How I Stay Strong in Just 60 Minutes a Week After 50

Strength training for women over 50 doesn’t have to mean long workouts or burnout. In this video, I share my real-life menopause fitness routine and how I stay strong with just 60 minutes a week.

If you’re dealing with muscle loss in menopause or wondering what actually works for fitness after 50, this hormone-friendly approach will help you build strength using simple, 10-minute strength training sessions that fit your life.

In this video, you’ll learn:

• How to build muscle after 50 without long workouts
• My weekly menopause fitness routine
• How to use biofeedback to guide your workouts
• The 60-minute rule for strength training
• How to avoid burnout and recover better
  
  

This is about working with your body, not against it.

👉 Start with a 10-minute workout here: https://youtu.be/CvHL7IEpHEA
👉 Menopause Minis: https://www.camoyler.com/meno-minis

Chapters:
00:00 Fitness and nutrition after 50
05:55 Checking energy, digestion, and stress
07:11 Adapting workouts based on energy
09:56 Building strength with short workouts

#strengthtrainingforwomenover50
#menopausefitness
#fitnessafter50
#midlifefitness
#womenshealthover50

Transcript

0:00

Have you noticed that after 50, our bodies just don't recover the same way from exercise? Not like they used to. Yet in the back of our mind, we know that muscle is key to our longevity and our life and our health. And we don't want to lose it because that's a real threat in menopause. But here's the thing. If you don't find a fitness routine that actually works with your hormones, you're just going to feel more and more exhausted. So my question is, how do you get strong and keep your muscles without ending up face down on the couch? Because I've done that and that's not fun either. I'm going to show you how I switch to like the 60 minute rule of strength training and how I fit it into my week using what I call my biofeedback method. Hey there. I'm Cam and I help women like us figure out this fitness and nutrition after 50 without the burnout that leaves us on the couch with a bag of chips. I've used this exact 60 minute guideline to reclaim my strength despite menopause, despite having a hysterectomy after all through my 40s, I was over training and feeling constantly drained, especially near the end of my 40s. You see, I'm not just a trainer. I'm right here in the trenches with you in menopause. So let's take a look at the calendar and see how this actually fits into real Life with this 60 minute guideline. See, most of us were raised on the idea that more is better, right? Diet culture told us more sweat, more hours, more cardio. But in menopause, more is just more cortisol. And high cortisol leads to weird things like strange rashes, stubborn belly fat, seeing less muscle in the mirror and more fluff, and also something like deep exhaustion. For me, it feels like wired and tired behind my eyes. Like my brain is just won't stop when I feel that I know I'm doing too much. The 60 minute guideline is super simple. You need to think about adding 60 minutes of focused strength training per week to maintain and build your muscles. And that's it. Anything more than that kind of hits this point of diminishing returns, especially when it comes to our hormones. We want to stimulate our muscles using heavy for you weights, but we don't want to annihilate our body. So we end up face down on the couch. And here's where the real life part comes in. That 60 Minutes does not have to be all at one time. In fact, I don't remember the last time I did a 60 minute workout. Some weeks I'll do two like 30 minute workouts and it feels great. But on other weeks, like when life is hectic or my sleep was trash, on those days I, I break those 60 minutes into 10 minute little burst. Those are called the minis. And the minis are stackable strength workouts and they count just as much as a long session. We are stimulating our muscle, giving it the signal to stick around and that we need you. And this is exactly why I created the menopause minis. They are short stackable strength workouts designed for these 10 minute windows. And believe it or not, there are over 900 women using them right now to stay consistent with without burnout. It's amazing. And I have to tell you, even my husband uses them and he calls them manopause so he can use them too if you have someone in your life. So how do I decide, like, you know, what kind of workout I'm going to do? First of all, I use a program that I wrote. It's already planned out. It uses a science of strength training. So there's like no guessing or looking for random workouts on CrossFit.com or the YouTube. So I use this biofeedback filter every single day and I check in with my body's budget. So I have an acronym for you, it's called shreds. The first S stands for sleep. I really feel like sleep is the thing that matters the most. On days I don't sleep, I have weird cravings, I have no energy, I'm more irritable. You know, if you've not slept, you know exactly what I'm talking about. But on the days that I do sleep, I feel amazing. Like I, I'm standing up right more often, I want to move my body. I care about what I pick in the kitchen and I want to exercise, I want to lift those weights. So the first S is sleep. How did I sleep? Second letter is H and H is for hunger. So it's really interesting. When you are running on cortisol and caffeine, sometimes your hunger is like off the charts. Like you literally cannot get enough food. In fact, I want to share a story. This weekend we went to a wedding and I have some weird food rules when it comes to protein. And there wasn't a protein that I was going to eat and so I had lots of more. I had salad and a lot of carbs and I just couldn't get satisfied. So when you're feeling hungry like that, that could be a sign of stress. On the other hand, when I was going through a divorce, I had no hunger. In fact, when I was coaching in real life and the person in person, I could always tell who was going through a divorce, their body composition change. So some people under stress don't eat. I check in with my hunger. That's a sign of what's going on inside my body. R stands for rest and recovery. That is like, if did I do a workout and did it trash me, did it end up like I didn't even want to walk the dogs? So that is about rest and recovery. If you've been around for a while, you know that I write workouts that include rest. So there's rest within the workouts and then there's rest days between your workouts. That is actually part of the midlife protocol when it comes to midlife muscle. E stands for energy. And there are things that we do in our life that actually give us energy. Maybe it's people, maybe it's sitting in the sun or taking care of yourself. But how is your energy for the day? Do you have that get up and go? Could you go to the gym and like lift heavy for you and actually get a good workout in, or are you running on fumes? D stands for digestion. I always check in with my digestion. We talk about the Bristol stool chart all the time and my one on one clients. And in my group, what is happening? That is like your body's instant feedback, like every single day. And then the last S is stress. Now I would say my definition of stress has evolved over the last seven years of menopause. In my 40s and in my 30s, being stressed out was like a badge of honor. Multitasking and doing everything was certainly like I was keeping it all together. But on this side of life, in menopause, no, no, no. Stress empties your bucket faster than anything. And I just want to say that stress can be your thoughts. It could be your, like, lack of macronutrients, like, your nutrition's off. Stress comes in a lot of different forms. It's not just being a multitasker. So I want you to expand your definition of what stress is. So those are the guidelines I use for my biofeedback. If I wake up feeling energized, I might go for a longer strength session that day. I may go down to my gym, which is in my basement, get warmed up, get started, get going. And if I feel good, I'll stack On another mini. Sometimes I'll stack three minis and get my 30 minutes in that way in one day. But if I feel that wired and tired busy feeling behind my eyes or I just feel like flat out depleted, like last week I was in California, so I have jet lag this week and then we were at a wedding this weekend. So I'm kind of like running on empty. So today when I went down to the gym it was literally I did the big six lymph drainage and I just did a, a really short 10ish minute body weight circuit. I did some squats, I did some ring rows. That was, that was enough for today. I did some deadlifts with a kettlebell and I was good. So if I feel that flat depleted feeling, I pivot and I'll just do one mini like I just explained just to keep my habit, just to keep myself accountable. And I might decide like if I'm really empty that walking, especially outside is enough. And when, when my energy is good but my schedule is tight, I don't guess I just grab a mini and get it done. It takes that decision fatigue out of the day. Like the program's already done, like I don't have to think about it. I know that it has all the elements I need to get a good workout in my. My week also includes like strength is definitely my anchor. One of my personal goals is to have 50% of my body weight actually be skeletal muscle. I'm in the 40s, I'm in the 47s right now, so I'm not quite there. That's one of my goals. I can't just think about strength training and reach that goal. Like I actually have to go downstairs, use heavy for me weights, rest and recover have really dialed in nutrition and then I'm going to watch that number increase. I want you to know that strength is definitely my anchor, but it does not live in a vacuum. My week also includes the other keys to midlife fitness and that includes movement, daily walking. We call it non exercise activity. It's you know, doing stuff around your house, carrying your laundry, walking your dogs. It's not exercise and it's not for calorie burning. It's just like simply moving your body could be know sometimes I stand at my desk, for example, I use it to for lymph drainage and I also use it for stress reduction. And then there's another part of my routine that I just mentioned earlier and it's rest after 50, rest is a requirement. If you aren't resting, you're not building period. You need rest. We can't be the Energizer Bunny and expect our body to build muscle and not belly fat. So the result of the 60 minute approach is like I'm stronger now than when I was grinding at the beginning of my menopause. I don't have the mid afternoon crashes anymore and it's actually I have energy and confidence to enjoy my life. Muscle is your organ of longevity and you don't have to destroy your joints or your spirit to keep your muscles. If you want to see what these short sessions look like, be sure to check out this video Strength Workouts for women over 50 it's only 10 minutes. It's the perfect way to start your 60 minute a week goal. And if you're ready for the full library of these stackable workouts, I'll leave the link for the menopause minis in the description so you can join us and the 900 plus other women already reclaiming their strength with me. Thanks for being here. I'll see you next week.