In recent years, strength training has finally gotten the spotlight it deserves. Crucial for maintaining overall longevity, experts everywhere are encouraging women – especially those entering (peri)menopause – to lift weights. However, while this messaging is incredibly important, it can sometimes mean that cardio, which is also vital for longevity, gets a tad neglected.
And as is the case with strength training, cardio needs to be adapted for the life stage you’re at, taking into consideration all of the changes your body is experiencing – which is exactly what exercise physiologist Dr Stacy Sims explores in her recent podcast episode with personal trainer Doug Bopst.
Speaking on Bopst’s podcast, The Adversity Advantage, Dr Sims explains that while ‘you can get away with a lot of things’ when training in your 20s and 30s, that starts to change when you reach your forties and beyond.
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‘If you want to do two F45 classes back to back, go for it,’ she says. ‘But when you start getting older, you need to be very acutely aware of how to polarise.’
What Dr Sims means by this is that doing less cardio but at a higher intensity becomes more important. ‘The bread and butter of what you should be doing as you get older is quality training, not volume,’ she adds.
Even if you were to train for an ultramarathon, says Dr Sims, it would still apply. ‘It’s not the old school way of running 20 hours a week, it’s let’s look at how we are building strength, how we are doing some top-end work, and then we spend time on our feet every ten to 15 days where we go out for two really long days at a time,’ she explains. ‘There’s ways of peppering in endurance, but the benchmark is doing that polarised training.’
What is polarised training?
So, what actually is polarised training and how can you do it? Well, put simply, polarised training describes an endurance training model where you spend around 80% of your time training at a low, easy intensity and the other 20% training at a high, intense level.
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You may also have heard of this model referred to as the ‘80/20 method’, and while it might sound like an approach only elite athletes take, it’s something that Dr Sims highlights becomes increasingly important for all women as they age.
Dr Sims says women over 40 should be looking to incorporate ‘true high-intensity work’ and ‘sprint interval work’. While both of these training methods are guaranteed to get your heart rate up, the former is a type of cardiovascular exercise involving short, intense bursts of physical activity (that could be running, cycling, swimming), followed by brief recovery periods.
However, sprint interval work typically involves going more ‘all-out’ during the bursts of activity, but with longer rest periods.
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As Dr Sims explains on the podcast, this type of training helps ‘force the necessary adaptations’, including ‘better blood glucose control, better conversation between the skeletal muscle and the liver so that we don’t store visceral fat’ and better bone and muscle quality – all of the things that ‘are so key in being able to live independently as we get older.’
Indeed, one study in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, found that sprint interval training could help menopausal women increase lean muscle mass, and another study published in the same journal found that sprint interval training significantly improved VO2 max, with potentially as few as 2 x all-out 20-second sprints being enough to provide benefits.
So, if you do one thing this week, sprint, even if it’s only for a few seconds to start with – you can build it up each time from there.
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Hannah Bradfield is a Senior Health and Fitness Writer for Women’s Health UK. An NCTJ-accredited journalist, Hannah graduated from Loughborough University with a BA in English and Sport Science and an MA in Media and Cultural Analysis. She has been covering sports, health and fitness for the last five years and has created content for outlets including BBC Sport, BBC Sounds, Runner’s World and Stylist. She especially enjoys interviewing those working within the community to improve access to sport, exercise and wellness. Hannah is a 2024 John Schofield Trust Fellow and was also named a 2022 Rising Star in Journalism by The Printing Charity. A keen runner, Hannah was firmly a sprinter growing up (also dabbling in long jump) but has since transitioned to longer-distance running. While 10K is her favoured race distance, she loves running or volunteering at parkrun every Saturday, followed, of course, by pastries. She’s always looking for fun new runs and races to do and brunch spots to try.