Menopause Strong Plan - FAQs

What is the Menopause Strong Workout Plan?

Menopause Strong is a 6-week movement plan built around what your body needs to help mitigate the menopause symptoms that occur from peri through post-menopause and keep you feeling strong, empowered, and energized.  

What type of workouts are in the plan?

Each week, you’ll focus on heavy weight training to build and maintain muscle mass, cardiovascular workouts for heart, bone, and brain health, and recovery to reduce stress. This trifecta will help you combat the natural loss of muscle mass and bone density due to declines in estrogen, stepping into your strongest self yet. 

Why should menopausal women focus on building and maintaining muscle mass?

We naturally lose about 3-8% of muscle mass per decade starting in our late 30’s, making it imperative to build muscle mass to offset this loss. Muscle is metabolically active tissue, so building muscle mass through weight training improves our metabolic health. It also helps us maintain strength, regulates insulin sensitivity to better manage blood sugar, and supports our joint health. Muscle strengthens your bone mineral density, cognitive health, fuels mitochondria to help keep your energy and motivation high, and helps us maintain a healthy body composition.. 

How does this plan support my bone density?

In addition to heavy weight training, this plan incorporates plyometric and multi-directional jumping patterns that support bone density.  Impact training places good stress through the skeletal system to stimulate bone growth. This is important during the menopausal transition as declines in estrogen can compromise bone density and strength which can increase the risk for bone fractures and breaks.

How is this plan different from your other Pvolve programs? 

The workouts in this 6-week plan were organized with menopausal women in mind.  

In the Progressive Weight Training workouts, the focus is using heavy weights and lifting to muscle failure for hypertrophy (muscle growth) to mitigate the natural loss of muscle mass that comes with age. 

The cardiovascular workouts in this plan focus on sprint interval training (SIT), which incorporate quick 30-45 second all out cardio pushes, versus longer endurance-based training. This style of training can be especially beneficial for those in the menopausal transition as it places less overall stress on the body due to the shorter durations, which can also help reduce spikes in cortisol sometimes found in longer cardio sessions. SIT training helps with blood vessel control, supports insulin sensitivity, and strengthens bone density through impact.  

The breath work and recovery videos focus on calming your nervous system and decreasing stress. These techniques can help offset certain menopause symptoms such as irritability, sleeplessness, and hot flashes. By stimulating your parasympathetic nervous system, you can expect to improve sleep quality, better manage stress, reduce the severity of a hot flash, and reduce inflammation in the body overall.

What equipment do I need?

You will need heavy dumbbells (ranging from 5-20 LBs) and the equipment in our Longevity Bundle - the P.ball, P.band, Booty Bands, Body Bands, Heavy Ankle Band, Gliders, Heavy Ankle Weights, and the Slant Board.

Who created this program?

This 6-week plan was created by Pvolve’s Chief Training Officer, Antonietta Vicario, and Director of Programming, Maeve McEwen Myers, in collaboration with board certified OB/GYN, menopause expert, and Pvolve’s Head of Medical Affairs, Dr. Jessica Shepherd.