Essentials of Female Building Muscle After 50

Building muscle mass after 50 is all down to the right training plan and a diet. Get it right and you’ll lead a leaner, healthier, happier life.

Whether you’re new to exercise, or you’ve been active all your lift, strength training is important for all females.

Lifting weights and building muscle will boost both your health and physical performance. It’s not about growing huge slabs of manly muscle mass either.

In fact, introducing hard strength training to your daily routine won’t suddenly turn you into a deep-voiced, broad-shouldered body builder – if anything it’ll help you develop a more womanly, confident, shapely and athletic figure.

Plus, you’ll improve your vascular, metabolic and functional health too.

Strength training for females over 50 is pretty much essential.

Here’s why…

Why Building Muscle After 50 Is Important for All Women

There’s been a huge shift in the way that females perceive strength training over the last few years.

Gone are the days where women focus solely on cardio as a way of keeping fit. Okay, it helped many of us get off the sofa and increase our fitness levels – but it led to frail, weak physiques with no muscle or strength.

The so-called ‘cardio bunny’ approach is dead in the water. And in it’s place has exploded the super-strong, ultra-feminine strength training approach.

When it comes to building muscle after 50, it’s all down to two things – diet and the right exercise program. Without a plan, you’re not channeling your energy and efforts as well as you could.

And that could leave you with less-than-perfect results in the long term.

Strong females lift for health, beauty and muscle build

But why exactly should a female over 50 build muscle?

Wanting to be strong, lean and athletic reaches far wider than just looking your best. The impact that strength training has on your life is phenomenally wide.

From mental health, to physical longevity. And from bone health to muscle health.

Here are the most important reasons you need to know about…

More muscle means a leaner figure and higher metabolic rate during dieting

Muscle is a metabolically active tissue. The more you muscle have, the more energy it needs to sustain its own mass.

When you’re muscle building through strength training, your metabolic rate increases; and this can have a positive effect on body fat levels – presuming you monitor your food intake.

A few more pounds of muscle won’t make a huge difference to metabolic rate on it’s own merit. But there’s a pretty positive correlation between women over 50 that take part in regular strength training and lower levels of body fat.

If you’re dieting to lose fat, you’re at risk of losing muscle mass too. That’s because when your body in low on energy intake, it can also choose to break muscle down for fuel as well, not just excess fat.

The best way to stop this from happening is to combine strength training with a high protein diet.

That way you spare lean muscle tissue and target fat more effectively.

And your metabolic rate will continue to tick over at a higher rate.

Muscle building reduces your risk of sarcopenia

Sarcopenia is an age related loss in lean muscle tissue and is significantly associated with elevated risk of obesity, bone health issues and metabolic diseases.

By the age of 60, you could have lost as much as 15% of your total muscle mass – that’s a huge amount. And it’ll have a drastic effect on everything from your strength to your stamina too.

It’s thought to be caused by a drop in muscle building hormones such as testosterone and growth hormone, but inactivity plays a large part too.

Side effects of sarcopenia include: 

• Loss of strength and endurance
• Weight loss
• Increased body fat
• Loss of balance and functional capability (walking, carrying, standing from a sitting position etc.)

From the age of 50 onward, it’s important that you train to build muscle. Risk factors for sarcopenia are higher if you’re inactive, have a bad diet and follow poor lifestyle choices.

By strength training to build muscle you can offset symptoms of sarcopenia and maintain functional health and quality of life.

Strong muscles means strong bones

Another side effect on being inactive after 50 is that your bones can become weak and brittle. This increases the risk of fractures and other skeletal issues such as osteoporosis and osteopenia.

In women, disorders such as osteoporosis are linked closely to the menopause. This is because estrogen is responsible for maintaining mineral content in bone tissue.

At 50, you’ll more than likely at menopausal age, and therefore at a higher risk of bone loss.

When you strength train to build muscle, you stimulate bone cell remodeling. This simply means that you ‘load’ your bones with a mechanical stressor that forces it to maintain its strength and integrity.

If you squat, your thigh bones remain strong. If you do press-ups it’s the same for your arms.

High-intensity muscle building training has been shown in numerous studies to help reduce the risk of bone loss in females over 50.

How to Build Female Muscle Over 50

Hopefully at this stage, the benefits of muscle building in females over 50 is pretty clear.

And that’s without even touching on the fact that strength training helps with self-confidence, libido, quality of orgasms and decreased risk of heart disease and diabetes.

But not all muscle building programs are made the same. And to really optimize results you need to cover all bases – from diet and lifestyle to exercise selection and the right weights.

Follow a muscle building diet

If you’re wanting to build muscle, it makes sense that you eat enough food to fuel your workouts. If your priority right now though is to lose extra body fat, you should spend time in a calorie deficit for the first few weeks until body fat decreases.

You can still build muscle in a deficit if you’re a beginner (your muscles respond better to strength workouts if you’re untrained), and you can definitely ‘tone up’ too, even without sufficient incoming energy.

So don’t think ti has to be one or the other.

The key thing here is that you take on enough protein to build new muscle cells. Presuming you’re fit and healthy and don;t have any kidney issues, shooting for around 0.7-1 gram of protein per pound of body weight each day is a good starting point.

And because protein also helps to keep you feeling fuller for longer, it can also help with fat loss when in a calorie deficit.

Strength training exercise for muscle building

For some reason, women over 50 are often wrapped up in cotton wool.

Workouts like ‘chariobics‘ for example presumes that just because a female hits 50 they all of a sudden become weak and fragile.

That couldn’t be further from the truth.

And there’s absolutely no way you’ll build muscle and strength playing around with such an easy workout program.

You job is to work hard in the gym.

You aren’t lifting huge weights during strength training and it’s certainly not unsafe. But to stimulate muscle cells you’ve got to get out of your comfort zone and push your limits.

Aiming to target your body with multi-muscle exercises that cover all of your major muscle groups is key. So is choosing weights that fatigue you within the last couple of reps.

Don’t worry about building big, bulky muscles either.

It just doesn’t happen in females, especially if you’re over 50 and your testosterone levels are running slightly low.

Sample workout for muscle building in over 50’s females:

1. Lat pulldown – 8-15 reps x 3
2. Leg press – 8-15 reps x 3
3. Chest press – 8-15 reps x 3
4. Leg curl – 8-15 reps x 3
5. Shoulder press – 8-15 reps x 3
6. Seated row – 8-15 reps x 3
7. Leg extension – 8-15 reps x 3

You should follow this plan for 2-3 sessions per week for 4-6 weeks before looking to take on a more advanced strength and muscle building workout.

Where next?

There are a huge number of more advanced muscle building workouts for females over 50 out there.

We’re big fans of the advanced female training programs over at greatest physiques. They’re obviously written by experts who understand female physiology and how to write effective, time-efficient programs to get you in shape fast.

They’re definitely worth checking out if you’re already training hard, want to build muscle and develop a lean and womanly figure.

Perhaps you want some of the physical benefits of improving your hormone balance? A testosterone booster may help you build lean muscle and a better body composition.. and we have just the list for you: