One of the questions I often hear is: what type of exercise should I be doing?
Should I be doing cardio to improve my fitness and burn calories? Should I be lifting weights to build muscle? Or should I be doing yoga to improve my flexibility and mobility?
My answer is simple.
Ideally, a little of all three.
Cardio – for your heart and fitness
Cardiovascular exercise is anything that raises your heart rate and gets you breathing harder.
That might be brisk walking, cycling, swimming, dancing, running, rowing or using a cross-trainer.
Cardio helps improve cardiovascular fitness and stamina, and it can make everyday activities — climbing stairs, walking uphill, carrying shopping or playing with your grandchildren — feel easier.
And cardio doesn’t have to mean spending an hour pounding away on a treadmill.
Shorter sessions count too. Find something you actually enjoy, because the best exercise programme is one you can sustain.
Weight training – for strength and muscle
As we get older, strength training becomes increasingly important.
We naturally lose muscle mass and strength with age unless we actively work to maintain them. Resistance training helps preserve and build muscle, supports our bones and joints and makes us physically more capable in everyday life.
And women don’t need to be frightened of lifting weights.
Strength training doesn’t automatically make you bulky. It can help you feel stronger, more stable and more confident in your body.
You can use dumbbells, resistance bands, gym machines, kettlebells or simply your own body weight.
Start where you are and build gradually.
Yoga – for mobility, balance and connection
Yoga brings something different.
It can help maintain mobility and flexibility, develop balance and body awareness and build strength through controlled movement.
But for me, yoga offers something else too.
It gives us an opportunity to slow down, breathe and reconnect with our bodies.
We spend so much of our lives rushing around and living in our heads. Yoga can provide a space where movement isn’t about calories, measurements or achieving a particular body shape.
It’s simply about moving, breathing and feeling good in your body.
Why choose when you can combine them?
I don’t believe we need to put ourselves into one fitness box.
A balanced week might include:
2–3 strength-training sessions
2–3 cardiovascular sessions — including walking or cycling
1–3 yoga or mobility sessions
And they don’t all need to be hour-long workouts.
You might cycle somewhere instead of driving, do 30 minutes of strength training and finish with ten minutes of yoga and breathing.
Suddenly you’ve incorporated all three.
Fitness should support your life
Particularly as we move through our 40s, 50s, 60s and beyond, I think the goal of exercise changes.
It’s not simply about what we weigh or how we look.
It’s about being able to carry our shopping, get up from the floor, climb stairs without becoming exhausted, maintain our balance, travel, walk, garden, dance, play with grandchildren and continue doing the things we love.
We want a strong body, a healthy heart and a body that can move.
Cardio helps us build fitness.
Weights help us build strength.
Yoga helps us keep moving well.
Put the three together and you have a wonderfully rounded approach to lifelong fitness.
You don’t have to train harder. You just need to train intelligently, consistently and in a way you enjoy.
This would also sit really nicely alongside your metabolism/muscle and calorie-counting blogs — together they’re beginning to establish a clear women 45+ fitness and wellbeing philosophy rather than just advertising PT sessions.
