Menopause is a thing women hit around 45 to 55 years old. Here, we have the top 10 exercises to avoid during menopause. It’s when your periods stop, and you can’t make babies anymore. It’s not a sickness, but it brings some annoying stuff like hot flashes, mood swings, and other issues.

Exercise is super good to handle these menopause things and keep you healthy. Burns calories, boosts metabolism, makes you happier, and lowers the risk of heart disease, diabetes, and other bad stuff. But not all exercises are cool. Some can mess you up, so be smart about it.

We got the lowdown on 10 exercises to avoid during menopause and why they’re a bad idea. Plus, we’ll give you some advice on picking the right exercises.

What Is Menopause?

Menopause marks the end of a woman’s monthly periods. It typically occurs between 45 and 55 due to decreasing estrogen and progesterone hormones in the ovaries. This change brings about symptoms like hot flashes, mood swings, and sleep issues. It impacts bone density, heart health, and weight. While not an illness, it’s a natural part of ageing. Some women might require treatment or lifestyle adjustments for symptom management and complication prevention.

Importance of Exercise During Menopause?

Exercise is crucial for a healthy lifestyle in women, especially during menopause, a natural phase when estrogen and progesterone production by ovaries stops. Menopause brings physical and psychological symptoms like hot flashes, night sweats, mood swings, and weight gain. Exercise helps manage symptoms and prevents long-term risks like osteoporosis, heart disease, and diabetes. Some exercise benefits during menopause:

Physiological Gains:

• Exercise regulates body temperature, reduces hot flashes, and lessens night sweats.
• It improves vaginal health, sexual function, and eases pain.
• Prevents bone loss and fractures and boosts bone and muscle strength.
• Lowers blood pressure, and cholesterol, and improves blood sugar control.
• Maintains or aids weight loss, especially around the abdomen.

Psychological Perks:

• Elevates mood by releasing endorphins and reducing stress, anxiety, and depression.
• Enhances self-esteem, body image, confidence, and social interaction.
• Boosts cognitive function, memory, and guards against dementia and Alzheimer’s.

For exercise benefits, aim for 150 minutes of moderate or 75 minutes of vigorous activity per week, plus strength training twice a week. Include flexibility and balance exercises. Consult your doctor before starting, and choose enjoyable, safe, and effective activities.

What Type Of Exercise Is Best For Menopause?

No one-size-fits-all answer on the best menopause exercise. Women have different needs, goals, preferences. Here’s some general tips:

• Do exercise often, like 150 min moderate or 75 min intense aerobic activity weekly, says CDC¹.
• Hit strength training twice a week to keep muscles and bones solid during menopause.
• Pick low-impact stuff—walk, bike, swim, dance—easy on joints, muscles, pelvic floor.
• Skip exercises making menopause symptoms worse—hot flashes, dryness, leaks like hardcore workouts, heavy lifts, crunches, hot yoga, spin, boot camps, Pilates, CrossFit.
• Yoga and meditation for flexibility, posture, breathing, and relaxation. Chill stress and anxiety.
• Tune in to your body. Adjust workouts for symptoms, health, fitness, and goals.
• Talk to doc, trainer, and physio for more help.

The 10 Exercises To Avoid During Menopause

1 High-impact exercises

Jump, bounce, pound on the ground for impactful exercise. It boosts cardio fitness, burns calories, and builds bone density, and it is one of the top exercises to avoid during menopause. But, stress on joints, muscles, pelvic floor. Menopause hormones weaken them more. Some examples of high-impact exercises are:

2 Running

Jogging is a really famous exercise to avoid during menopause and works great for exercising. But watch out, it can harm you too. Causes pain, swelling, and injuries in knees, hips, ankles, and feet. Bad form, lousy shoes, or past joint troubles make it worse. Running is a trigger for urinary issues, a big problem in menopausal women. Estrogen loss and weak pelvic muscles join the party.

3 Jumping

Jumping is a workout, but it’s tricky. It boosts your heart, makes your legs strong, and sharpens agility. But watch out for spine stress. In menopause, bones may fracture. Pelvic floor muscles may suffer, leading to leaks or prolapse.

4 Plyometrics

Explosive exercises like plyometrics—jumping, hopping, or skipping—aim to boost power, speed, and performance. These exercises to avoid during menopause demand strength, stability, and coordination. Yet, they’re tough on joints, muscles, and tendons, upping the injury and inflammation risk. Menopausal symptoms like hot flashes, fatigue, and irritability might worsen too.

5 Heavy lifting

Lifting heavy things can be good or bad, depending on how you do it. Helps build muscles, boosts metabolism, and stops bone loss in menopause. But, lifting too heavy, too much, or wrong hurts your joints, ligaments, and muscles. Causes pain, swelling, and injuries.

Some examples of heavy-lifting exercises are:

Deadlifts

Deadlifts boost body strength, targeting back, legs, and core. Tricky and risky, deadlifts demand lifting a hefty load from floor to waist, risking lower back, spine, and discs. Incorrect form, excess weight, or pre-existing issues invite injury or herniation.

Squats

Squats work the lower body – glutes, quads, hamstrings. Menopausal women, be cautious. Potential knee issues – pain, inflammation, injury. Watch form, weight. History of knee problems? Squats are risky. Pelvic floor dysfunction worsened. Downward pressure and leakage are possible.

Bench press

Bench press: good for chest, shoulders, triceps. But bad for menopausal women. Shoulder pain, impingement, injury possible with bad form, heavyweight, or shoulder issues. Risk of breast cancer too. Compresses breast tissue and lymph nodes; disrupts fluid drainage and circulation. Be cautious.

Abdominal crunches

Abdominal crunches, widely used for toning the tummy, may not be the best exercises to avoid during menopause. They can bring more harm than good, causing neck pain, strain, and injury, especially with poor form, head pulling, or a neck issue history. These crunches may worsen pelvic floor dysfunction due to increased intra-abdominal pressure and leakage.

Hot Yoga

Hot yoga happens in a really hot and humid room, like 40 degrees Celsius and 40 percent humidity. It’s supposed to make you more flexible, detox your body, and boost your mental focus. But, it might not be great for menopausal women, making their symptoms worse – like hot flashes, dehydration, fatigue, and dizziness. There’s also a higher chance of heat stroke, fainting, and infection because the high heat and moisture can attract bacteria and fungi.

Spinning

Indoor cycling, known as spinning, means pedaling on a stationary bike with different speeds and resistances. It aims to boost cardiovascular fitness, burn calories, and tone legs. Still, for menopausal women, it might bring issues like vaginal dryness, irritation, and infection. This happens more with low estrogen levels, tight/synthetic clothes, or poor hygiene. Also, spinning can lead to lower back, hip, and knee pain, especially if your posture is bad, resistance is too much, or you have joint problems in your history.

Boot camps

Boot camps are group workouts with intense activities like running, jumping, lifting, pushing, and pulling. Aim: test endurance, strength, and power in a motivating setup. Problem: Not good for menopausal women. Why? Too tough, competitive, stressful. Result: Overexertion, injury, inflammation, exhaustion. Worsens menopausal symptoms: hot flashes, mood swings, insomnia.

Pilates

Pilates rocks for core strength, posture, flexibility, and balance. Do it on a mat or weird gear like the reformer, Cadillac, or chair. Good for menopausal ladies – tones muscles, stops back pain, and chills you out. Watch out though – bad form, too much resistance, or past pelvic problems can mess you up with pelvic floor issues, abdominal separation, and hernias.

CrossFit

CrossFit mixes weightlifting, gymnastics, and metabolic conditioning to boost fitness, performance, and health. The community is supportive and diverse. But, it might harm menopausal women due to its intensity, complexity, and risks. Injuries, inflammation, and infections can occur, elevating the risk of rhabdomyolysis, a severe condition where muscle fibers break down, releasing toxins into the bloodstream.

Is It Better To Go Through Menopause Naturally?

Menopause – go natural or not? No clear answer; depends on the gal. Factors:

• Natural menopause = ride the hormone decline wave. Symptoms galore: hot flashes, night sweats, mood swings, weight gain, insomnia, libido drop, dry lady parts. Also, disease risk spikes include osteoporosis, heart disease, and diabetes.
• Hormone Therapy (HT) option. Replace lost hormones, symptom relief. Downsides: breast cancer, blood clots, stroke, gallbladder issues. Not for all. Needs doc supervision.
• Natural remedies: soups, herbs, acupuncture, yoga, meditation, lifestyle tweak. Perks exist, but also risks, unknowns, and no science backup. Hormone changes and long-term health are not always addressed.
• Optimal natural menopause? Healthy lifestyle. Eat right: calcium, vitamin D, phytoestrogens, antioxidants, and omega-3s. Dodge symptom-trigger foods: caffeine, booze, sugar, processed junk. Sweat it out with low-impact workouts. Stress less, snooze more, quit smoking. Feel, look, live better.

What Are The Healthy Habits Of Menopause?

Menopause is a thing that happens when women’s ovaries stop making hormones that control periods and baby-making. It usually goes down between 45 and 55, but it’s different for everyone.

Menopause brings changes like hot flashes, mood swings, and less interest in bedroom activities. It can also up the odds of issues like weak bones, heart troubles, and some cancers.

To handle these shifts and stay chill during and after menopause, you gotta do some good things:

• Eat right with lots of fruits, veggies, and good stuff. Skip the junk that messes with you, like caffeine, booze, sugar, and fake foods.
• Get moving, like 150 minutes a week of decent exercise. Walk, bike, swim – do easy stuff that doesn’t hurt your body.
• Sleep good, 7 to 9 hours every night. Keep your sleep space comfy and cool.
• Deal with stress and feelings. Take time for yourself, be happy, talk to pals, and stay chill with meditation or stuff like that.
• Look after your bedroom activities. Speak up with your partner, use lubes, try new things, and ask the doc for help.
• Go to the doctor regularly. Check for issues and follow their advice on staying healthy. Discuss hormone stuff or other options with your doctor. Maybe try safe supplements, but ask your doctor first.

Tips for exercising during the menopause

Exercise helps a lot during menopause. Good for body and mind. Less hot flashes, better mood, no bone loss, lower blood pressure, and stay fit. Here are tips:

Move Every Day:

No time for a formal workout? Do stuff like walking, gardening, dancing, and playing with kids or pets.

Cardio Three Times A Week:

Things like swimming, cycling, skipping, or jogging. Good for the heart, sugar, and metabolism.

HIIT Is Cool:

High-intensity interval training. Quick bursts, lots of calories burned. Not for everyone, though. Check with your doctor first.

Strength Training Rocks:

Use weights or just your body. Twice a week, hit all muscles. Squats, lunges, push-ups, rows, planks. Easy muscles.

Balance Stuff Is Fun:

Stand on one leg, walk heel-to-toe, and do yoga and pilates. Less falls, better moves.

Care For Your Joints:

Age makes joints stiff. Warm up, go easy. Swim or cycle, not run or jump. Supportive shoes, no overdoing. Keep joints happy.

Listen To Your Body:

Exercise should feel good. Stop if it hurts. Adjust as per mood and energy. Some days are easy, some days rest.

Have fun:

Do what you like. Fits your life, goals, and vibes. Stick to it if it’s fun. Try new stuff, and bring friends. Enjoy it!

Conclusion

During menopause, exercise is crucial for a healthy life. But not all exercises work well; some can be harmful. Here are 10 exercises to avoid during menopause, with reasons explained. Tips on choosing better exercises are included.

Listen to your body, be aware of symptoms, and adjust workouts. Modify, reduce, or replace exercises that are not working for you. Consult with a doctor or trainer for guidance.

Good exercises for menopause include low-impact aerobics like walking, cycling, swimming, or dancing. Also, try light to moderate weight lifting, yoga, tai chi, and stretching. These activities manage weight, boost mood, lower disease risk, and enhance overall well-being.

Note: exercise is a gift for an easier, happier, and healthier menopause. It’s not a punishment, chore, or burden but a choice. So, why wait? Start moving today for the benefits!

FAQs

Can I still work out during menopause?

Yup, go for it! But watch the exercise type, intensity, and duration.

What are the benefits of exercise for menopausal women?

Trim weight, boost mood, cut chronic disease risk, toughen bones and muscles, and amp up life quality.

How much and how often do you work out in menopause?

Aim for 150 minutes of moderate aerobics and two strength sessions weekly. Adjust based on your health, fitness, and goals.

What are some examples of exercises that are good for menopausal women?

Try low-impact aerobics (walk, cycle, swim, dance), lift light to mid weights, do yoga, tai chi, and stretch.

How can I prevent or reduce the symptoms of menopause?

Exercise, eat healthy, dodge smoke and booze, handle stress, snooze well, and chat with your doctor about hormone therapy if needed.