Category: Daily

Most people approach daily workouts as punishment.

To burn off calories you accumulated after participating in all the joy life offers. Or to train begrudgingly so you can get your body ready to do something you actually enjoy. Like a long hike.

What if you flip your workout attitude on its head? Think of it as the reward. Something you get to do each day.

Sure, thinking of workouts as a reward for you might sound as likely as opening a jar of dill pickles with a purple crayon.

But stick with that mindset for a month and see what changes.

It’s easier to stick with the things we look forward to.

-J

If HIIT (high-intensity interval training) is the cool auntie, SIT (sprint interval training) is the uncle with the social skills of corned beef. The one that no one really wants to hang out with.

But people put up with him because he owns a big boat.

Whereas HIIT revolves around sub-max work and incomplete recovery, SIT is about ultra-high effort with complete recovery.

How to SIT

As an example, you go anywhere between 10-30 seconds of all-out effort and rest until the heart rate returns to normal. Depending on your conditioning, the work-to-rest ratio is anywhere between 1:2-5.

As with HIIT, the total workout should stay under 20 minutes.

Benefits of SIT

– Improved insulin sensitivity
– Increase in lean muscle
– Increase in fat-burning

All of those dive when estrogen and progesterone start flatlining in the perimenopause. SIT is a way to give the body an external stimulus that kickstarts a similar reaction as those hormones used to provide.

Ok Joonas, I get it. Show me an actual workout

Workout 1:
10-15x Kettlebell Swings
Rest until fully recovered
Go again for up to 20 minutes

Workout 2:
30s Hill sprint
Rest until fully recover
Work up to 10 sets

The modality doesn’t matter. Pick whatever you’re comfortable with so you can safely go as hard as you possibly can.

In HIIT, the intensity tends to drop as you get further in the workout. With SIT, the goal is to have the last set as hard as the first set. Hence the long recovery in between sets.

If you haven’t done anything like this for a long time (or ever), start easier. Gradually push your heart rate to those high numbers. The goal is to reach your theoretic max heart rate (220-Your age).

I told you SIT is like the obnoxious uncle you don’t care for. But he’s got a boat, so…

-J

Why HIIT

– Better blood sugar control, metabolic benefits to help with body comp. Especially belly fat
– Anti-inflammatory effect (inflammation being naturally higher from peri-menopause onward)
– Improving aerobic capacity, aka heaps good for your heart
– Improved cognition and working memory

How to HIIT

– Around 80% of your max effort (you could calculate 80% from your max heart rate: 220-Your age * 0.8)
– Around 1-4 mins per effort.
– Rest as needed. Some sessions are go-go-go. Some are less so. A good rule of thumb is to rest until you can talk in short sentences

Ok Joonas, whatever, I believe you, how does that look like in a workout?

A super simple version:

10x Kettlebell Swing
5x Push Ups
10x Goblet Squats

Do all the exercises back to back. Rest until you can talk in short sentences, and go again. Build up to 15-20 minutes.

You can swap those exercises for whatever you like. Favouring lower body exercises to help get the heart rate up.

How often? 

In the perfect world, you’d work up to doing two of those a week. Or at least three in every two weeks.

But in the real world? One a week on top of SIT (more on that tomorrow) and strength training would be ace.

-J

I had two separate conversations yesterday with women asking my thoughts on creatine.

Creatine is widely researched, has significant physical and physiological upsides, and next to zero downsides.

And people much smarter than me back this up:

“Research shows creatine supplementation is most effective for those high-intensity, short-duration, or repeated bouts of high-intensity exercise with short rest periods like hill repeats, resistance training, and plyometric work.”

“Creatine supplementation may be of particular importance during menses, pregnancy, post-partum, during and post-menopause.”

“Creatine might have positive effects on mood and cognition and maybe even more effective for females by supporting brain health, and is especially useful for menopausal women who are more susceptible to increased inflammation.

“The review also included depression research, indicating that women with a major depressive disorder who augmented their daily antidepressant with 5g of creatine responded twice as fast and experienced remission of depression at twice the rate of women who just took the antidepressant.”

“[creatine] can also be helpful for mood swings during the menstrual cycle.”

Source: Dr Stacy Sims Why Active Women Need Creatine

How much creatine do you need?

Take 1-2 grams a day. You can mix it in your breakfast or whatever. Or if you’re really hardcore you can just eat it dry with a water chaser.

A basic creatine monohydrate is your best option. $17 gets you about 250 days worth.

-J

If you’re not yet in your menopause years

Prioritise building lean muscle. Because it’ll be way harder later.

Building lean muscle is difficult for most women as it is. Partly because of the low levels of testosterone and partially because most women (that I know) don’t eat enough to build muscle.

So, dialling in your workouts and nutrition to support lean muscle is crucial in the pre-menopausal years.

As for the actual workouts, here are some guidelines.

Resistance training with lighter weights is not appropriate for women in perimenopause and beyond.

The training to build lean muscle in the younger years doesn’t trigger enough muscle fibre contraction to produce the stimulus you want to get to simulate the effects of flatlining estrogen and progesterone.

This means that not only are you not building muscle, but you’re also leaving all the other strength training benefits on the table:

– Increase strength and power
– Increase metabolic rate and decrease visceral fat
– Build joint strength and stability
– Increase bone mineral density
– Enhances the immune system
– Reduces hot flashes

To trigger that stimulus, you have to go heavy. We’re talking <6 reps per set. You might be able to get away with sets of 8.

The lighter resistance training can still have other benefits, such as when doing high-intensity interval training (HIIT). But HIIT alone won’t replicate the benefits of heavy strength training.

-J

The hormonal changes from perimenopause onward affect how your body responds to strength and cardio training. Much of this is due to the decrease in estrogen and progesterone.

As the body has less of these two hormones, it affects muscle contraction and your ability to build lean muscle. Both of those go down. The lower levels also reduce the body’s ability to handle inflammation, insulin sensitivity, and fat-burning capabilities.

Frustratingly, as these two hormones flatline, it has zero effect on how your body stores fat. That’s the same as it’s always been.

To counteract these changes, you need to provide the body with an external stimulus that mimics the role of estrogen.

The best way to get that done is to build your training program around heavy strength training, plyometrics, and high-intensity interval training.

-J

Is to pay attention.

Both in life and fitness, we often forget our needs and only focus on our wants.

And end up wasting both time and effort.

– J

ps. I didn’t come up with that paying attention to avoid regret part. Sam Harris did.

I know, right? Words never spoken by a fitness coach. Not.

But, for a woman over 40, especially if you’re perimenopausal, getting enough protein is kind of a big thing. Why? Because all kinds of things happening in your body.

– Reduced sensitivity to exercise and protein (aka what used to work no longer isn’t)
– Increase in visceral and intramuscular fat
– Decrease in bone mineral density
– Increase in muscle catabolism (aka the body breaks down muscle for energy)

You can reduce a lot of those downsides by increasing your protein intake.

Aim for 1.2 to 1.5 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight at the absolute minimum. Since you’re (or want to be) moderately to very active, that recommendation jumps to the higher end of 1.4–2.2 grams per kilogram of body weight. For a 70kg woman, that’d be 98-154g (70*1.4 to 70*2.2).

Try to space that protein somewhat evenly throughout the day. If your goal is to lose weight or reduce the afternoon energy fluctuations and cravings, it helps to eat 2/3 of your calories before 1pm.

Besides increased protein intake, you know what else reduces those downsides? Strength training. But more on that later.

-J

Estrogen is converted from testosterone, and most of this conversion (or the fancier word: aromatisation) happens in the fat tissue. So naturally, a higher body fat equals more fat tissue to make this conversion happen.

The resulting imbalance between testosterone and estrogen can contribute to symptoms like weight gain and changes in mental health. As for hot flashes, a high body fat mass can prolong them for 20+ years.

This imbalance isn’t just relevant for menopausal symptoms. It has broader implications for bone health, the cardiovascular system, and metabolism.

Now, hormonal changes are complex and influenced by various factors, not just body fat.

But this is something to keep in mind.

-J

I was wrong. Again.

A while back, I confidently stated that I would never again write about fat loss or aesthetics. The idea was that plenty of people in the fitness space focus on fat loss, and you don’t need another one.

But.

I have spoken to many women, and clients and non-clients keep bringing up aesthetics-related goals. Not as the number one goal, but a goal nevertheless. Or they are noticing positive changes in how they look as a byproduct of their training and being happy about it.

And that’s all without me specifically prompting it.

So, I believe that by completely refusing to talk about fat loss, I am serving my ideals about the fitness industry. While ignoring a prevalent goal women over 40 have. Plus, a higher fat mass can play a part in prolonged hot flashes.

So there’s that.

I am not saying aesthetics and fat loss will become the dominant focus here or in my coaching. The focus will still be on reclaiming your energy and strength so you can do more awesome shit. That’s why you’re here.

But periodically, when there’s a good reason to talk about fat loss, I will do so.

Now, one of my other reasons for never mentioning fat loss was to create a corner of the internet where you could escape the never-ending bombardment of content constantly telling you to look a certain way.

That isn’t changing.

You will never find bikini before and after photos here. And that includes bikini photos of me.

-J