Pilates with Adele

🧘‍♀️A few days left to book on Mondays Beginners Pilates class at Howden Clough Community centre.
£7.50 per class
Book your mat today!

🤍 WHY SHOULD YOU GO TO PILATES?

You don’t go to Pilates to look perfect.
You don’t go to be the most flexible.
And you definitely don’t need to be able to do every exercise perfectly.

You go to Pilates to feel stronger in your body. 💪

✨ Build core strength
✨ Improve balance & stability
✨ Increase mobility & flexibility
✨ Strengthen your muscles and joints
✨ Improve posture
✨ Move with more control
✨ Support your body as you get older
✨ Help reduce everyday aches and stiffness
✨ Take time for yourself and switch off

Pilates isn’t about how you look while you’re doing it…
It’s about how you feel when you leave. 🤍

Move better. Feel stronger. Look after your body.

Pilates with Adele 🧘‍♀️

💪How to Build Muscle After 45 & Why You Should

Once we reach our 50s and beyond, strength training becomes one of the most important things we can do for our long-term health, strength and independence.

We’re not simply exercising to burn calories or change how our body looks. We’re training to maintain and build muscle, support our bones, stay strong and keep doing everything we want to do as we get older.

So, how do we actually build muscle after 50? And what does progressive overload really mean?

How do we build muscle?
Our muscles need a reason to adapt.

When we perform resistance exercises that sufficiently challenge our muscles, and combine this with adequate recovery and nutrition, our bodies adapt by becoming stronger and can build muscle over time.

The important word is challenge.

If you continually perform the same exercises with the same weights, repetitions and intensity, your body becomes accustomed to them.

This is where progressive overload comes in.

What is progressive overload?
Progressive overload simply means gradually increasing the challenge placed on your muscles over time.

It doesn't mean you have to lift heavier weights every single workout.

You can progress by:

Increasing the weight
Increasing your repetitions
Adding another set
Improving your range of movement
Slowing an exercise down
Improving your technique and control
Progressing to a more challenging exercise
Increasing the amount of work you can perform
For example, perhaps you start squatting using just your bodyweight.

You then add a dumbbell.🏋️

As you get stronger, you increase the weight or perform more repetitions.

Over time, you're continually giving your muscles a reason to adapt.

Different ways to strength train after 50
There isn't just one way to build strength.

Bodyweight training
Squats, lunges, press-ups, planks and other exercises using your own body as resistance.

Dumbbells and kettlebells
A brilliant way to progressively increase resistance as you become stronger.

Resistance bands
Accessible and versatile, particularly for home workouts.

Gym machines🏋️
Machines can provide a controlled way of increasing resistance and tracking your progress.

Reformer training🧘‍♀️
The springs provide resistance and can help develop strength, muscular endurance, control and stability.

Muscular endurance training💪
Using lighter resistance for more repetitions challenges your muscles to work for longer.

Heavier strength training
Using more resistance for fewer repetitions helps develop strength and provides a different training stimulus.

Ideally, we don't want to train in exactly the same way all the time.

Why does this matter so much after 50?
As we get older, maintaining muscle becomes increasingly important, and for women this coincides with the menopause transition and the years beyond it.

Muscle isn't just about looking toned.

Strength helps us to:

Maintain our independence
Support bone health
Maintain balance and physical function
Support our joints
Carry shopping and luggage
Get up and down from the floor
Climb stairs confidently
Continue travelling and enjoying hobbies
Keep doing the activities we love
Think about strength training as training for your future life.

What do you want to be able to do at 60, 70 and 80?

The work you do now can help you maintain that physical capacity.

If you complete every exercise and feel as though you could easily do another 20 repetitions, you may need to increase the challenge.

The last few repetitions should feel challenging while still allowing you to maintain good technique.

Start where you are and build gradually.

Protein and recovery matter too
Exercise provides the stimulus, but your body also needs the building blocks to maintain and build muscle.

Protein provides the amino acids needed for muscle protein synthesis, so think about including a source of protein regularly across your day.

Recovery is important too.

Sleep, rest and allowing your body time to recover between challenging sessions are all part of becoming stronger.

The key is progression
One of the biggest mistakes we can make is doing exactly the same workout, with exactly the same weights, 🏋️month after month and wondering why we're not getting stronger.

Ask yourself:

Am I stronger than I was three months ago?

Can you lift a little more?

Can you perform more repetitions?

Has your technique improved?

Can you perform an exercise that you couldn't previously do?

Can you complete everyday tasks more easily?

These are all fantastic signs of progress.

Your challenge this week
Look at your current exercise routine and identify one place where you could progress.

Maybe you could pick up slightly heavier dumbbells.

Add a couple of repetitions.

Try an additional set.

Or progress an exercise you've been doing for months.

You don't have to completely overhaul your routine.

Challenge your muscles. Fuel your body. Recover. Repeat.

Building muscle after 50 isn't about trying to turn back the clock.

It's about creating a strong, capable body that supports you for the decades ahead.