my workouts.”
Doctors often say labs look “normal.” Dr. Mark Hyman explains why that doesn’t always reflect wellness, and what early signals can be missed over time.
Practical Tips for Managing Perimenopause Symptoms Through Fitness
Modifying mid-class is something Roup actively encourages. She said she cues her members to scale back when their form begins to break down, and she treats that choice as a sign of body awareness. “I’m so happy you modified,” she said. “Smart of you to know your body.” Decision fatigue is something else she designs around, especially for working mothers managing a long list of small choices each day. Programmed weeks, shorter sessions and built-in modifications are meant to make the workout easier to start, which she sees as the part most women actually struggle with.
RELATED: If You Can’t Focus Lately, It’s Not Laziness — It’s Your Brain on Overload
For most women, she said, the realistic setup ends up being some kind of hybrid. Studio classes can be useful, but they tend to be expensive and time-consuming, so pairing two or three studio sessions a week with shorter at-home workouts is often what holds up across busier stretches of life. Roup also encouraged women to take their symptoms seriously. Insomnia, mood changes or fatigue that does not match the workload can be early signs of perimenopause, sometimes well before 40. She suggested seeking out clinicians specifically trained in perimenopause and menopause care, since general providers, in her experience, often miss the signs.
Listen to the full episode of Live + Well with Melissa Magsaysay on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
MORE LIVE & WELL
