Why Women Need Strength Training (Especially After 40)
Your body is still capable of adapting. You simply have to give it something to adapt to.
If you already practice yoga, walk regularly, or consider yourself fairly active, you may think you’re doing everything you need to do to stay healthy as you age. But there’s one piece of the healthy aging puzzle that women often miss: strength training.
Strength training isn't just about lifting heavy weights, building big muscles, or changing how your body looks. It’s about maintaining the strength and physical capacity that allow you to keep doing the things you want to do, like getting up from the floor, carrying groceries, climbing stairs, traveling, gardening, hiking, practicing yoga and moving confidently through everyday life.
Muscle matters as we age
Our muscles are living, adaptable tissue. They respond to the demands we place on them, which means they need a reason and a way to stay strong.
A 2026 systematic review and meta-analysis looked at 126 studies involving more than 4,000 women and found that resistance training significantly improved muscular strength in both premenopausal and postmenopausal women. In other words, being older did not eliminate the body's ability to respond to strength training.
And the changes don't necessarily take years.
A 2026 randomized study of postmenopausal women found that just 15 weeks of resistance training increased muscle volume by approximately 4% while significantly increasing strength.
Your body is still capable of adapting.
Your bones need resistance, too
For women, bone health becomes an especially important consideration during and after menopause.
Bones respond to mechanical loading just like muscles do. That's another reason strength training has become an important component of exercise recommendations for women as they age.
But I already do yoga. Isn't that strength training?
Yoga can and does build strength.
Planks, Chair Pose, Warriors, balancing poses and transitions all require muscular effort. Yoga also gives us something traditional strength training may not emphasize as much: mobility, body awareness, coordination and movement through different ranges of motion.
But yoga and progressive strength training aren't exactly the same thing. Our bodies adapt to familiar loads. Eventually, bodyweight alone may not provide enough resistance to continue challenging certain muscles and adding external resistance gives us another tool. This doesn't mean replacing yoga. It means adding strength to your yoga.
And that's exactly the idea behind our Yoga Strength class.
"I'm too old to start lifting weights."
This may be one of the biggest misconceptions we hear. Strength training isn't something you had to start in your 20s or 30s in order to benefit from it later. Research continues to show that older adults can improve strength and physical function through resistance training. We all want to continue doing things as we age that require physical capacity. Now's the time to train to preserve it.
Yoga Strength at Explore Yoga
If you've been curious about our Yoga Strength class but have hesitated because you don't think of yourself as someone who "lifts weights," this class was created with you in mind. You don't have to be strong to begin strength training. You strength train so you can become, and remain, strong.
Yoga Strength combines familiar yoga movements with intentional strengthening exercises and added resistance. You don't need to know how to lift weights. You don't need to be strong before you show up. And you definitely don't need to walk into class already knowing what you're doing. We use weights and resistance strategically while continuing to emphasize the things we care about in every class at Explore Yoga: anatomy, alignment, mobility, stability, body awareness and intelligent movement.
Sign up for a class today. We hope to see you there!
We provide 5lb weights, but many people begin by brining their own 2lb or 3lb weights and eventually progress as they take more classes.
Want to learn even more about strength training and yoga? Join us for our upcoming continuing education course "YOGA STRENGTH: Incorporating Weights in a Yoga Practice" on November 21st.
Research & Further Reading
World Health Organization. WHO Guidelines on Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour.
CDC. Older Adult Activity: An Overview. Updated December 2025.
Ramírez-Vélez et al. Resistance training effects on healthy postmenopausal women: a systematic review with meta-analysis. 2024.
It's never too late: The impact of resistance training on strength and body composition in females across the lifespan—A systematic review and meta-analysis. 2026.
Optimal resistance training parameters for improving bone mineral density in postmenopausal women: a systematic review and meta-analysis. 2025.
Watson et al. High-Intensity Resistance and Impact Training Improves Bone Mineral Density and Physical Function in Postmenopausal Women With Osteopenia and Osteoporosis: The LIFTMOR Randomized Controlled Trial.
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