Strength Training After 40: Why Consistency Is Everything (And How Strength x Pilates Gets You There)
- Shaini Verdon
- 5 days ago
- 6 min read
I want to tell you something that took me years to actually believe.
It's not the hardest session that changes your body. It's the next one. And the one after that.
Consistency. That's it. That's the whole thing.
I know that sounds almost too simple. And I know you've probably heard it before. But there's a difference between knowing it intellectually and actually building a training practice around it — especially after 40, especially when your body is changing in ways nobody warned you about.
Most strength training programs are not built for consistency. They're built for results on paper. And there's a big difference.
Why Women Stop — And It's Not What You Think
When women come to me, a lot of them have already tried strength training. They didn't hate it. They just... stopped.
And when I ask why, it's almost always one of two things.
Boredom. Or injury.
Not laziness. Not lack of motivation. Boredom and injury.
The boredom makes sense when you look at most programs. Squat. Sumo squat. Push. Pull. Same weights, same sequence, same Tuesday. Your body adapts. Your brain switches off. And at some point you just don't go back — not because you failed, but because nothing was asking you to stay interested.
The injury piece is harder, because it often comes disguised as progress. You feel good, you add weight, and then something pulls. Or your knee starts talking to you. Or your shoulder. And then you're out for three weeks, and by the time you're back, you've lost the thread entirely.
I've been there. Both of those places. It took me a long time to understand that they're actually the same problem.
Training that loads before you're ready. Training that repeats before it evolves. Training that doesn't understand what your nervous system needs after 40.
What Consistency Actually Looks Like After 40
Here's what I want you to know about perimenopause and training — and I say this as someone who has studied Stacy Sims' work closely, and also as someone who has lived it in her own body.
Your energy is not linear anymore. Some weeks you feel strong and clear. Other weeks everything is heavier than it should be and you don't know why. This is not failure. This is fluctuating oestrogen and progesterone doing what they do. Your cortisol is more reactive. Your recovery takes longer. Your nervous system is more sensitive.
Chasing intensity through all of that doesn't make you stronger. It makes you more depleted.
So consistency after 40 doesn't mean grinding through three hard sessions a week regardless of how you feel. It means showing up regularly — with effort that's honest for that day.
This is what a real week can look like:
One 45-minute live Strength x Pilates session — full body, progressive load, everything working together
One 30-minute session — a shorter repeat, or a focused piece of work
One lighter day — mobility, breath, something that restores rather than depletes
Can't do three? Two is absolutely fine. Split a session across two days if that's what your week needs. Twenty minutes done consistently is worth more than an hour done twice a month.
I mean that. Not as encouragement. As fact.
What Strength x Pilates Actually Is
I want to be clear about this, because I think there's still a lot of confusion.
Strength x Pilates is not Pilates with some dumbbells added. It's not a gentle option for women who aren't ready for "real" training. And it's not a HIIT class with a stretch at the end.
It is two disciplines brought together deliberately — because each one gives the other something it's missing.
From Pilates: the breath, the precision, the spinal intelligence, the proprioceptive awareness. The capacity to actually feel what your body is doing rather than just pushing through movements.
From strength training: progressive load, compound patterns, the bone-density and muscle-preserving work that women over 40 genuinely cannot afford to skip. Not optional. Not "when you're ready." Now.
Together they create something I couldn't find in any other program. Training that challenges you seriously, and that you can sustain for years. Not just months — years.
And honestly? I've never felt as good in my body as I do now at forty six. That's not something I say lightly. I was a footballer, a kickboxer, a surfer. I've trained hard my whole life. This is different. This is better.
Control Before Load — And Why It Changes Everything
There is one principle I come back to constantly in my work, and it's this:
Control before load.
You should be lifting heavy. I will never tell you otherwise. Heavy, progressive, load-bearing work is what keeps your bones dense, your muscles strong, your metabolism functioning. The research is unambiguous on this. Stacy Sims is unambiguous on this. I am unambiguous on this.
But load without control is not strength training. It's just stress on a joint that isn't ready.
Before the goblet squat gets heavier, I want it to be clean. Before the hip hinge loads, I want it to be honest. Before anything goes overhead, I want the shoulder to be stable and the breath to be right.
This is where the Pilates foundation earns its place. Not as a modifier. Not as a warmup. As the thing that makes your strength training safe enough to be sustainable. The body awareness, the alignment precision, the breath patterns — these are the prerequisites. And once they're there, the strength work lands completely differently.
Control it. Load it. Evolve it. That's the sequence. And it's the reason women in SoulSculpt Method don't get hurt. Which means they don't stop. Which means — consistency.
Why the Movement Never Feels the Same
This is the part I love most about what we do. And it's also, I think, one of the reasons women stay.
A squat in a SoulSculpt session is not just a squat. It might have an elbow press layered in to bring the upper body into the pattern. Or a cactus arm to open through the chest — because most of us are spending our days rounded forward over screens and we need that counter. Or a curl press at the top to thread shoulder stability into the movement. Or a tempo change — slow on the way down, strong on the way up — to train the nervous system differently.
None of this is for variety's sake. Every choice has a reason. I'm always asking: what does this body need today, and how does this session build on the last one?
Because here's what I've come to understand, after fifteen years of working with women and many more years of working with my own body: after 40, your nervous system needs training just as much as your muscles do. Coordination, proprioception, conscious movement — these are not add-ons. They're central to how you stay strong, balanced, and injury-free as you age.
And when training asks your brain to show up alongside your body, it stays interesting. You leave a session thinking about what you just did. You come back because you're curious about what comes next.
That's consistency. Not discipline. Curiosity.
This Is What SoulSculpt Method Is For
I built SoulSculpt Method because I couldn't find what I needed anywhere else. Not for me, and not for the women I was working with.
Programs that were too generic. Too intense in the wrong ways. Too repetitive. Too disconnected from what actually happens in a woman's body during perimenopause and beyond.
Strength x Pilates — built specifically for women navigating this phase of life — brings together everything that makes training sustainable over the long term. Intelligent progression. Somatic awareness. Movement that evolves. A method that takes your hormonal reality seriously and your strength seriously at the same time.
Every Thursday at 10:15 CET, we train live. Online. Together. If you've never tried it, your first week is free.
Come and See What This Feels Like
No credit card. No commitment. One week, live with me, and you'll know whether this is for you.
Or keep reading:
[Strength meets Pilates]
[Do Women Over 40 Need Heavy Weights?]
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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