Il pourrait s’agir de la périménopause, la période précédant la cessation de vos règles, explique l’infirmière praticienne Daniela Ezratty, MSN, ACNP-BC, d’Ezratty Integrative Aesthetics à Atlanta, où elle traite de nombreuses femmes en âge de périménopause. Habituellement, cela commence vers l’âge de 40 ans, mais cela peut arriver dès 35 ans pour certains. « La périménopause, c’est quand il y a une baisse des œstrogènes et de la progestérone, mais que vous avez toujours vos règles », dit-elle. Une fois que vous n’avez plus de règles pendant une année complète, vous êtes officiellement entrée en ménopause.
- Daniela Ezratty, MSN, ACNP-BC, infirmière praticienne et fondatrice d’Ezratty Integrative Aesthetics
- Janet Huehls, MS, physiologiste clinique de l’exercice et fondatrice d’Exercising Well
Les changements dans votre corps qui accompagnent la périménopause peuvent être frustrants et vous pourriez être tenté de contrecarrer les symptômes en faisant de l’exercice. Mais ce qui se passe au niveau biologique ne peut pas être contrôlé en suivant par défaut les mêmes entraînements que vous auriez pu faire dans la vingtaine ou au début de la trentaine.
« Pendant la périménopause et la ménopause, nous perdons de la masse musculaire deux fois plus vite qu’à tout autre moment de notre vie », explique Janet Huehls, physiologiste clinique de l’exercice à Paxton, Massachusetts. « Cela ne se voit pas sur l’échelle, ni dans la façon dont nous avançons tout de suite. Cela se passe dans les coulisses. Mais vous ne vous sentirez peut-être plus aussi fort qu’avant ou peut-être que votre corps semble simplement un peu plus instable. Naturellement, cela peut entraîner beaucoup d’inquiétude et de stress, explique Huehls.
Heureusement, là sont façons d’utiliser l’entraînement à votre avantage, si vous adoptez la bonne approche.
Réinitialisez vos attentes
La fin des années 30 et le début des années 40 sont une période où il se passe souvent beaucoup de choses dans votre vie personnelle, souligne Huehls. Vous pourriez vous occuper de jeunes enfants, aider des parents vieillissants ou atteindre le sommet de votre carrière. Il peut être extrêmement stressant d’équilibrer tout cela à mesure que votre corps change.
Il peut sembler intuitif d’essayer de faire de l’exercice pendant cette phase de transition pour améliorer la clarté mentale et la santé. Mais avant de lancer une nouvelle routine de remise en forme, vous souhaiterez revoir vos attentes.
One trap Huehls often sees is that it’s easy to get caught up in the pervasive athletic mindset, which she acknowledges is very appealing. “We think that If I push harder, I’ll go faster, I’ll get better results because that works in other areas of life,” she says. But it doesn’t apply here. “You’ve got all these demands on your time, and the mindset of ‘more is better’ is stressful. The stress state is a real problem,” Huehls says.
Stress can raise cortisol levels, which can impact estrogen and progesterone. “The symptoms of hormonal changes during perimenopause are stress-producing. It can be a vicious cycle,” she says. Instead of working out harder, which can keep increasing those stress levels, Huehls suggests listening to your body: “Give your body what it needs now to function and feel better.”
Huehls says perimenopause is an important inflection point, offering an opportunity to step back and ask how you can work out smarter. “Perimenopause is the right time to say, ‘Hold on, I need a reset. What do I need right now? What do I need going forward? And how can I make this not stressful?” she says.
While everyone needs to be mindful of their stress state—Huehls points out that chronic stress is linked to all our major health concerns—this is especially true in perimenopause when hormones are out of whack and our bodies can’t recover the way they used to. “In the physiologic state of stress, energy goes into fighting, fleeing, or freezing, which means less energy into healing, growth, and learning needed to thrive,” she says.
Rely on functional strength training
The best exercise to do in perimenopause is functional strength training with heavy weights—moves that will help you perform everyday activities better. “As we age, we need good functional strength exercises that are challenging muscles to build up those muscle fibers,” says Huehls.
If we stick to low-intensity cardio and light weights because we’re scared of “bulking up,” then we’re only using a small portion of muscle fibers. “The ones you’re not using go into hibernation, and there’s the muscle loss,” she says. But she is quick to point out that phrase is somewhat of a misnomer. “There’s muscle fiber still there, and I think that’s a really important point of hope,” she says. “Those muscles can be reactivated.”
Huehls says to focus on functional exercises that go through the basic movement patterns of everyday life: pushing forward, pulling back, lifting overhead, pulling down. Do some exercises with both legs on the ground, and some with one leg on the ground. And build towards a challenging second and third set to make sure you’re gaining strength.
« Give your body what it needs now to function and feel better. » —Janet Huehls, MS
If you can combine strength training, stamina training, and mobility work into one exercise or workout, then you’re golden, says Huehls. “The key is balance and not straining your body.”
Change your mindset on cardio
Huehls says that cardiovascular exercise should have a goal of improving and maintaining stamina, and shouldn’t be based solely on heart rate. “Lasting energy is something we need in this phase of our life,” she says. “The proper cardio can make the heart muscle stronger, but it can also make the whole system more efficient at creating lasting energy.”
What that cardio looks like for you depends on your body and preferences, but it’s likely that super high-intensity workouts are contributing to stress rather than counteracting it. Ezratty says that workouts like HIIT exercises or boot camp classes can stress out the body during perimenopause: “Your cortisol levels are rising, you’re increasing inflammation, and you’re increasing hunger drive,” all of which will be counteractive if your goal is to get stronger or maintain your weight. While this is true even for younger women, Ezratty points out that those in their 20s and 30s have more tolerance because they have more optimal hormone levels. “It’s the decrease in our hormones that makes the cortisol so nasty for us in perimenopause into menopause,” she says.
Instead, cardio that doesn’t stress you out and includes a mindfulness element and joy can be more effective. “Perimenopause is entering a stage of chaos, and mindfulness is a perfect pair with exercise, rather than trying to distract yourself with exercise,” says Huehls. She suggests combining something you enjoy, like talking to a friend or listening to a podcast, with your stamina training.
As for what not to do, Huehls is very clear: Avoid anything that feels stressful. “Whether it’s stressful because you don’t have time to do it, you’re worried about injury or it just doesn’t feel good—don’t do it. Anything you do for your health that puts you in a stress state is not helping you in the end and can contribute to perimenopausal symptoms,” she says. “When we stop thinking about it as a workout that has to be hard and stressful, we can use exercise as the way to tell our cells we want to be well.”