Muscle loss in menopause

Image from BBC show, How to Stay Young

 Muscle loss - if you do nothing 

This image shows a cross-section of a woman's leg, not your Friday night steak. You can see a huge difference in muscle and fat mass through the decades. But also notice the femur size too; how diminished it is by even 55!!

Muscle strength is closely tied to absolute quantity of muscle mass. Between 40 and 50 you can lose 8% muscle mass. That accelerates as you age and it's a major contributor to poor health in older adults.

As you lose muscle you also lose strength (dynapenia). This is a bit different from just losing muscle. It means your strength of contraction diminishes - when you squeeze your muscle it doesn't contract as strongly as it used to (because not as many motor units along the muscle get involved).

 This is if you do nothing 

If you haven't done any weight lifting that's what will happen. To avoid this, and even to build more muscle than before, you need to lift weights - heavy weights. You can reverse the effect.

Running, yoga, cycling or other types of cardio sports will not build muscle (nor does it have any appreciable effect on bone density - don't be told otherwise). Multi-directional sports, like tennis, DO have a positive effect on bone density and tensile strength (the twisting force on bone).

For increased muscle mass AND bone density you need to lift weights. End of.

You're never too old to start. Once a week is good, twice is better, three times a week is fab.
And eat more protein!

Image from BBC show "How to Stay Young"