Conquering the Effects of Menopause in Your Running

A lot of female runners over 40 have complained to me that they feel slow, heavy, and tired as they have gotten older, especially once they reached menopause. While I can’t relate personally, I have coached enough runners over the years to know something about this. It should be slightly comforting for these ladies to learn that they are not imagining this, it’s a real phenomenon and its quite common. The better news is that there is a solution. To understand, let’s look at what’s happening:

The Effects of Menopause on Running

When women reach menopause, their bodies start producing less estrogen and progesterone. The decreased hormones cause their blood vessels to dilate and contract slower. This has a big effect on a runner.

Harder to Accelerate

In order accelerate and maintain a faster rate, your body needs to pump more blood to meet the demands for oxygen. Slower-responding blood vessels make this a challenge. It’ll take you longer to achieve the balance.

Harder to Cool

When your body gets hot, it pumps more blood through your body in an attempt to cool itself. Once again, the slower-to-respond blood vessels aren’t helping. The process will take longer which leads to a higher heart rate and increased fatigue.

Lightheadedness After Stopping

Once you stop running, your muscles no longer need the high volume of oxygen-rich blood, so your heart slows down. But, since your blood vessels are slow to contract back, your blood pressure drops which can make you dizzy.

Increased Fat Storage

The hormone changes also make it harder to build and maintain muscle. This leads to a lower metabolism and an increase in body fat, particularly around the belly.

Strategies to Overcome the Effects of Menopause for Runners

Any of these symptoms alone would be a challenge for any runner, together they are a real bummer, to say the least. Fortunately, there are some fundamental strategies that will put a spring back in your step in no time.

Increase Your Warm-Up and Cool-Down

To accommodate your slow contracting and expanding blood vessels, the first strategy is to increase your warmup and cooldown. By this, I don’t mean stretching, I mean to have a slow, gradual increase of your body movements before running and the reverse after running to give your blood vessels time to expand and contract. This will make your entire workout more pleasant.

Add Strength Training

The first strategy is to add strength training to your routine 2-3 days per week. By strength training, I don’t mean machines at your local health club, I mean full body, functional training, and even high intensity interval training with weights. This will increase your muscle which will:

increase speed
increase endurance
decrease fat

Add Speed and Power Running

The second thing you should do is to incorporate speed and power training to your regimen. By this I mean short, fast intervals and sprints. Doing this will teach your body to recruit more muscles while running which will make you faster, more explosive, and able to accelerate easier. Training this way also reminds your body how it feels to move fast which leads to an overall positive sensation and confidence.

While we can’t do much about the blood vessels (without hormone therapy), these strategies will yield quick results and you’ll feel better than you have in a long time.

Virtual Coaching

If you would like help with these strategies to conquer the effects of menopause on your running, I can be your coach…virtually. While I am available for one-on-one, live (Zoom) consultations and coaching, I also have a service called virtual coaching. Through My virtual run coaching I can give you running and strength workouts designed specifically to meet these needs. Right now, you can try my virtual coaching FREE for 2 weeks. No commitments and no CC information needed. You’ll get all your running and strength workouts that will help you overcome the challenges you face due to menopause and regain the energy and youthful springiness you haven’t had in a while. You’ll also lose some of the fat that you’ve been struggling with.

Give it a try. You have nothing to lose except maybe some body fat. Click here to learn more.

About the Author

Mike Caton has over 35 years of experience in sports performance coaching and the fitness industry. He is a former IHRSA Fitness Director of the Year while working at the world-renowned Cooper Fitness Center in Dallas, TX. His other experiences range from owning a training studio to working as a general manager at 24 Hour Fitness and lots of experiences in between. His current passion is as the head coach at ACE Method Coaching where he helps runners of all ages and abilities achieve their physical goals.