While aging is inevitable, aging well is not. There are many factors involved in maintaining good physical and mental health as you age, but one of the most important things to consider as you grow older is weight training.
Chris Freytag knows from experience, as a personal trainer who is over 50 years of age, she knows that exercise not only keeps you feeling and looking younger but actually physically slows down the aging process. And while exercise comes in many forms, strength training is where the true anti-aging magic happens. Strength training is one of the best types of exercises for women over 50 – it’s time to start!
Let’s explore in detail the benefits of strength training for women and some of the specific strength training exercises that Chris Freytag recommends that women over 50 do.
1. Weight Training For Women Builds Lean Muscle Mass
As we get older, our bodies inevitably go through muscle loss if we’re not focused on a strength training workout regularly. Those who strength train see tighter, more toned bodies rather than getting “bulky.”
Being stronger means you can stay independent and strong for life’s daily activities such as carrying groceries, lifting grandchildren, or engaging in fun activities like golf or other sports.
Around the age of 30, we start to lose our muscle mass if not doing anything to actively replace it. As many women age, they become more sedentary, and hence, their muscles start to deteriorate. That’s why you need to start doing strength work. Building lean muscle is not only healthy, but it also looks great.
2. Weight Training For Women Builds Bone Density
Muscle loss can have further consequences on bone health. Unexpected falls put countless older people in the hospital every year. In fact, according to the CDC, falls are the leading cause of injury and death in older Americans.
By strength-training the muscle and connective tissue that surrounds your bones, you are making yourself stronger and helping to prevent a fall from happening in the first place. Bone density is a big deal and strength training is the best way to preserve it.
3. Weight Training For Women Decreases Body Fat
Maintaining a healthy weight is important when it comes to preventing many diseases that come with aging. By strength training, you are able to decrease the amount of body fat, both internally and externally.
A healthy amount of fat is both good and necessary. Too much, however, is not. Strength training exercises can help with this.
4. Weight Training Speeds Up Metabolism
Strength training and lifting weights lead to more muscle mass, which then leads to a higher metabolism. Muscle uses more calories at a resting heart rate than body fat.
When you have more muscle mass in your body, you burn more calories every day. This is why you want to get started asap!
5. Weight Training Improves Mental Health
Strength training is not just about more muscle mass. As you get older, you may go through a lot of life changes making it normal to feel sad, stressed, or uneasy about these changes. Adopting a strength training program has been shown to improve your confidence and boost your mental health. Harvard Medical School reports that exercise helps lessen the incidence and the degree of clinical depression.
6. Weight Training For Women Improves Balance, Coordination, and Mobility
As you age, you tend to lose the overall muscle strength that allows you to balance. By lifting weights, you are not only building up muscle strength and protecting bone health, but you are also forcing your body to function in an unbalanced state, thus improving overall balance and coordination.
7. Weight Training For Women Reduces The Risk of Many Diseases
According to Tufts University, strength training exercises will reduce the risks and symptoms of several health problems too, including arthritis, diabetes, osteoporosis, obesity, back pain, and depression.
11 Best Strength Training Exercises for Women Over 50
Here are 11 exercises for women over 50 that will work for every muscle group and give you a good total body workout. Several use your body weight, and a few require a set of dumbbells. Choose a weight that allows you to complete 12 repetitions of each exercise. If the exercise feels too easy, go a little heavier.
Workout Instructions
Perform each exercise shown below anywhere between 12 and 15 repetitions.
Repeat the entire circuit of the 11 strength training moves a total of 2 times through the circuit. Between each circuit, take a 1-minute break to grab your breath and start back from the top.
Stand tall with your feet hip-width distance apart. Hips, knees, and toes all pointing forward.
Bend your knees and sit your butt back as if you are going to sit in a chair. Primarily keeping your weight equally in both heels, allowing you to keep your knees behind your toes.
Hit the bottom of your squat, pause, and then rise back up to stand and repeat the full exercise.
Muscles Targeted: Quads, Hamstrings, Glutes, and Core
Begin in a kneeling position with your hands below your shoulders and knees back behind your hips.
Keep your gaze in front of your fingertips so your neck stays long, squeeze your glutes and inner thighs together, keeping the lower body active.
Slowly lower yourself to the ground, keeping your elbows back at about a 45-degree angle.
Press yourself back up to the starting position
Repeat for the desired amount of repetitions
Advancement to this Exercise: Once you have mastered the modified push-up try a full push-up from your toes. Begin in a high plank position, hands stacked underneath the shoulders, legs long behind you. Lower your chest to the floor, with your elbows pointing slightly back, until you are just above the ground. As you exhale, tighten your belly and push yourself back up to a plank position.
Muscles Targeted: Upper Body, Chest, Back, Shoulders, Biceps and Triceps, and even your Core.
3. Reverse Grip Double Arm Row for Strength Training
Start this exercise with your legs together and sit back into a small squat; engaging the glutes and abdominal wall. Arms will be stretched out in front of the body holding the weights with the palms facing the ceiling.
Drawing your elbows back by squeezing your upper back muscles together, pull the elbows gently past the hips so you feel the lats and triceps engage and return to the starting position with control.
Options: Start with a lighter set of weights and focus on slow-controlled movements. Take a 3-second pause at the top of the range of motion and slowly return to the starting position. Once you’ve mastered lighter weights with a slow and controlled pace, grab a set of heavier weights and try completing a few more repetitions.
Muscle Groups Targeted: Upper Body, Triceps, Back, and Shoulders
Start lying on a mat (or the ground) with your arms extended overhead, legs long, and feet flexed towards your face.
Inhale as you lift your arms up and begin curling your chin to your chest. Exhale as you roll the entire torso up and over, keeping your legs straight, abs engaged, reaching down towards the toes.
Inhale as you begin to roll back down your spine, one vertebra at a time, and exhale as the upper portion of the back lowers to the ground, reaching your arms back overhead.
Repeat moving slowly and using the abdominals to lift and lower, not using momentum.
Start standing tall with your feet hip-width distance apart. Take a large step forward with the right leg and lower your back knee down to the floor. Both legs should be bent at a 90-degree angle at the bottom of the lunge.
Bring weights in towards your shoulders to complete the bicep curl at the bottom of the lunge, then push off the front foot and return to the starting position.
Repeat on the other side.
Muscle Groups Targeted: Quads, Glutes, Hamstrings, and Biceps
Begin by lying on the floor with your forearms flat on the ground. Your elbows should be aligned directly below your shoulders. Hands should be separated by the width of your elbows.
Engage your core, press down through your elbows, and raise your body up off the floor, keeping your body in a straight line from your head down to your feet. Pull your navel into your spine and squeeze your glutes to keep your hips in line with your shoulders.
Modifications to this Exercise: Drop down to your knees and hold from your forearms and your knees. This will allow you to focus on squeezing your belly into your spine without dropping your hips or dumping pressure into your low back.
Muscle Groups Targeted with This Exercise: Core/ Abdominals, Shoulder, Chest, Upper Back, Arm, and Leg Muscles.
8. Single Leg Hamstring Bridge for Strength Training
Lie on your back with bent knees both hip-width distance apart. Your feet will be flat on the mat stacked underneath your knees. Once in a bridge position, extend your right leg long towards the ceiling.
Squeezing your glutes and lower body and then lifting your hips off of the mat into a bridge. Lower and lift the hips for a desired number of reps and then repeat the exercise on the left leg.
Muscle Groups Targeted: Hamstrings, Glutes, and Quads
Start with your feet together (or hip-width distance apart), sit back into a slight squat with arms bent at 90-degree angles, and weights at the sides of the chest.
Press the dumbbells back past the hips, keeping the line from your shoulder to your elbow joint stable and only finding movement from the elbow joint to the dumbbell. Return back to the starting position with weights at 90 degrees.
Advanced Option: Stability Ball Tricep Kick Back
Adding the stability ball to a tricep kickback is a strength exercise that will not only strengthen the triceps but will also challenge your core stability. An exercise that can be done by all levels from beginners to advanced will make you work your entire body in order to keep you on the stability ball.
Holding dumbbells, place your chest firmly on the ball with arms draped along your side body and legs extended on the floor behind you. Keep your head in line with your spine, squeezing your glutes to hold yourself in a stable plank position on the ball.
Pull your elbow up to a 90-degree angle for the starting position of the tricep kickback.
Press the dumbbell back, squeezing the triceps.
Release weights back down to starting position, maintaining balance on the stability ball the entire time.
Start with your feet hip-width distance apart. Bring your elbows out to the side creating a goal post position with your arms. Elbows will be straight out from shoulder height and abdominals held in tight.
Press dumbbells straight overhead until your arms are straight. Slowly return to starting position (goal post arms) with control.
Reach one arm long, drawing in the abdominals, and extend the opposite leg long behind you.
Hold, engage your lower body for 5-10 seconds, and return to all fours.
Repeat on the other side.
Muscles Groups Targeted: Abdominals and Low Back
Try These Strength Exercises Two Different Ways
1. 10-Minute AMRAP Workout
(As Many Rounds as Possible Workout) – Set a timer for 10 Minutes. Complete a total of 10 repetitions of each exercise above. Repeat as many times as possible within 10 minutes. Take breaks as needed – the goal is to get through as many rounds as you can of all strength exercises in the 10 minutes.
2. Circuit Workout
In this circuit workout, we are going to bundle a few of the exercises together and you will repeat each circuit 2 times.
Complete Exercises 1 – 4 together: You will complete 10 repetitions of each exercise (squats, mid-back rows, modified push-ups, and the full-body roll-up) and repeat the circuit again for a total of 2 rounds.
Complete Exercises 5 – 7 together: After completing 2 rounds of exercises 1 – 4, you will move on to exercises 5 through 7. Completing 10 repetitions of each (deadlift, lunges with bicep curls, and 1 minute of a forearm plank) and repeat the circuit for a total of 2 rounds. If you need to modify the forearm plank you can adjust the time down to 30 seconds or drop down to your knees and continue to engage your core.
Complete Exercises 8 – 11 together: After completing the first 2 circuits, you will move on to the third circuit which consists of exercises 8 through 11 (single leg hamstring bridge, tricep kickback, shoulder overhead press, and bird dog). Complete 10 repetitions of the 4 exercises and repeat the circuit one more time!
Additional Strength Training Tips for Women Over 50
The CDC has set the guideline that everyone should perform strength training activities at least two days a week. This goes for anyone in their 30s and all the way up into your 50s, 60s, and even 70s! Strength training is perfectly safe for women over 50, but there are a few tips you should know before getting started:
Consult your doctor before dramatically changing your exercise regimen or if you have any pre-existing conditions or injuries.
The good news is that we can beat the odds by continuing to weight train, helping to build and maintain muscles throughout life! So what are you waiting for, grab a pair of weights and get started with your weight training journey today!
Nice read. Strength training is key to keeping the body balanced and the metabolism at a nice healthy level. Just remember to hydrate well before and after
Chris Freytag, CPT on
August 10, 2022 at 3:28 PM Reply
Yes absolutely - great reminder, to hydrate well before and after your workouts!
Thank you for this exercise plan. Right now I don't have enough stomach strength to properly perform a full body flip as shown. Can you offer an alternative exercise? Thank you!
Chris Freytag, CPT on
July 29, 2022 at 8:59 AM Reply
If a full body roll up is too much – work up to it with a little assistance. You can use a resistance band to help you – Place it under your feet and hold on to the ends with your hands. It will give you a little extra help. If that is still too much – start with this Pilates Exercise – it’s a good one. https://gethealthyu.com/exercise/bird-dog-crunch/
Thank you for this exercise plan. I currently do not have enough abdominal strength to correctly perform the full body roll up as shown. Can you provide a alternative exercise.
Thank you!
Chris Freytag, CPT on
May 31, 2022 at 9:15 AM Reply
Hi Viki - Because this is a pilates based move, I would consider starting with the Pilates 100. This is a pilates based move as well, but does not require you to roll all the way up. Work on the core strength of the Pilates 100 and then if you need some other suggestions please write back and I'll send some more your way. Here is a direct link to the pilates 100 and how to perform: https://gethealthyu.com/exercise/pilates-100/
Chris Freytag, CPT on
May 11, 2022 at 12:32 PM Reply
Yes, I would always recommend warming the body up before hopping into a workout :) Check out some of my warm-up options for you:
https://gethealthyu.com/biggest-warm-up-mistakes/
Losing weight is challenging for many overweight individuals today. The way to achieve the most out of weight loss is to not just focus on numbers but to transition into a healthier lifestyle all together. Start using this advice to lose weight.
Truly incredible article! Much thanks to you for seeing as this! Will take a stab at something. It is asserted that the enhancement will consume fat inside a couple of long stretches of utilization
Which of these exercises would you recommend for a 62 he. old that has had Ovarian Cancer surgery and Double Bypass?
Chris Freytag, CPT on
April 18, 2022 at 12:11 PM Reply
Hi there - well first off hats to you for looking to move your body and become stronger. Secondly, I would consult your doctor first before diving into your strength journey to make sure it is safe for you to do so. Typically when coming back from cancer surgery, it is recommended to start exercise with brisk walking, swimming, dancing, or jogging to increase the heart rate. As far as strength exercises go, push-ups, sit-ups, squats and lunges, and using light weights is a great place to start increasing muscle strength and muscle mass.
Again, of course consult your doctor before doing any physical activity so you know you are cleared to go! Hang in there and good luck!
Brenda Luther Kennedy on
February 1, 2022 at 9:51 AM Reply
Hi there! This is just what I was looking for, just wondering about a weekly routine with these exercises? Like MWF you do this set, T,TH,Sat. do this set kind of thing.......
Chris Freytag, CPT on
February 2, 2022 at 4:58 PM Reply
We have tons of great monthly calendars as part of our Get Healthy U TV subscription site. You can check it out here: https://www.gethealthyutv.com/
can you recommend an alternate exercise to the forward lunges, i have had both of my knees replaced and they do not work very well in forward lunges, i can squat no problem but the lunges just are too difficult to manage, thanks for your suggestions and i love your website and your programs, thanks so much for sharing.
Chris Freytag, CPT on
January 26, 2022 at 11:30 PM Reply
Hi Abigail -
If lunges do not feel good on your body, no worries. I would stick to squats OR you can also add glute bridges to replace lunges. They use the same muscle group with LESS impact on the knees. Let me know if you have any questions, hope this helps and keeps your knees happy!
Is there a particular workout video in the ghutv gold member collection that incorporates every one of these moves you highlight here? If not, may I suggest it, and more videos just like it, please?
Chris Freytag, CPT on
November 15, 2021 at 11:20 PM Reply
Hi Stephanie -
Oh goodness, yes there would be tons of videos on the Get Healthy U TV Website that incorporate these movements + so many others as well. I would suggest looking under BOTH GOLD and PREMIUM tabs and sorting by Type > STRENGTH. The STRENGTH Category OR LOW IMPACT is going to be the best options to look for movements that incorporate these moves + more!
(This will help us personalize your experience so that you can get the best advice possible from us!)
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68 Comments
Mel on August 6, 2022 at 1:16 AM
Nice read. Strength training is key to keeping the body balanced and the metabolism at a nice healthy level. Just remember to hydrate well before and after
Chris Freytag, CPT on August 10, 2022 at 3:28 PM
Yes absolutely - great reminder, to hydrate well before and after your workouts!
WELL QUEST MEDICAL on July 6, 2022 at 3:52 AM
Thank you for this exercise plan. Right now I don't have enough stomach strength to properly perform a full body flip as shown. Can you offer an alternative exercise? Thank you!
Chris Freytag, CPT on July 29, 2022 at 8:59 AM
If a full body roll up is too much – work up to it with a little assistance. You can use a resistance band to help you – Place it under your feet and hold on to the ends with your hands. It will give you a little extra help. If that is still too much – start with this Pilates Exercise – it’s a good one. https://gethealthyu.com/exercise/bird-dog-crunch/
Viki on May 26, 2022 at 1:43 PM
Thank you for this exercise plan. I currently do not have enough abdominal strength to correctly perform the full body roll up as shown. Can you provide a alternative exercise. Thank you!
Chris Freytag, CPT on May 31, 2022 at 9:15 AM
Hi Viki - Because this is a pilates based move, I would consider starting with the Pilates 100. This is a pilates based move as well, but does not require you to roll all the way up. Work on the core strength of the Pilates 100 and then if you need some other suggestions please write back and I'll send some more your way. Here is a direct link to the pilates 100 and how to perform: https://gethealthyu.com/exercise/pilates-100/
Violet on April 28, 2022 at 9:46 AM
do you need to warm up before hand?
Chris Freytag, CPT on May 11, 2022 at 12:32 PM
Yes, I would always recommend warming the body up before hopping into a workout :) Check out some of my warm-up options for you: https://gethealthyu.com/biggest-warm-up-mistakes/
Herma S. Martin on April 18, 2022 at 7:52 AM
Losing weight is challenging for many overweight individuals today. The way to achieve the most out of weight loss is to not just focus on numbers but to transition into a healthier lifestyle all together. Start using this advice to lose weight.
Eugenie on April 8, 2022 at 4:51 AM
Truly incredible article! Much thanks to you for seeing as this! Will take a stab at something. It is asserted that the enhancement will consume fat inside a couple of long stretches of utilization
Pheephee on March 1, 2022 at 5:20 PM
Which of these exercises would you recommend for a 62 he. old that has had Ovarian Cancer surgery and Double Bypass?
Chris Freytag, CPT on April 18, 2022 at 12:11 PM
Hi there - well first off hats to you for looking to move your body and become stronger. Secondly, I would consult your doctor first before diving into your strength journey to make sure it is safe for you to do so. Typically when coming back from cancer surgery, it is recommended to start exercise with brisk walking, swimming, dancing, or jogging to increase the heart rate. As far as strength exercises go, push-ups, sit-ups, squats and lunges, and using light weights is a great place to start increasing muscle strength and muscle mass. Again, of course consult your doctor before doing any physical activity so you know you are cleared to go! Hang in there and good luck!
Brenda Luther Kennedy on February 1, 2022 at 9:51 AM
Hi there! This is just what I was looking for, just wondering about a weekly routine with these exercises? Like MWF you do this set, T,TH,Sat. do this set kind of thing.......
Chris Freytag, CPT on February 2, 2022 at 4:58 PM
We have tons of great monthly calendars as part of our Get Healthy U TV subscription site. You can check it out here: https://www.gethealthyutv.com/
Abigail on January 21, 2022 at 6:43 PM
can you recommend an alternate exercise to the forward lunges, i have had both of my knees replaced and they do not work very well in forward lunges, i can squat no problem but the lunges just are too difficult to manage, thanks for your suggestions and i love your website and your programs, thanks so much for sharing.
Chris Freytag, CPT on January 26, 2022 at 11:30 PM
Hi Abigail - If lunges do not feel good on your body, no worries. I would stick to squats OR you can also add glute bridges to replace lunges. They use the same muscle group with LESS impact on the knees. Let me know if you have any questions, hope this helps and keeps your knees happy!
Stephanie on November 11, 2021 at 1:01 PM
Is there a particular workout video in the ghutv gold member collection that incorporates every one of these moves you highlight here? If not, may I suggest it, and more videos just like it, please?
Chris Freytag, CPT on November 15, 2021 at 11:20 PM
Hi Stephanie - Oh goodness, yes there would be tons of videos on the Get Healthy U TV Website that incorporate these movements + so many others as well. I would suggest looking under BOTH GOLD and PREMIUM tabs and sorting by Type > STRENGTH. The STRENGTH Category OR LOW IMPACT is going to be the best options to look for movements that incorporate these moves + more!