5 Ways to Measure & Improve Your Menopause Fitness At Home Right Now

If you want to know how to improve your menopause fitness, actually how to track it, how to measure it, and you want to do it from the ease of home without complicated equipment, without a lab, and without hefty fees that can come from a lab and heavy equipment, this is your episode. I'm sharing 5 tests that you can do pretty easily, probably right away after listening to this episode and test yourself at home. Benchmark and give yourself a goal, and then retest later. Buckle your seatbelt. I'm Debra Atkinson, and you're listening to Flipping 50. I started this podcast over a decade ago to answer questions about fitness in menopause and beyond before you know to ask them. The goal: to help accelerate your results with the science and the practical application of proven protocols. While living your best life. There's no more powerful health influencer in the world than a midlife woman. It's not just you, but it's the 3 generations that you influence. My unique 40-year career, including being a university senior lecturer in kinesiology, an industry subject matter expert, an international speaker, to founder of the first and the only exclusively made-for-menopause-and-beyond fitness membership in the world, Every week I interview experts behind the science of optimal hormone balancing, fitness, and longevity, and share answers to our community's questions so you can have the vitality and the energy you want, need, and deserve. Okay, listen, true confessions. So as I'm recording this, I had a little technical difficulties. Is The Story of Our Midlives. So this should be really good because last night I recorded it, it was about 48 minutes long, and for some reason my platform is not participating very well in post-production and chat for 48 minutes at least that I could have been re-recording. It has not been very productive. So you kind of get the feel of where I'm at today, but let's get started. So essentially I have had dress rehearsal and then some. So if you're looking at this, you may or may not be seeing video, you may have seen a clip, but truth is I'm not wearing the same thing I was wearing on the intro. That little piece worked, this did not. So I also don't have mascara on because I don't put mascara on before 8:00 AM. As a rule, if I can help it. All right, so in this episode, I am going to talk to you about how to measure certain things that you can do right at home with very little equipment. We have the full-blown— if you want the total list, there are a few more. There are 7 categories related to our longevity, and we are really on this teeter-totter where we can go in the direction and we only have two choices, right? We can go in the direction where right now the exercise we do is enhancing our longevity, or we go on the other side where we drop down rock bottom on that teeter-totter and we're actually reducing our longevity. And I hate to say this, but it's the only alternative— we're increasing the likelihood of our mortality. But for most of us, it's not just how long are we going to live, it's how well are we going lip. I'm hoping you feel the same about me or about this. And if we are taking care of these things, and only if we're keeping our eye on them, will we know it. Otherwise, you know, you and I can be saying, I'm very active. And then all of a sudden, this has probably happened to you in some way, shape, or form. All of a sudden you get a diagnosis. Maybe for you it's osteopenia or osteoporosis. And you're like, wait a minute, how did that happen? Like, I'm really active. I osteopenia happened to me. But what I know and knew when I got those results is true. But for years, I was a health fitness professional that was cardio, cardio, cardio. Now, I would have to say I did start lifting weights in early, um, in my college career. So I was into all of it. I lifted weights. I, I I did the aerobics. I did it all. However, I was also very, pardon my French, hell-bent on being very lean, as so many of us were. You know, in the '80s, you know, you look at the videos of Jane Fonda. Well, I wanted to be her. And I was like, my stomach is not that flat, you know? So what do I got to do to do that? And you look at the icons that we followed, they all were like lean, fit, flat abbed, you know, and showing your exercise, you know, was a thong. Your leotard was a thong you wore on the outside of your tights, which was bizarre. But let's not go into a rating of fitness fashion. We should do a show on that though, don't you think? Okay, so I want to let you know, if we take our eye off the ball— first of all, we have to get our eye on it. We have to really be looking at what things— so body composition is really an important detail. That is kind of as a result of the things that you will do. So it sits at the top of the list in one of these categories. You're probably already doing this one. I hope you are. If you're just monitoring weight, 2025 called and you need to come on board here, okay? Or '26 or wherever you're listening to this. We need to be looking at body fat percent and your skeletal muscle mass in pounds or kilograms, depending on where you are in the world. We do not want to lose that. And it's a slippery slope if you're only looking at percentages. You change one thing and the percentage of the other one also changes. But if you are monitoring skeletal muscle mass in pounds or kilograms, we know exactly, "I have this real estate." You want to know that if you're living in a house, like, how big is it? It's a big deal. So here too, in other categories that you'll look at— strength and power and agility and mobility, what we've called flexibility our whole lives— our stability, uh, not flexibility, is more important. And you also want to look at— or stability and balance. I'm sorry, so I'm a little distraught, can you tell this morning? I was like, are you kidding? This is not what I had in my day. I have to re-record. So let me back up. I could edit this. I'm not going to. So, but here's the deal. So we want to look at all of these components. We also want to look at agility because we talk so much about bone density. But here's the deal, very few people are talking about the problem with bone density is we're, we're banking on we're gonna fall, and so we want to make sure if we do, we don't bust. How about let's focus on preventing the balls, more muscle, but that alone does not give you balance or agility, your reaction skills. Those are traits, fitness components that are skill-related, meaning we have to work on those. So you can't just get better at balance because you're stronger. There is minimal carryover. And same with agility. So you will probably have a little bit more agility. We're working on fast-twitch muscle fiber, when we do strength work, the heavier the better. If we add a speed component, still under control, that's called power. Those things are also very important. However, we have to train for power. We have to make sure, are there instances where I am taking a medicine ball and I'm slamming it down to the floor? That's— you don't have to do that. That's one example. Are there instances where I am jumping, leaping up forward onto a step. Those things also power. Are there instances where when I'm strength training, I'm actually doing it explosively, but I stop or decelerate, we call that, with control, soft joints, and then I slowly lower down. So the whole repetition is under control, even though there's a power component. This is not momentum. That's very different. So So all of those components are very important, but we really have to train for mobility or flexibility. We're not just going to get it. Some of you know that you're runners or walkers and all of a sudden you're not very flexible anymore and it's, wow, okay, a surprise to you. You have to train for it. You have to train for the stability or for the balance, and you have to train for agility, quick reaction skills. So although yes, you will get some power if you are Say you're doing a chest press and you push, you're, you're doing power, but will that help you move your feet quickly? Fast twitch muscle fiber actions, ladder drills, dancing, do the tango with somebody, have to react to them. Kickboxing where you are moving your arms more than your feet fast, but there are some faster moves. Quick feet, shuffling, those things also help. Jumping rope can help specifically, not just jumping up and down, but saying, okay, now I'm gonna go in and out. Now I'm gonna forward and back. Now I'm gonna go side to side and slalom, just changing what you're doing, but better to react. So pickleball, racquetball, tennis, you're reacting to something doing that. Now you can guess that pickleball, probably the game is moving faster. You're not only reacting sometimes, depending on whether you're playing solo or not, to a partner where they are and to the ball. So all those things are great, but let's talk about how can you measure at home just a few, 5 measures. So this is whether you're just getting started or you've been exercising for a while, but you're actually not measuring beyond weight and/or body composition. It's time to actually do some fitness testing, and you can do it with no equipment with these 5. Again, if you want the whole repertoire, it is our Longevity Fitness Scorecard. You can get it for free. It's a whole PDF that explains even better, more elaborate than I will do here. How do you do these tests? What's the setup? How can you record? How can you check? Just peek, and that's really important, at how you do compared to norms. Because by the way, I, I published this book, this little tool, twice. The first time I did not include the norms because I want you to compare to you. So if you do really poorly compared to other people, what you're doing is focused on, oh, is it even worth it? That can be really discouraging. And if you're already doing really well, you can stop trying very hard thinking, well, I'm already great. But here's the thing. First of all, nobody ever wanted you to be average. Remember what norms are, whether we're talking your lab tests about your estrogen, progesterone, your thyroid. We're talking here about your performance. Remember that 80% of most adults are not exercising the minimum amount for their health. 70% of us, almost that number, are obese. So figure the norm values really is not where you want to be, in the middle. We want to be excellent. My hope is that you are breaking this the next time they publish normative values in 20 years, and they're looking at us in 40 to 49, 50 to 59, 60 to 69, whoever you are listening, that we have blown these current numbers out of the water. That's what I want for you. We should be the most energetic and fit people walking in the room if you're here and you're exercising. If you are here and you are listening, you're not exercising yet, this is a great— let's just start here. With these things. And I will talk to you about not only how to test here today, but how to improve these tests and why they're important. So let's go through this. Recovery heart rate— and I could go into resting heart rate, that's a really easy one, first thing in the morning while you're still lying in bed— but recovery heart rate is more of a fitness test. Although resting heart rate will come down as conditioning improves, it's kind of result and evidence of what your training has done for you over time. Recovery heart rate's a little different. That is a measure of cardiovascular health. So we're not having to take you into a lab. You don't have to do a VO2 test with— even if you are, you know, highly fit, I rarely go in and do a VO2 max test. The only reason I would do it is if I were about to train for another Ironman, and really that is not a great idea. By the way, I have a registration. I deferred— I signed up last year, deferred it last year because I came to to my senses. I'm like, what am I doing? I don't, I don't want to do this. I don't even need to do this. I've proven myself. And I know it is really the nemesis of optimal hormones and aging at this point, that if I were to do that, it would be solely for its soul food. But that soul food, over the 9 months I would train, probably would age me. They would accelerate my aging. Even though there's a huge joy factor for me. So what I want you to do is recovery heart rate. To do this, you're going to do something that gets you out of breath in less than 30 seconds. Ideally, that's the definition of an interval training, but take it even just a step back and anything that gets you breathless— and I mean totally breathless, like you have to stop— so you're either going to go up a steep incline. You could power walk, you don't have to run it, but if you are a runner, you could, you could do that. You could be hiking. You wear your weighted vest if you've got it, make sure it's a steep incline, and go as, as fast as you can up that hill until you are literally breathless. Means you've got to stop, okay? It's like you cross the finish line and you're falling over like the Olympic athletes that you watch. You do want to do that periodically. That's called blowing out the cobwebs, you know, that's, that's a lay term, but we need to reach that point. Otherwise we lose that piece of breathlessness year after year. We'll get breathless sooner. Just going upstairs in your house, by the way, should not make you breathless. So if it does, hopefully you are finding a training that you can follow that makes that improved and doesn't happen to you. But I want you to get breathless. I want you to mark— you have to be able to measure time and your heart rate. That hopefully we've all got watches that are doing that for us right now. The old-fashioned way of taking your heart rate, you can still do that. However, if you're standing still like after the interval for 15 seconds to count it, multiply times 4, your heart rate is coming down during that standstill. So the benefit of having your heart rate monitor right on your wrist or in another way so you can see it instantaneously, much better. Now there still is a little lag time when you're doing an interval, but you're going to repeat this test. And this important piece about it, it's replicable. So you can test you again in the exact same way, in the exact same circumstance, ideally, same level of hydration, restedness, all of those. So you're comparing yourself before and after in the exact same circumstances. So that recovery heart rate, you're going to measure how high did it get, but the test is really now rest completely for 1 minute, take that heart rate again. What you're recording is the distance between those two, how many beats, and you're aiming for 20 or more. So you maybe ended that high-intensity interval training at 150. You want to be at at least 130 or less than that after. So you're taking your highest heart rate, your recovery heart rate, subtract. What's the difference? Is it 20 beats or greater? And the higher it is, the better. What you're measuring is the cardiovascular stress you put on the body How well did your body respond? How resilient was it? So there you have it. The next test is single leg standing balance, just as it sounds. So it's very basic. You're going to stand up and a couple of variables. Are you standing on a flat floor surface, whether it's hardwood, it's cement on your patio, it's, um, tile floor? That's probably your easiest bet But whatever you're doing, record it so you can do it again in the exact same way. In shoes, which shoes? Record that. Or do you want to go barefoot? Either way is okay. Don't, don't get caught up. We're probably testing your balance more if you're barefoot than if you're in shoes that are going to add some stability for you. Now, not if you're doing heels. That would be silly. Don't do that. So single leg standing. If you feel you're a little bit vulnerable and that this single leg standing is a balance test you should be doing, you could put your fingertips on the counter, but notice it's fingertips on the counter. You're not actually putting your hands or your weight on it, and you wanna stand very close to the counter so you're not putting your arms out, changing your center of balance. You could stand close to a wall if you wanted to, and again, would be much better if you don't have to put your fingers on something, but 2 things I'll say, fingertips on it, or if you feel wobbly, put the foot down, put the foot down. Okay. So we often said that as a lifeguard, you know, we, we didn't have a great depth in the swimming pool that I would coach at and we would monitor kids. We wouldn't let them go deeper unless they'd passed the swimming test, right? And they could go in the deep end. But, you know, we would say, you know, what are you going to do? You're tiny. People would say to me, you're— how are you going to save me? And I would say, well, I would say to you, stand up. That's first what I would say to you. I'd like— and you have never seen me swim, so you don't know what I can do. But so here's the deal. Put your foot down if you're feeling wobbly, but you want to do the best of 3 and then you'll average them. What we're looking for is how long can you do that standing leg balance? You're going to record that now. There are some with older adults, and it does depend on are you between 40, 49, 50, 59? The age brackets matter. Remember, we're talking norms, not recommendations. I don't want you to be more likely to fall when you're 70 than when you were 40. So I, I don't tell people, yeah, you only have to do that for 10 seconds when you're 70 and you need to do it for 30 or more when you're 50. I'm not going to be the one to tell you that. Go ahead. All you need is 10 seconds, and if you fall, it's, it's because you're normal. No, right? So remember, norms— this is not your goal. This is just what's true and what people have achieved. You're not those people. You are way above average, girlfriend. If nobody else told you that today, let me be the first. So in that single leg stand, you wanna just lift one foot up. That shift of weight, by the way, is key. And if you haven't practiced that, just that simple action, realize that it may take you by surprise that, wow, you know, I have to pay attention. I have to think about this. So like so many of us will do when we're driving and it's nighttime or it's raining, we'll turn down the radio, turn it off so that we can see better. Let that sink in for a minute. Am I the only one? So when you are balancing, you may feel better in a quiet room, no chaos, but realize that if you want to get better— I'll talk about this, this is how to improve it. To improve your time, you want to shake things up a little bit. And yes, just practicing that single leg stand will help you get better. Try and go 2 more seconds than you did last time, 3 more seconds than you did last time, and then we're gonna start turning on the, the radio or the television so that you've got some distraction and you do have noise, because that will improve. When people fall, it is in chaos. It's not in a cool, dark yoga studio. I mean, have you had— have you heard of anybody fracturing a hip at yoga? I don't think so. So that, you know, calm, quiet room is not really helping you prepare for the way people fall in chaos, noisy wind, distractions, somebody calls your name, your hands are full. We need to do some practice like that, but this is a start. Okay, so single leg standing, and you want to look at yourself in norm. Some people will say the older you get, 10 seconds is great. I think not. I want you Everybody, I don't care how old you are listening to this, 30 seconds or greater is where you ideally ought to be. And remember, when you look at that norm charts, if you grab the scorecard, you don't want to be normal, honey. Okay? Not, not meant to be condescending. Sorry about that. Hey, this is Debra Atkinson. I love creating the Flipping 50 podcast for you, and I have for over a decade. I also love helping midlife women shift not only their physical energy but their beliefs about what effective exercise looks like and how much it can positively and powerfully impact your life. How you menopause and exercise in menopause determines how you will live, not just now but decades from now. If you're not exercising right now, you're getting tired, not stronger, or you think you don't have time or the energy to exercise, do a 5-day flip with me. I'll send you one short video a day for 5 days. It's just 15 to 20 minutes long, so you can see exactly how I plan out a fitness plan for myself and for thousands of clients I've worked with. You can get this at Flipping50.com right now. What are you waiting for? Let's start flipping 50 together. The third test is a shoulder reach. So if you're watching video, you may be seeing this. If you're not, what I want you to do is do this with me. Take your right hand, reach it up, drop it down between your shoulder blades like you're patting yourself on the back, as you should. And then take your left and reach up. And you want to know— this is where somebody with you might be coming in handy, but you could also back up into your phone, turn your phone camera on the video so that you can see what you're doing. What you want to know is, do your fingers— is there a gap between them? So your score would be -2, -4 inches, or it would be 0, they're meeting, or there's overlap, +1 inch, +2 inch. You're recording that, and then you're going to do the other one as well. So left, and then reach back and up. You might want to be warmed up before you do that. And no, I don't like arm circles. Jane Fonda called and wants those back.. But things like, you know, just bodyweight push-ups against the wall so that you're actually contracting and doing some resistance. You can do a downward facing dog if you're used to yoga, you're comfortable with that move. You can go into a plank so you're waking your shoulders up a little bit, and that may help you get greater range of motion. And I'll come back to that when I'm talking about how to improve. The next test, sit to stand, is going to feel like this is for really older adults, and It, it often is for those who are compromised in range of motion at 70 and 80-year-olds. This is the kind of test they're doing for fall risk reduction. If you go to a program like that, this is one of the measures they'll do at the beginning and it's one at the end. Researchers will use this for older adults as an assessment. So what you're doing is basically sitting in a chair, like a solid sturdy chair. Now it could be a, a folding chair, for instance, could be your dining room chair. Square but not padded. You want to make sure that it's just square. Sitting down, your knees are about even with your hip when you sit down. You're going to take your hands to the opposite shoulder and you're going to record which chair did I use, which shoes did I have on, because that may matter too. Okay, and then you're going to start the timer, and in 30 seconds or a specific time, you'll get the details in the scorecard, you're going to stand and sit up, down, up, down, up, down. And so obviously you do need to come down into the chair, not just touch your hip down, but sit and then stand again. And how many can you get not using the arms and your hip? Yeah, it's not going back in the chair, like to the— so your back is against it, but you are down unloaded on the chair and then standing and you're recording how many can you get in that period of time. Hands on the shoulders. You're not using them. So this sit-to-stand test ironically tests power. So, um, so far the recovery heart rate tested cardiovascular ability, single leg stance obviously your balance or stability, shoulder reach mobility or flexibility as we knew it. Sit-to-stand is power. It's a measure of strength. It's a division of strength. Remember, going quickly because we're asking you to do— this is the only time I like that cue— as many as you can in a minute. Or like AMRAP is what that's called for or stands for. But I don't love that because we get sloppy. This is a super simple move. If you tend to get dizzy, know who you are. You may want somebody close to you, but you're just turning on your timer and beginning and watching how many can I get in the time span. So I like a 30-second time span. You could do shorter and do 10, and you're just— again, replicable is important. So you can do shorter if you're not feeling all that strong or feeling like this is work for me, and that's great. So I will talk again separately in the next section about how to get better and improve at any one of these. The mile walk is the fifth test. So Ideally, you and I would go to a track and they would say, I'm doing the inside lane, I'm doing the second lane. And we know it's a quarter mile track. I'm gonna do 4 of them and boom, it's done. Tracks are generally level as, as much as possible. If you're replicating it like that, you're gonna toe the line. You're gonna come back to it and end perfect, right? Don't have to think about it and don't have to tape it. In your car. So if you have access to a track, that would be ideal. What you do wanna remember is, again, write it down. Don't necessarily go to one track and then go to a different track for the next one. If one is pea gravel and one is, you know, a flat asphalt surface, you know, different results you're gonna get just from that change. So wear the same shoes, same amount of traction, and those little things matter. Be rested or not. I would recommend before you do a mile walk test, you're warmed up. So you've done some stretches for the legs, you've done some leg swings for the legs, you've done a little walking, you know, or even little quick steps in walking so that you're really warmed up. So your gait is already there. You're not spending the first few minutes kind of getting warmed up. You're already warm before you start. Not out of breath, not, not overworked, but you, you get the drill. We are testing your cardiovascular ability, but to some extent we're also testing your mobility because your gait, how comfortable you are swinging your legs through using both of them, and you are doing a one-legged stance. We're not actually testing balance, but for an older adult or someone who's compromised right now, it may feel a little like it is a balance challenge. You're on one leg and walking through it. One foot is always in touch with the ground when you're walking. So this is key. This is a mile walk, not a jog, not a run. You're not doing the mile as fast as you can. It's meant to be a mile walk. That means one foot is always in contact with the floor. The distinguishing feature between running and walking is you have airtime when you're running. There is a period of time where you are floating through the air. With, with walking, there's always one foot on the ground. So if you thought you were jogging, you may not actually, you're just moving your arms a little faster. And that's great. That's a little more speed walking for you. But mile walking is this task. There is something directly related for mile walking to your longevity. If we can't walk at a speed of 3.3 miles per hour or greater, the risk, the mortality risk is significantly greater. So we want to be at 3.3 or greater. I like to see people approaching walking at speeds of 15-minute miles. That's 4 miles per hour, right? Ideally, and you're not necessarily going to start there, but that's a good pace. It's not necessarily a race walking pace, which would be probably— there are race walkers who can go 10-minute miles, but 12-minute miles, 13, even 14-something minute miles, that starts to get to feel like this is really work, and you may not be able to sustain it. But we're looking for a pace ideally that you can sustain, not that you start out fast and then you get slower, but that you can sustain. So that's the reason for the warm-up. But it is very closely tied to mortality, in part because if you can't move very quickly, it's a hint at cardiovascular fitness, but it's also a intimate at your balance and your stability, your mobility. So the recovery heart rate is a test of your cardiovascular fitness. Single leg stand of your balance, stability. Shoulder reach of your mobility, flexibility, which is important for longevity, for being able to do things. And now we, we looked at shoulders as opposed to, say, mobility at your hip or hip flexor, and those would be even more tied to your ability to get up and down off the floor. So there are other tests that you can do, and those are included in the fitness scorecard. The sit-to-stand test is a test of power, especially for older adults. Now, it may feel a little bit more like just lower body leg strength for you now, but there is that speed component in order to get you up. The mile walk, cardiovascular and mobility, a little bit of balance depending on who you are. How do you improve them? So let's say you record your score and you're interested in you improving you. You feel like I'm not all that fit right now, but I'd like to. So recovery heart rate, you're going to need and want— the fastest way to increase that twofold is make sure you have a base of support. You're walking on a regular basis daily. That will increase VO2 max. But the one that will increase that recovery heart rate score the most is doing high-intensity interval training. It's that getting breathless in 30 seconds or less, alternated with full recovery. So you're breathing through your nose, that's the definition of kind of full recovery, before you go again. You're doing maybe 4 or 6, 4 to 6 of those intervals, and you're doing that anywhere from 2 to 4 times a week. And those in 5 to 10 weeks show a significant increase in your VO2 max. Significant improvements. You'll begin to feel better. Other exercise will start to feel better. Your resting heart rate as well as that recovery heart rate will begin to come down. For single leg standing, simply practicing the balance. So the very test, you can replicate that. Once you have that and you've worked your way up to from 10 seconds, and maybe you're working your way up to you can hit 30 seconds, then I would encourage you to begin the challenge of Do that, turn on the noise, have people moving in and out of the room distracting you. So your focal point, if you don't have anybody else in the room, got the TV on, you've done that one. You can also now start turning your head because where you turn your head, your body wants to go. So that is a real significant increase in the balance. You may notice the wind starts to pick up, right? It feels like, whoa, it's a little harder. You can also look up and down. Now, that still keeps your center of gravity over the base of support, but here's the other one. We balance because we're taking in information from our environment. If you close your eyes and you're trying that balance again, you may want your fingers on something. That's one way to up the ante in the balance challenge. So there's ways to improve it. You also want to more advanced within your warmups or your cooldowns and or your yoga class. If you're already going, make sure you realize The biggest benefit is those instances when you're taking your center of gravity away from base of support. Base of support being your two feet on the ground. And if we drew a line on the outside silhouette of your both feet, connected them in the top and the bottom, there's also the space between. Your base of support is good when we say or cue hip distance apart. Versus side by side with your feet. As fitness instructors, we're trying to help you be more stable, and we also sometimes will say slightly wider than hip width apart. It gives you a little bit bigger base of support, but you will find if you go way wide, you're probably going to experience less of a base of support or less stability. Let me say that. It seems like a greater distance, but it's not necessarily better. So this directly under your hips or just a little bit wider, you're going to have the greatest sense of stability there. Now, center of gravity for, for you and for me, it's close to your belly button, but your belly button may be a little higher, a little bit lower. You may have a longer or shorter torso. All those things change center of gravity. If you are a woman who is pregnant, you're somebody who carries a lot of belly fat, visceral belly fat in that area, your center of gravity is different, but it's around our middle somewhere. What you're doing when you say go into a moon pose— for those of you that know yoga, you're on leg, you take your center of gravity and you're kind of just trying to move over. You're in front of your feet essentially. Now you're not lined up, so you have more balance to do. Even in triangle pose, you'll notice both feet still on the ground, and yet your center of gravity has changed a little because you're not straight up and down. You have to adjust. But if you're on one foot, even more so.. If you are not just standing upright in that single leg, you're actually over to the side, everything changes. Those kinds of things help to improve your balance, but it is the getting into and out of them that is the real balance challenge. So moving in and out of positions where center of gravity is not on base of support is the challenge. And practicing that more makes standing single leg shifting of the weight far easier. You've just done the really, really hard stuff. You've gone to algebra and geometry. So when you come back to doing simple addition and subtraction, it's easy peasy, right? So that's how you improve. In the sit-to-stand test where you're up and down out of a chair, you can do your squats, your lunges, that lower body strengthening with compound exercises that really kind of mimics what you're doing, but under load will support that. As you practice the balance, you're also going to be supported if that was part of the challenge. With arms crossed, some of you may feel like there is a balance challenge to getting up, especially if your muscles are weaker. So the stronger you get and the more improve your balance, that one will get easier. The mile walk— how do you improve that? Number one, just walking more on a regular basis, identifying any Deficits in your gait. So if you are moving, if you're going for a walk and maybe you detect even that you are limping, generally when you and I detect that we're limping or we're favoring a leg, it's really quite significant. But someone else watching you may realize that you are favoring a leg, even if you don't realize it, because we habitually settle into this as our normal. And sometimes we're doing something that, that is going to limit your ability to go faster. So you may want to get an assessment if you feel like you're limited, or like, I just can't go faster. I have had a client who walks at one pace. She can actually run. She's not running though. She thinks she is because she's going faster, but she's not actually losing, losing the ground. She is not actually suspended. It is more of a walk for her, which is what I want. Because if you have considerable amount of body weight, we don't necessarily want you to run. Running is not better. Actually, going at the fastest pace you can walk requires more energy expenditure than does a slow jog, but the slow jog causes you to have 4 times the impact of your weight on your joints. So if we can keep one foot on the ground, we avoid that impact and may get greater energy expenditure. So fast walking, going as quickly as you can, and there may need some gait attention and maybe mobility, it may be stability, maybe certain strength or balance between the joints that needs to occur in order for you to do that. So sometimes working with a professional physical therapy assessment to say, you know, where is it? Why can't I get that? Maybe very worthwhile so you can actually pursue your greater fitness goals. So just a tip. Okay, I hope that was helpful. But all of these really easy tests, if you're curious, and most of us are really curious about how can I do, how do I compare to others, but most importantly, where am I right now and where would I love to be at in 3 months from now? And then you've got a goal that potentially you can get more excited about. You don't have to choose to improve on all 5 of these, but if there is one in particular that this surprised me, like I should be better at this. Choose that one. And not that you're not going to get better at the others, but choose that one and just go for it. One of the ways that we get motivated is if we have a very specific goal. Hope this was helpful. I love to hear from you. You can reach out to me in DMs and Instagram. I am still the one responding to almost all of those.. And if you're asking a question or say, hey, I listened to you, I appreciate it. One more favor I'd love to ask you, that if you find the show is valuable reviewing the literature and/or getting the tips from a 41-year professional who trains the trainers, please share this with somebody that you know. It's high time that more women are moving and we're bringing it to a level that feels doable to start. Because life is better when you're exercising. Movement feels more comfortable when you're starting at the right place for you and you progress at the right pace. Those two things are extremely crucial, but our next 10 years, 20 and 30, are very dependent on how well we're moving. Muscle is medicine, and muscle Opens the gate to mobility and to stability and agility, but those things take special practice. So starting where you are and improving, so very important. Thank you for being one of the most important and powerful health influencers in the world, not just for you but all 3 generations in your life that you influence. Thanks so much for listening. Thank you so much for listening. To listen and access a decade of episodes and the show notes, visit Flipping50.com where you'll be able to find all of our prior episodes. And I made it easy for you to make the most of your listening time by selecting 5 specific areas most commonly high priorities for our community. Community and giving you top 10 lists if you let me know you'd love them. If you know a midlife woman or a soon-to-be one who wants to optimize her midlife energy and time with the right exercise and lifestyle changes and a mindset shift about just what is possible, share this podcast with her and I thank you. There is no more powerful health influencer in the world than you. Midlife woman.