How to Start Strength Training After 40 Without Getting Hurt
- Shaini Verdon
- 22 hours ago
- 5 min read
Everyone is telling women to train with progressive load after 40. And they're right. But they're leaving out step one.
Load the bar. Pick up the dumbbells. That's the message right now, everywhere you look in the perimenopause and women's health space. And I agree with it. Completely. Progressive, load-bearing strength work is not optional after 40 — it's essential for your muscles, your metabolism, your hormonal health. And for bone density specifically, load that increases progressively over time is one of the most powerful tools you have. The mechanical stress of increasing weight on bone is what stimulates bone remodelling. Lighter weights have their place — but for your skeleton, you need to be working towards more over time. Stacy Sims has been saying it for years. The research backs it up. I say it to every woman I work with.
But there's a step being skipped. A big one.
And I think it's why so many women add load too soon, get hurt, and then stop altogether.
The Road Map Nobody Is Giving You
I've been working with movement for over 25 years. Not studying it from the outside — living in it. I played football, I kickboxed, I was in the gym, I surfed. I spent years as an Iyengar yoga teacher, which is one of the most technically demanding movement practices there is. Then Pilates. Then NASM Women's Fitness Specialisation, FRC Mobility, Stacy Sims' Menopause 2.0 certification.
I didn't arrive at progressive, heavier loading without a foundation. I arrived at it because of one.
Every discipline I've studied has added something to how I understand the body. The Iyengar years gave me alignment. Pilates gave me control and breath and the ability to feel exactly what's working and what's compensating. FRC gave me a different understanding of joint capacity and end-range strength. And all of that — all of it — is what makes the strength work land properly.
Most women being told to load up and go heavier right now are being handed the destination without the road map.
And in perimenopause, that gap has real consequences.
What Changes in Your Body After 40
Here's the part that matters, and I'll keep it simple.
As oestrogen declines in perimenopause, your connective tissue becomes less forgiving. Tendons, ligaments, the cartilage in your joints — they lose some of their elasticity and resilience. This doesn't mean you're fragile. It means the margin for error gets smaller.
Load a movement you don't yet control, and the body will find a way to do it — but not necessarily the right way. It compensates. It recruits the wrong muscles. It shifts the load to a joint that wasn't meant to carry it. And you might not feel it immediately. But over weeks and months, those compensation patterns add up. And then something pulls, or aches, or gives way, and you're out for three weeks wondering what happened.
This is not bad luck. It's predictable. And it's preventable.
Control first. That's the prevention.
What Control Actually Means
I want to be specific here, because "control" can sound vague.
Control means your body can feel what it's doing. It means when you hinge at the hip, you know whether your spine is neutral or not. It means when you press overhead, you're aware of whether your shoulder blade is moving the way it should. It means your breath is part of the movement, not something that stops when things get hard.
It means the nervous system and the muscles are actually communicating — not just executing.
This is what Pilates training develops. Not flexibility. Not gentleness. Precision. Awareness. The capacity to own a movement before you load it.
A goblet squat before it gets heavy should be clean. The hip hinge before you deadlift should be honest — no rounding, no collapsing, no holding your breath. The overhead press should start from a stable shoulder, a braced core, a breath that supports the effort.
When those things are in place, the strength work changes completely. The load goes where it's supposed to go. The right muscles do the work. The joints are protected. And you can progress — week after week, month after month — without the setbacks that stop so many women before they ever feel the real results.
Why Strength x Pilates Exists
This is exactly the gap that Strength x Pilates was built to close.
Not Pilates as a warmup. Not strength training with a few Pilates moves thrown in at the end. A genuinely integrated method where both disciplines are doing their job — in the right order.
Pilates first: because it builds the foundation. The breath, the alignment, the joint awareness, the ability to feel what's actually happening in your body rather than just pushing through. The control.
Strength on top of that: because once the foundation is there, progressive load is where the real transformation happens. Heavier over time. More complex patterns. Building the bone density and muscle mass that your body needs more than ever after 40.
In that order. Always.
I've spent over two decades in movement, and I can tell you — the women who progress fastest are never the ones who loaded earliest. They're the ones who took the time to own the movement first. And then, when the weight went up, it went up cleanly. And it kept going up.
That's what sustainable strength looks like. Not a sprint to the heaviest weight you can manage. A practice that builds, intelligently, over time.
What This Looks Like in a SoulSculpt Session
Every session in the SoulSculpt Method starts from this principle, even when it's not explicitly named.
Before we add load to a pattern, we find the pattern. Before we increase the weight, we check the quality. A squat might start with breath and hip awareness before a dumbbell comes into the picture. A hinge might be practised slowly, with attention on the spine, before we think about what's in your hands.
And then, once it's there — once you can feel it and own it — we load it. And we evolve it. An elbow press layered in. A tempo change. A balance challenge. The movement gets more interesting as the control gets deeper.
This is why women don't get hurt in our sessions. And it's why they keep coming back. Because training that respects your body's intelligence doesn't just protect you — it builds a kind of confidence that generic strength programs can't give you. You start to trust what your body can do.
That trust is worth everything.
Control First. Then Load. Every Time.
If you take one thing from this post, let it be that.
Not because progressive, increasing load is wrong. It's right. It's necessary. I will never tell you to stay light and comfortable — that's not what your bones need, and it's not what your muscles need, and it's not what I'm here for. Working towards heavier over time is the goal. That's exactly where we're going.
But the load lands properly only when the control is already there. That's not a beginner concept. That's a principle I come back to at every level, with every woman I work with, including myself.
Control first. Then load. Every time.
Want to Feel What This Looks Like in Practice?
Every Thursday at 10:15 CET, live online. And if life gets in the way — every session is recorded. Unlimited replays, no expiry, train on your own time. Strength x Pilates, built specifically for women navigating perimenopause and beyond. Your first week is free — no credit card, no commitment.
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Shaini Verdon is the founder of SoulSculpt Method. E-RYT 500, Pilates instructor, NASM Women's Fitness Specialist, FRC Mobility Specialist, certified in Dr Stacy Sims' Menopause 2.0 protocol. Based in Cantabria, northern Spain.
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