A Training Week for Women Over 40: 2 Strength, 2 Hard, 2 Mobility, 1 Easy
Most advice stops at “lift weights”. Here's what a week actually looks like, and how much of it the evidence backs.
5 min read
“Lift weights” is good advice. It's also where most advice stops.
The questions we actually get are more practical. What do I do on a Tuesday? How hard? How often? Do I still need cardio?
This is the week we coach for women in their 40s, 50s and beyond. It's seven things, not seven days.
The week in one line
- 2 strength. Progressive lifting. Squat, hinge, press, pull, carry.
- 2 hard. One heavy and impact session. One intervals session.
- 2 mobility. Real range and control, not a token stretch.
- 1 Zone 2. Easy, steady, conversational.
Sessions combine, so the seven fit into four or five days. The rest of the week is walking, life and rest. Rest is part of the plan.
One thing up front. This is our coaching model. It sits on top of guideline minimums, and below we've been straight about which parts the evidence backs and which parts are our judgement.
Strength: the anchor
Two sessions a week is the floor. Guidelines ask for muscle-strengthening work on at least two days.
A 2026 study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that people logging 90 to 119 minutes of resistance training a week had lower mortality, even after accounting for aerobic exercise. It's observational, so treat it as a signal, not a promise. We broke it down in The Stronger Generation.
What goes in is simple. Squats, deadlifts, presses, rows, carries. Load that rises over time. Starting with a box squat or a kettlebell deadlift is fine. Staying there forever isn't.
Early gains feel like strength, not size. That's mostly your nervous system learning the movement. Don't judge week three by the mirror.
Next step: Gymnasium Start is our coached way in. No experience needed, scaled to you.
Hard: two sessions, two jobs
“High intensity” gets used loosely. In this week it means two specific things.
Heavy and impact. This one is for bone. In the LIFTMOR trial, postmenopausal women with low bone mass did supervised heavy lifting and impact work twice a week for eight months. Each session ran around 30 minutes, with five sets of five at over 85% of their one-rep max. Bone density improved at the lumbar spine and femoral neck. The comparison group, on a gentle home programme, lost bone or stayed flat.
Two words in there matter. Supervised, and built up to. Nobody starts at 85%. That's what coaching is for, and it's why heavy work comes after a few weeks of learning the lifts, not before.
Intervals. This one is for your engine. Short, properly hard efforts with enough rest to go hard again. Two common formats: four rounds of four minutes hard with three minutes easy, or all-out efforts of 30 seconds or less with three to four minutes rest, for two to six rounds. Our VO₂ max article covers why this matters well beyond fitness.
Here's the catch. Most people live in the middle. Hard enough to feel tired. Not hard enough to adapt. So make the hard days hard and the easy days easy.
If you have a heart condition, or haven't pushed hard in years, speak to your GP first. Then scale the intervals to you.
Next step: not sure what hard means for you? Book an intro. It’s 30 minutes with a coach, and they’ll set your loads and your intervals.
Mobility: the cheap one
This is the weakest evidence in the week, and we'd rather say so. The European Menopause and Andropause Society's 2026 exercise guidance gives no mobility amounts. We include it because it keeps you training. Hips that let you squat. Ankles that let you lunge. Shoulders that let you press overhead.
It doesn't need its own session. Put it at the start or end of a strength or Zone 2 day.
Zone 2: one easy session
Steady work where you can hold a conversation, but it feels a bit strained. Aim for around 45 minutes, unbroken. Bike, incline treadmill walk, swim or a ruck.
One is the floor. Our Zone 2 article suggests two or three for general health, and that's fine if you enjoy it. We set the minimum at one because women may get less from Zone 2 for fat burn and mitochondrial health than men, as they tend to start with better mitochondrial density. The evidence on that is thinner than the Zone 2 hype suggests. It still builds your aerobic base and helps you recover between hard days. If you love it, or you're training for HYROX or a half marathon, do more.
Two rules. If you're stacking sessions, do it first, never after a hard one. And ignore your watch's idea of Zone 2. Use the talk test.
How it fits into a real week
One way to lay it out across four days:
- Monday: strength and mobility, 40 to 50 minutes
- Tuesday: Zone 2 and mobility, 60 to 70 minutes
- Thursday: heavy and impact, around 30 minutes
- Saturday: strength and intervals, around 35 minutes
Wednesday, Friday and Sunday are walking, rest and whatever you enjoy. Move things around to suit your life. Three rules: easy goes before hard in the same session, hard days don't sit back to back, and rest days aren't optional.
Short on time? Do two strength sessions, one intervals session and one easy session. Bring the heavy work in once you're ready for it. A week you repeat beats a perfect week you don't.
Next step: one membership covers all five gyms, so the week can follow your life.
How much of this is science?
Piece by piece:
- Strength twice a week: strong. It's the guideline minimum, backed by large cohort data.
- Heavy and impact for bone: good, but narrow. One well-run trial, supervised, in postmenopausal women with low bone mass.
- Aerobic work: the guideline is 150 to 300 minutes of moderate activity or 75 to 150 of vigorous activity a week. The week above covers the intensity. Walking and ordinary life cover the volume.
- One Zone 2 session: our judgement. Thin evidence for women specifically.
- Mobility: our judgement. Weakest evidence, lowest cost.
- Menopause symptoms: mixed. Exercise protects bone, muscle and your heart. Don't count on it to switch off hot flushes, and it doesn't replace a conversation with your GP about HRT.
If you're new
You don't start with all seven. Start with two coached strength sessions and a walk. Add the hard sessions as your technique and confidence build.
That's what coaching-led, class-based training scaled to the individual means in practice. Same session, different loads. Gymnasium Start is the guided way in.
Next step: pick your gym: Brixton, Kennington, Wandsworth, Ealing or Twickenham.