A Fitness Expert’s Guide To The Best 12-Week Fitness Plan for Prime Women

Your body goes through up to about seven major hormonal changes in your life, and each one requires a unique exercise prescription. After all, Exercise is Medicine.™ You wouldn’t want to take someone else’s pills. Therefore, this 12-week fitness plan for women is specifically designed based on peri- to post-menopause research.

Generic fitness plans are so 1980s. Your fitness plan should be specific to you, not your daughter, your mother, or your spouse, don’t you think? While athletic young men are most frequently featured in fitness studies, you shouldn’t expect a program that works for them to work for you. It’s good to be cautious of programs that invite men and women of any age because it’s clear that someone might not get the workout they need.

You are not a mouse, a small man, or a young woman. Try this 12-week fitness plan for women in their prime. Designed by a hormone balancing fitness expert, this entire program can be done from home with minimal equipment.

Plan Goals

What do you hope to gain from this 12-step fitness routine? Depending on your specific needs, you may want to:

• Maintain or build muscle
• Maintain or build bone
• Improve body composition
• Lose fat
• Increase strength
• Decrease belly fat

Plan Description

This 12-week fitness plan for women offers varying levels of participation. I have outlined various strength training, interval training, and mobility exercises. As an exercise psychology coach and hormone balancing fitness expert, I recommend working on changing one behavior at a time. If you choose to do more than one component of the program, place your emphasis on just one new piece at a time.

For example, start with strength training twice a week. If you’re already strength training three times a week or more, switch to twice instead. Make workouts count instead of counting workouts. After all, recovery is often the most underused component in fitness. It becomes increasingly important after 50. In You Still Got It, Girl! I demonstrated how a schedule with 72 hours between effective weight training is optimal for older adults.

Then try to add in one to three interval training sessions a week (or tweak your existing routine). Also, insert mobility and stretching after each workout right away. You can add additional mobility, so you’re doing it most days a week.

Your Fitness Experience Level

I wrote this program as if you are a beginner. If you’re already following a workout plan, you can simply alter your current plan to optimize bone, muscle, and body composition results. Additionally, you may find that these week-to-week changes are minimal yet reap more rewards.

Word of warning: your mind and body will resist change if you’re doing too much. I know even if you’re not getting the results you want and you’re exhausted, you’ve been conditioned for decades to believe that more is better. But the science says otherwise, especially for women in their prime. Trust the science and the proven programs I’ve used to help more than 150,000 women in menopause.

12-Week Fitness Plan for Women in Menopause

• Strength Training: 2 times a week with 72 hours between

• Interval Training: 1 to 3 times a week for no more than 45 minutes a week total

• Mobility Training: Most days of the week

• Low-to-Moderate Exercise: As many days a week as you can according to your energy

• Rest!

Rest is the most overlooked and undervalued component of exercise. Without it, you’ll be breaking your muscle down faster than you can build it up. If you’re feeling more tired, sore, and seeing few results, increase the number of rest days you have per week from 1-2 or 2-3.

Rest days can include movement. Light movement increases circulation. Those days are called active recovery. During your rest and recovery days, you can go for a low-intensity hike, enjoy Stand Up Paddle Boarding, get a massage, or take an Epsom salt bath. Be an active person with a good exercise plan, just don’t “exercise.”

Constant Fatigue/Low Energy?

If you find yourself feeling wiped out, first realize it’s not normal. Yes, it’s common among women in menopause, but it’s your hormones sending you a message. Something needs to change.

Initially, reduce exercise until you feel better. Restore before more. Once you feel recharged, return to activity with shorter duration and more frequent sessions. You might do 10 minutes of interval training in the morning one day, 20 minutes of weight training on another day, and take light walks or yoga for 20 minutes later in the day.

Note on Nutrition

Your successful body composition, bone, and strength changes depend greatly on your nutrition and sleep habits. Without adequate calories and protein, you won’t have the building blocks of muscle. Muscle loss is an avoidable and reversible fact of aging.

You’ll require high-quality protein, especially surrounding your strength and high-intensity interval training workouts when your body is ripe to synthesize protein. Prioritize proper rest between your exercise, and that includes sleep.

Must-Have Equipment

3 pairs of dumbbells (or substitute water bottles, backpacks with books, etc).

Choose weights you can lift no more than 10 times, 15-20 times, and 25-28 times.

Highly Recommended Equipment:

Therapy ball 55cm (5’2” or less) or 65 cm

Optional Equipment:

• Weighted Vest: 10-20 lbs
• Small circular band with light-to-moderate resistance
• Long, handled band with light-to-moderate resistance
• A mat or a carpeted surface is the only other thing you may want to invest in.

Lower Body Strength Training Exercises

• Squat – wide/plie, hip-width, narrow
• Lunges – side, rear, walking
• Wall sits
• Single leg deadlifts
• Hip bridge from lying (feet on ball)
• Hamstring curl from lying (feet on ball) 

Upper Body Strength Training Exercises

• Chest Press
• Bent-Over Row
• Bent Arm Pullover
• Chest Fly
• Triceps press
• Biceps curl
• Shoulder – lateral raise, front raise, reverse fly

Strength Training Days

• Choose 4-6 upper body exercises and 2-4 lower body exercises.
• Create a sequence alternating upper and lower body exercises.
• Perform each set with a weight that brings you to temporary muscular fatigue:
• 15-20 times with a lighter weight if you’re beginning
• 12-15 if you’re more experienced
• 10 or fewer repetitions with a heavier weight if you’re advanced

Interval Training Days

• Choose an activity you love. Any mode of exercise can be made an interval.
• Warm-up for 5-10 minutes
• Alternate 30 seconds of high-intensity interval training to the point of breathlessness with 1:00 of recovery. Repeat this 4-6 times.
• Cool down another 5-10 minutes.

To truly be supportive of fat-burning, intervals must be “all-out” level. The words “adequate intensity” appear repeatedly in research for women in menopause. If you desire belly fat loss and even reductions in hot flashes, you’ll need to bump yourself into breathlessness.

Fill in the rest of your days of the week with low to moderate movement. You can enjoy a variety of lengths up to about an hour. Overall, decide to be an active person. Gardening, golfing, or exploring for hours are wonderful ways to move more. If your fitness plan leaves you on the couch compensating, you’ve done too much.

This 12-week fitness plan for women outlines the big picture in the name of brevity. This starting point provides you with the skeleton you need to fit your own personal needs.

Sample 12-Week Fitness Plan for Women (beginners)

12-Week Fitness Plan Disclaimer:

Unless created specifically for you, this and any workout plan is intended as information only. It should not replace the advice of your medical expert. As with any exercise, consult your physician before beginning — especially if you have an existing condition or medications that could affect your response to exercise.

For more specific support and done-for-you program, visit Flipping Fifty.

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