Exercise Recovery After 40: Connective Tissue in Menopause

Hey, welcome back everybody. I'm Debra Atkinson. You're listening to Flipping 50, and in this episode I'm going to share with you a different take on recovery needs. And so the word recovery is such a mysterious one, right? Because sometimes you hear that, and if you've ever had a drug or alcohol problem, that's the first place your mind goes. Or maybe you know somebody or love somebody who did. But what we're talking about is the recovery from exercise. So in your exercise recovery, it's not just about you need the time, you need it, and if you're not sore, you're ready, or about taking an X amount of hours and then you'll be fine. And it is definitely not that you and your needs for recovery are exactly like anyone else's. So more on that coming right up. So here's the deal. If you are feeling like you need more recovery time between your workouts or you may not have framed it in that way. In your mind, you high achievers, you, I know you're out there, you may not be giving yourself the grace to allow that little thought to enter in. You may be a little hard on yourself or expecting that maybe, no, you should work out a little more frequently or work out a little harder because you feel like it's not working. And that is kind of what we've been trained and conditioned to do. So Let me frame it. Whether you feel like you need more recovery and you're being forced to take more rest between, or you feel like I'm not getting results that I feel like I've earned, both could be hinting that you do need more recovery. This is for you. So what you're gonna get out of this is really the perspective of why I'm sharing a couple of references in this. And, and I hope you know that everything is validated by resources and science and kind of digging into what I've known for years and what some of you unfortunately have experienced, whether it's frozen shoulder, plantar fasciitis, hip bursitis, or something else that ends in -itis. That is a chronic condition and it feels like it just came on overnight.. But the problem is it didn't. It was a long time in coming and building up, and you probably just got to a critical mass, and there it is. And now it feels like boom, it, it hurt. So you're not imagining it in either of those situations. And so as estrogen declines, your tendons and your ligaments need extra care. They're just not getting it. So connective tissue requires collagen. Collagen production goes down because estrogen isn't there to support the stimulus. So ignoring this need— and it's not that you're gonna escape it, like, it's not that, like, you picked your parents really well and your genetics are so good. You may have a lot of great things going for you, and maybe part of it was you had great parents But you also, maybe you've had great nutrition. Maybe you've been one of the lucky ones who's had no real sleep issues. So your recovery overnight, that process has been better. But if that's not you, and even if it is, don't ignore the fact that you now compared to you 10, 20, or 30 years ago, do have different needs. So I think I want you to kind of wake up because I'd rather be giving this to those of you who feel like, I don't think there's any need for me to pay attention to this. Fantastic. Can we just talk about it just in case? So if little signs and symptoms start creeping in, you notice them before they're problematic. And if you already have a problem, you're already— where you're already hooked, I've got it. So as estrogen declines all of us, for all of us, our tendons and our ligaments need more care. And ignoring it can lead to what is now this collection of things called musculoskeletal syndrome of menopause. And all that means is you have an itis, you have plantar fasciitis, bursitis, a little loss of muscle. You're probably struggling with more bone loss at an accelerated period of time in that transition as well. But what I want to tell you is not the name of it because that's not really helpful. But in this episode, we're going to discover why muscles recover faster than your connective tissue does. So know that you may be feeling like, I feel like I'd work out again. But when you're thinking and leaning into that, I feel like it, you're leaning really into the muscle. You're— few of us will say Oh my, my ankle or my, my wrist or my elbow until there's really getting close to something being wrong. We don't necessarily say, oh, I feel like working out again. So we'll talk about this. How do you adjust your workout schedule to prevent overuse injuries and the simple self-assessment tools that you can use to tell you probably more than a fitness tracker will. All right. And I love them. However, don't give all your power away to them. If you're exercising but you end up sore, tired, injured more often, this episode reveals the recovery strategies that actually work after 40 and share them with your daughter who's 20 or who's 30. And I, I say that not hoping that they need them, but with the reality that they've been exposed to more toxins potentially in their life than we were. I mean, I, I look at my own youth and childhood, and maybe it was where I was raised, but we went outside, we played outside all day. We actually dug in the dirt in the sandbox and we got dirty and the dirt was nontoxic, you know? And I don't know that you can say that for kids today. There's so much more screen time, you know? And I remember it being a big deal to go home after school and watch the ABC Afterschool Special on Wednesday night or whatever, right? But it was a big deal. It wasn't like an everyday thing. We played outside. And living in the way we did with fewer computer screens, you know, and, and I think about my son and, you know, what was his first screen? It was probably Game Boy, you know, and then there was whatever, Xbox and other things along the way. And They just seem to watch a lot of TV now, and I kind of like that they're homebodies, but I still think, is that because of screen time? You know, that they're inclined to do that because they've been conditioned more so to do so their whole lives. So pass this on, right? This isn't just for you. So in this episode, let's talk about a few things. The estrogen connective tissue connection. So declining estrogen levels affect tendon and ligament resilience. And why this is such a problem is number one, we rely on it, but also now our tendons and our ligaments are just dependent on the physiology that is left there. The endocrinology kind of that helped left the building. Endocrinology being the study and use of the hormones. So now it's about circulation. So blood flow carrying oxygen. Guess what? Your tendons and ligaments don't have blood flow in the same way that your muscles do. So they're like, you know, muscles are sitting right there in the classroom getting all the attention of the teacher, and tendons and ligaments are out in the hallway trying to hear what's going on in the classroom. It's not getting it really well. So 70% of women in menopause experience these musculoskeletal issues. And finally, Dr. Vonda Wright I've mentioned the study before, and a team in 2024 in July published this. This is actually a thing, and it is connected directly to a loss of estrogen. Now, collectively, that allows physicians to say there may be a reason we want to prescribe estrogen or other collective hormone therapy. I'm trying not to use the word replacement. I had to try hard, but hormone therapy to support you in exercise without injury, because we should all be able to expect that, right? We know that we can sustain life longer, quality of life longer, with more muscle, with less risk of bone fracture if we're more active Maybe there is a slight increase of our risk of getting injured, but actually, for those of you who are thinking, yeah, that's why I don't wanna lift weights. No, no, no. Your risk of injury is far greater not lifting weights than lifting weights. Trust me on that one. But this musculoskeletal syndrome of menopause just means, okay, now we get it. There's actually a reason for this. We didn't do anything wrong. It's not just because, oh, I'm so outta shape now, or I'm so old now. And age will be a factor. For the rest of our lives, for all of our lives. You know, we're not as resilient as we were when we were 20, but we can certainly have as good of quality of mitochondria and energy. It's been proven. And we can gain muscle well over 85 and do very well in strength if we do it right. So recovery time, the reality check is this. And I want to state this more than once. I've said this before. The minimum time between intense workouts using the same muscle group, generally in the same way, is 48 hours. So that specifically has always been in addressing, say, resistance training. Say we're going to go do total body. We're going to do the chest and the back, and we're going to do squats and lunges and the whole nine yards. And I did that yesterday. So, I can't go again today. Even though I want to take care of my muscles, the way I'm taking care of them is by not doing something again like that. I went for a walk today. Actually, I'll probably walk the dog again because it is beautiful here. Beautiful. And we've earned it. So, there's that. If you've heard me complain about 117 degrees, it is not this. It is beautiful. So I'll go for a walk at sunset. It's a great, great way to get some more sleep. And I'll move again because I've been sitting for a little while this afternoon. And you should be thinking that too. Uh, you know, I sat for a while. I'm going to offset that sedentary time with moves. So you want to do that, but not going to do a hard workout. Tomorrow is the soonest I could, but if I'm at all busy, feeling fatigued, I also have to remember that if I've been doing it every 48 hours and I'm not I should probably wait another day and see if that doesn't help me more. After the age of 40, 72 hours for a lot of the women in our Community and just working one-on-one and in small groups and suggesting to trainers that I've trained working with others for, for a period of time, I was supervising over 250,000 personal training sessions led by my trainers for others in and out of buildings, supervising them. And often I would have to say when a trainer felt stuck getting progress for people, like, do less, meet them one less time, or else on one of those sessions, just do recovery work with them and see what happens. And inevitably, midlife women did so much better. So the critical difference between muscle and connective tissue recovery is blood flow. So if we don't get the blood flow and the oxygen, we're not getting nutrients. It's like a choo-choo train delivering going, here you go, here, take this nutrient and that nutrient, and it's dropping it off. And if you have poor blood supply to those ligaments and tendons, the healing process happens but slower. So they just need more time, and you're not going to get over that. That's always going to be true. There's always going to be the people in the front row and the A seats that get A's and B's, and there's going to be people who get C's and D's in class. And your ligaments and connective tissue are bit slower. They're not quite getting it. They need a tutor, but they're not going to catch up. It's always going to be a delay. So you want to realize, okay, I can exercise my muscles, but I'm not going to try to strain the ligaments and the connective tissue in the same way. So that might mean you go for a swim. I'm still working my muscles and getting some cardiovascular conditioning, but I'm not going to, you know, do any damage to the ligaments and connective. Tissues. For those of you who are thinking jump training, because that is high impact every day, 5 to 7 days a week at least, so that's most days, but you don't have to do the same kind each time. So maybe you do drop jumps. It's going to be fairly high impact coming from your kitchen chair or 20, 24 inches down, landing fairly stiff-legged. You've built up to that, by the way. You earn it. Don't jump there first. You stop with a little tiny bench or no bench at all and little jumps on ground. But tomorrow, maybe what I do is just stomping my feet as I go upstairs, or I do heel drops. So I'm still getting some bone impact and quote-unquote jump training—falls in that continuum that I've given in our bone course—but I'm not putting the same stress on my ligaments and connective tissue. I'm giving them a little moment to heal. Makes sense. Okay, so foundational exercise formula: you want 2 quality resistance training sessions per week for total body. Now there are lots of ways to slice the pie. For most of the women that I work with, if you're an OG here, you, you've been here a lot, you know that I prefer 2 times a week total body strength training. The rest, if you do anything more with muscle building That's icing on the cake. But what I find still true for myself is 2 really high and hard total body— high and hard meaning I'm still in and out of there in an hour. I've got a warm-up and a cool-down within that time as well, and I'm doing, you know, maybe 5 sets per muscle group. And getting a lot of heavy work in. So 5 sets of 5 reps, that's pretty heavy. And I'm still focused on bone density, focus on muscle mass metabolism. But in between those, then I might do some light weights or work on my Power Plate or do yoga. Body weight in yoga with lots of flexion and extension and rotation and movements that you don't get when you're doing the traditional things that you want to do for bone density and metabolism. So you're still getting more stimulus, but again, not hard on the ligaments, tendons, allowing the muscles also to do some recovery and allowing them to get some work without interfering with recovery. If you're postmenopausal, you're stabilized, you could do 3 workouts a week. And this is my next step, and I love this. I've adapted to this, but I still find that I get busy and total body workouts are easier to move and adjust. But I do one total body. If I can do three, I will do one upper body and one lower body then later in the week. So it's kind of Monday, Thursday are always kind of my days, my examples. But I might do Monday and then Thursday, Friday, upper and lower body, or lower and upper, doesn't matter. And then I'm not straining the same tendons and ligaments, basically, right, from Thursday to Friday or those two back-to-back days, wherever you put them on your calendar. That's still doable and really smart. Now, some of you may feel like, "I can actually do four," and that is what's called a split routine where doing that, you would say upper and lower body Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday is a break. Maybe you're, you're just walking that day, you're doing yoga and not necessarily weight-bearing. And then Thursday and Friday, you're kind of repeating that, that upper and lower body session, different exercises maybe for variety, but you're still getting 2, 2 upper body, 2 lower body. So it's really still 2 total body workouts, just sliced and diced differently. But if that starts feeling like I am fatigued, I'm tired all the time. Your endocrine system, the cortisol, the adrenals, and your thyroid probably are taking a hit from doing that. And I would back off. And the other thing is you're not seeing the change. Like, just because you started doing more days a week, you're not seeing better body composition, maybe worse. You're seeing a little bit more fluffy, puffy, and belly fat. Again, that's inflammation, just low-level kind of chronic inflammation, and you're not getting the probably the cuts, the definition, and the tone that we all seek. And you'll get that if you're truly gaining muscle and making a positive impression on your metabolism. So recovery is very, very important. I say this, I hear Stephanie, or I'm sorry, Stacy Sims say this so frequently too, but this is something that, you know, we've said forever and ever and ever. And I think we're all going to have to say it again. And I think you have to say it out loud to convince yourself because we've been conditioned by media, by media. Realize that when social media says, that's just media telling you it seems like everybody's working out every day and that everybody looks good doing it. That's probably not really what's happening behind the scenes, by the way. It's just what sells maybe a program or something else. So realize you want to take your own data. Is it working or is it not working? 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As women, it should be simpler to access healthcare built around you and your unique needs. Whether you want to get ahead of menopause symptoms, lose weight, grow thicker, fuller hair, or find relief for anxiety, Hers has you covered. Visit forhers.com/flipping to get a personalized treatment plan plan that's right for you. That's forhers.com/flipping. Not available in all 50 states. Perimenopause and menopause by HERS includes hormone health support, educational resources, digital tools, and prescription options if appropriate. See website for full details, important safety information, and restrictions. So 2 total body resistance training sessions per week in whatever way you divide that up. 2 high-intensity interval training sessions a week. Now that could also be impact sessions, but it doesn't have to be. So this is where it gets tricky. If you are really short on time, you may want your intervals to give you impact, right? So you may want to say one of my intervals is going to be 30 seconds of jump squats, so I'm getting the impact. Okay, that also will get you breathless, by the way. At least it does me. Maybe you want to do 30 seconds of split lunges, lunge jumps, jump lunges. You get the idea. That also will get your heart rate up, I promise you, and you're getting impact in doing that. I often will have somebody ask me, and it may be you if you're listening, is the jump training interval training? And I have to say, only if you get breathless. So if you are doing low jumps and you're just doing 20 of them in a row and it's less than 10 seconds long, number one, it's been really short. It's probably hard to get breathless in that time. So I would say no, but also if you'd said, you know, I'm getting on the treadmill and I'm running 9 miles an hour and in 30 seconds I'm breathless, that's not necessarily high impact. So it could be interval and impact, but it could be just one or the other. So it's an important distinction for you to make. And then there's agility training. If we threw that in there, agility training is probably multidirectional. We want fast feet, fast foot movement. And that would be impact, but it may not be really high impact. And yet you may or may not get breathless doing that depending on your conditioning level. So all of the things we want in your program, and on some level it may be, oh, that's an okay agility thing. It's not great, but it's okay. I can check that box. And then some days you really want a gold star in your agility, even if it's not impact. Or breathlessness, it's still potentially good, right? So realize that you want to play really and have a well-rounded program. All right, daily mobility, focused movement and walking, that's also great for preventing the stiffness and the soreness and the injuries, keeping yourself mobile. That we also call this juicing the joints. We call it juicing the joints in a warmup and in a cool down, but mostly in a warmup. So synovial fluid kind of surrounds our joints, kind of our, the internally here, we've got this synovial fluid and it's kind of like lubrication in a car. Now I don't work on cars, so I don't know why we've always used this analogy, but a car has grease around all the parts. If you get into a car and you're doing anything, you know, that people who are mechanics and run car automotive repair shops, their nails are always black and dirty. And, and that's probably the sign of a really great mechanic, by the way. If their hands are too clean, I would run. But there's, you know, you have to have this grease for things to flow and smoothly come together and back apart again. But when fluidity and movement and ease of movement and you feel that you can move like this and glide, that's in part due to synovial fluid. And if things feel a little sticky or stiff, like first thing in the morning, and that could be arthritis, it's not just a lack of synovial fluid, but you don't have it. But if you're sitting here for a long period of time and you want to get up and move pretty easily when you do, I would sit here and circle your ankle. Around while you're listening to this. And you may be walking, and my hope is that you are. How ironic is it you're walking and I'm sitting while we're doing this? And I'm doing this for you. It's for you. It's all for you. All right, so you want that mobility every day, moving and walking. And it can or can't be— doesn't have to be yoga. Pilates is also great. You're moving through full range of motion. It's very complementary to resistance training, to other kinds the movement training, you get movements that you would not get. You get a wake-up call to muscles that would not be woken up if you didn't do Pilates. But that said, if your biggest priorities are bone density or metabolism or strength for your 85-year-old self to be proud of and say, thank you for doing that, you need to spend a little time in the weight room as well, not just on Pilates. Let them complement each other, not be one or the other. Okay, and then strategic rest days. So when I say strategic rest, I do not mean on the couch with the remote or popcorn either, but you're moving. So you're playing golf, you're— maybe you're gardening, you're just active. I am right now in the middle of moving house, so literally packing up boxes. That's a a lot of movement. It's kind of a recovery day. I think of it that way. I know you don't want to be me, but when you're, you know, in the middle of it, it's like, you know, all these little things. It's good tired at the end of the day. It's good to, in your free time, to get up and it's like, I'm gonna pack 2 boxes right now. Like, all the winter coats, I'm not going to be wearing them. That's a non-essential. We can pack it up and I'm done with that, you know. And those little things are movement, resistance of gravity. My dog runs when he hears the sound of the tape coming out of that thing and onto boxes, right? But you know, he'll get over it. So there's that. So we want to make sure we have all those things. Let me summarize that again. 2 high-quality resistance training sessions, 2 high-intensity interval or impact sessions, 2 daily or, or just daily mobility sessions really. And if you sit a lot, doing it intermittently throughout the day, very valuable. Getting strategic rest days. So you want to, yes, have a daily calendar, but sometimes it should say nothing. You know, like, it's— this is play day. What do you want to do today? Talk to somebody, right? Red flags that you're not recovering. What are the signs that you're not? I kind of opened with that, but really, you're not getting the results that you think you deserve. For doing what you're doing. You're making a concerted effort to have a better performance, whatever that is for you. If you don't play a sport but you're wanting better body composition, more strength, you're not gaining strength, or you feel flat, you want more energy and you're not getting more energy, you actually feel more tired, you feel more puffy and fluffy instead of more cut and conditioned. Those are evidence. So workout specifics, you know, are related to that. Your usual walking route, it takes longer than normal for you to do what you need to do. You're reaching for lighter weights for the same exercises, or you're putting them down earlier, not getting the same amount of reps. If you need a nap after your regular workout, your regular walk, that's a definite sign. I would also hesitate to say this, 'Cause other things can cause this, not just exercise. But if you're waking up in the morning and this was never you, you're kind of a morning person, but all of a sudden you just as soon stay in bed and cozy up and rather lay there than get up and start your day, that's a sign. So the change is what I'm talking about, not just if you're somebody who that's, that's always been true of you, but you're more of a night owl. That's not a sign for you. You have persistent soreness, aches, or recurring minor injuries. And I would also lump into this— I've had a lot of experience with a lot of women over time who've had plantar fasciitis, and then they get it again, and they don't really get rid of it, and they've had it for 2 years, and they think that's normal, and it is not. So that should be a temporary problem. And it's nutritionally related. It's hormone related. If you're not planning to, don't want to, choose not to do hormone therapy, you may want to look very closely at your micronutrient density. And the best way to do that is to screen. You can't guess. You can't just take a multi and say, I'm good, because probably not. So you want to look at that. You want to look at how are you exercising for your foot. Look at your footwear. When you do wear it, when you don't wear it. All those pieces are very important. So everyday recovery strategy: workout-specific warmups. So whatever's preparing you for exactly what you're about to do, spend a little more time doing the mobility and the warmups that you're about to do so your connective tissue is ready. Move purposefully instead of frantically. And this is where, you know, I, I remember distinctly a good friend of mine got hooked on going to boot camps. That my team trainers that I'd hired and trained were running. And she's like, it's addicting. You know, I'm going, you know, twice a week or 3 times a week or whatever. And we could— we would let them choose. You want 2? Do you want 4? And she's like, yes, addicting. But they would go and they were getting hurt. And, you know, that's just when you know it's too much. Like, a little might be good. Good, but a lot is not necessarily good. And the movement in boot camps tended to be— even though I work with trainers and teach them this— we don't want people to move in a frenzy during the exercise. Moving quickly from one exercise to the next, okay, but not while you're doing it. The idea is not to have them move so fast that they're doing it poorly. Burpees is one example, you And one of the very common recommendations or cues is every, you know, every minute on the minute, you know, I want you to do X amount or you're going to start a new exercise or once you do as many reps as possible, you know, and that is a recipe for injury because it doesn't matter what quality they are. It doesn't matter if it's good. And we've seen a lot of injury increases since those kinds of programs were born. So you don't wanna be one of the fatalities coming out of those. So look at rest intervals, optimizing them. Generally, Tabata was a bad idea. Do you remember that? 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off. We're gonna repeat that 8 times for a 4-minute interval. Generally by the 5th and the 6th, the 7th and the 8th, form was so bad. We saw people injured all the time. Their knees, their lower backs. Yep. And then they wouldn't come back. They drop out. And we had to tell those trainers, you know, what happened to you and that college degree you have? You sat in my classroom because I would— I was their teacher at a university and then hired them also was the personal training director. And I said, hello, do you remember that day in class when we— progression means we do shorter work intervals than we do rest intervals. And you just slapped this longer work interval, shorter rest interval on a beginner. Did that make sense to you? Right. So you can tell I was a real fun boss, but, um, I was pro customers, you know, and we have to teach really early. Trainers feel the pressure of getting people results quickly. But in doing that, we sometimes rush someone to an injury instead of to results. So don't be a victim of that. And, and I say that gently, but don't be a victim of doing it to yourself. More is better. Whether I'm tired or not, I'm going to do this. So add mobility work beyond just your warmups and your cooldowns on those days off when you're not doing resistance training. You know, if it helps you, then by all means, put in a yoga DVD. Or go to a class, but do something literally to help yourself. So I have a power plate in my kitchen. Now when I move, I'm thinking literally, I'm like, these are important decisions. I'm like, where's it gonna go? Where's it gonna go in the house? Because it has to be somewhere where I see it, so I use it. And it's 10 minutes long, but I wanna use it every day. And so if it's in the kitchen and I'm cooking something, I can use it while I'm cooking it, right? And so it's right there. So thinking about how do you make it easy to do the right thing, whatever that is for you. So use nutrition and sleep as your recovery accelerators as well. Remember, most women were eating too little, not too much. And yeah, yeah, it has to be of the right thing, but But, you know, even just increasing calories sometimes will make a huge difference in the benefits that you get from the exercise that you're doing. If you've been eating too little, focus your eating, eating a little bit more calories around the workouts that you're doing and the days that you're working extra hard. I also, for clients that I've worked with, you know, they like to rework sometimes really hard. It's holding them back has been my job. Make sure that the day after a really hard workout, you're also for the next 24 full hours, you're increasing your overall caloric intake and your protein because that's when you're really supporting that muscle protein synthesis. But that can make a huge difference. Look at your plate on a regular basis. Is it brightly colored? Is it full of veggies or are you skipping or skimping on that? Because your, your gut— and, and here's a way to tell if your poop is not good. Potentially your micronutrient density of the variety that you're getting is not good. Your body is just crying for, eat a little bit more and make it good food. And by the way, you should enjoy it because that's also a big part of having good quality digestion that gets delivered to the muscles, the ligaments, tendons, and all of you. All right, advanced recovery tools. I've already mentioned one, the whole body vibration, and I'll put a link in this one to the one that I use. You use our code and at very certain times, and we're coming into this period of time right now while I'm doing this live, when you will have 25% off if you choose your timing well. So reach out to us if you're missing it, and I will give you a hint behind the scenes of what that is coming up. But my whole body vibration of choice is Power Plate, the Power Plate move. It's been used used so many times by not the company just doing their own— I, that's kind of incestuous, right, in terms of research— but by third party. Third party researchers are choosing to use it to look at bone density, recovery, weight loss, lymph circulation, stimulus of muscle contractions. So there's that. There's massage for passive movements of lymph and fascia. And yes, you can use massage guns on yourself or have a trainer do that for you. I've purchased one for my son. I've given one to my brother. I have one myself and don't use it nearly as much as I used to. I'm usually in the sauna or whole body vibration. I'm like, one or the other, and an Epsom salt bath, you know, are kind of tools that I use over and over. So I would say— and I won't necessarily put this one in the show notes— but sauna is another great recovery tool, and it also amplifies what you've So if you are doing a really tough workout and then you follow that with, say, a 30-minute sauna session, it's like you amplify the results you've gotten. Just 3 times a week, 30 minutes in a sauna improves longevity and VO2 max. It's like a workout. Don't tell anybody I told you that because we still do want you to do the workout. All right. All right. All right, your body knows best, so do a self-assessment. Check in. How's your appetite and cravings? How's your overall sleep quality? Your energy levels throughout the day? Mood? Cognition? Are you firing on all cylinders? Digestion and elimination? Your libido? Soreness? Recovery speed? Feel like you're really ready and, and your next workout, the evidence you get, your next workout is really great? And do you have injuries or not? The presence of injuries or illness too frequently. Because if you are one of the 20% of women who is exercising enough and adequately, you should be the most energetic woman in the room. Realize 80% of people are not— women are not doing twice weekly resistance training. That's the minimum for metabolic health. That's disease Please. That's not vanity. That's not toned arms. That's, you might get toned arms, but it's not performance. That's just, you should do that like flossing or brushing. It's just unnecessary. But if you're not the most energetic person in the room and you're dealing with any negative symptoms here in all of these areas, tweaking exercise can improve the results. Either you aren't doing enough and you need to get started, or you're maybe overreaching. And doing too much, and you just need a break and back off. So key takeaways from today: connective tissue recovery takes longer than muscle, your ligaments, and your joints. So if you're feeling like you've been prone to ankle strains and sprains, stiff ankles, joints first thing in the morning, take extra time. There's limited blood supply there. More exercise usually leads to overuse to fatigue, injuries, higher dropout rates for non-athletes. The perfect week includes at least 2 strength training sessions a week. That may be absolutely perfect. 2 high-intensity interval sessions a week. They may or may not be high impact, but you do want impact nearly every day. Mobility work most times, most days. Daily movement and figure out play. What is that? Why are you doing all this anyway? So listen to your body's feedback. It never lies. You're supposed to feel good if you're living in that sweet spot. So don't forget, you're not supposed to feel like your body just got beat up. Now I know some of us kind of like that, like I feel a little bit sore, I know I did something. But if that's not you, that's not your sweet spot. You shouldn't be limited in other other things you love to do in your life because of your exercise, it's probably not quite working for you. So adjust your routine. If you're experiencing persistent fatigue, you take longer for usual activities, like that walk around the block suddenly is taking 5 more minutes, let's look at that. And if you're reaching for lighter weights, seems to be feeling better for you, you know, sometimes changing up the program is warranted, but you want to be sure that it's— there's a real reason for it. Okay, now send in your questions. If you are not yet involved in a program, we have a couple things going on. So the 10-day metabolism reset is the Hot Nuts Butter Challenge, but if you're coming in at a time during the year when it's a very special holiday season Blissmas is what we exchange for that 10-day challenge, and it's a 12 Days of Blissmas challenge to kind of help you get through the first 12 days of December, laying down a foundation for more activity, the right activity, but better activity. So for those of you just starting, it's more potentially than you were doing. For those of you that are already doing something, it may help you just do a little bit less but make it count more and allow you to deck the halls, wrap the gifts, shop the gifts, get the house ready, and celebrate and do all the things that you love to do in the season without overdoing through the exercise. This is a great time to take advantage of connecting what is the knowledge of your hormones with the exercise type and timing that you're doing. So if you need a little grounding during that period of time, you can get into the 12 Days of Blissmas. I whisper in your ear every day about how your hormones are being positively impacted by the exercise you do. And namely we're talking your cortisol, your adrenals, and the thyroid. That is the domino effect if those two don't go well. But we're also talking how, how about testosterone? And if we do that right, what does that do for you and your growth hormone? We're talking about what happened when estrogen declined and how can you offset that with exercise. So we talked about one of those ways today, a little longer warmup, cool down, a little more attention to your mobility time, and still being able to take care of the other things so that you age really well. So I don't know about you, but I'm going all the way triple digits and I can't wait to see you there. All right. What are you waiting for? Let's start Flipping 50 Today. You'll find all the show notes as usual. At flipping50.com/podcast, and you'll find all the podcast episodes wherever you love your downloads. And I would thank you if you share this with at least one friend, if you find value from it.