How to Stop Losing Muscle After 30 Naturally and Why it Happens

Hey, welcome back ladies to the body recomposition revolution. This is Robin. Today we are going to dive into the science behind why women lose muscle after age 30 and what you can do to stop it. Some of the common wonderments I hear from my clients, from women on Instagram, from Spotify podcast, Apple podcast, in my e-mail can all kind of be boiled down to two questions. Which are why does my body feel softer or flabby? Or insert term not mine, yours term after I'm 30 even though I'm working out?

Or why does fat loss feel harder even though I'm eating clean? Those two questions are always kind of rephrased and on repeat at all times. And I love them because I can answer them with science. Because it is absolutely not just you. It is not in your head. After age 30, women do start losing muscle. There are real physiological occurrences that are happening in your body and today you are going to learn what they are and how we can combat them. And before I begin, I would like to mention you might hear some pages because I at this moment have both copies of Doctor Stacey Sims book Roar and then her other book Next Level.

These books are actually one of the reasons I started my business. All of my philosophies kind of coincide with Doctor Stacey Sims research, which primarily revolves around a woman's Physiology and how it changes after age 35 in relation to nutrition and your size and blah blah, blah. But if you hear pages, that is because they have my little fitness Bible on my lap and it's the work from Doctor Stacey Sims. So pre mentioning that. And if you are a reader, you can buy her books on Amazon. Again, they are Roar and Next Level, and they're also available on Spotify to listen to if you're more of a listener.

Let's talk about muscle. Around age 30, women begin losing muscle at a very slow rate, about 3% per decade. And it does not seem like a big deal, but it really, really is. Because as a woman, one of your most precious and powerful assets is your muscle mass. Why is your muscle mass important? Well, that's going to dictate how independent you are in the future. But for aesthetic reasons, that's what gives your body shape. That's what gives you the toned look. Now, I hate the word tone, but I'm going to use it because I know you know what I mean.

So we're speaking the same language. Toned means muscle. When you want a toned look, that means that you have less body fat and you can kind of kind of see the muscles on your body. So aesthetically, the amount of muscle you have, it matters, and more importantly, the amount of muscle you have determines how strong you are, how capable you are, how independent you will be 10/20/30 years from now. As I stated, your muscle after age 30, it does gradually decrease and that matters. That really, really matters.

I'm using the term gradual, but 3% per decade, it really adds up quickly. It compounds and that's a huge problem. So by the time you're 404550, you're not just dealing with gaining fat, you're dealing with less muscle underneath your body. And remember, the muscle is what gives your body shape. So as you enter your 30s and you progress towards your 40s, your 50s, and you start noticing, wow, my body looks a little bit different, hmm. My body's responding a little bit differently. Hmm. Well, this is science.

It's because your muscle mass is gradually decreasing. Unless you do something to combat that, your muscle mass is getting lower, which means your body is going to take on a more not as toned look. Or you might have a skinny fat look if you're still keeping up with your cardio. And if you're not keeping up with any sort of lifting or physical activity, you're just going to be gaining weight, gaining fat, because muscle is also what keeps your metabolism higher. It is the determining factor in how you look.

Now, apart from the obvious benefits that muscle has physiologically in terms of how it affects your quality of life, right now I'm just discussing aesthetically. So when women say I feel softer, I look different, I feel skinny fat. My body does not do what it used to do. They are not crazy in the least. We are just missing one piece. And it's not just fat gain, it's muscle loss. To really drive this point home, I have to read an excerpt from Doctor Stacey Sims book. It talks about the researchers of the landmark Framingham Disability Study and how they reported that 40% of women between the ages of 55 and 6445% of women between the ages of 65 and 74, and 65% of women between the ages of 65 and 84 reported that they could not lift 10 lbs.

10 lbs. OK, that is like a case of toilet paper. That is nothing. Can you imagine not lifting 10 lbs? That is where you are headed if you're not doing all the things to combat that. Now, if you're like me and you need to understand why, which most people do need to understand why to actually have a change in their behavior, there's a reason. There's a reason that you lose muscle after age 30, and it's hormonal. I wish I could rewind time back to when I had hired a professional to help me figure out what was going on with my body.

You know, I had always been training and lifting and eating the things that I knew what to do. And after I turned 34 or five, Steph just wasn't doing the stuff. And my tuner kept saying, well, hormones this and hormones that into me. I'm like whatever, that has nothing to do with it, but it really does. So if you have that mindset, mindset of like who cares about hormones? You should care about hormones because hormones are what creates your body composition. That dog, let me explain. Estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, those 3 hormones are what have to kind of work together to cultivate an environment where your body is building muscle, burning fat, and doing all the things that it's always done and the way that it's always done them physiologically.

But after you turn 30, you are biologically changing a bit, and so you have to change the stimulus that you're applying to your body in order to have your body maintain the composition it had prior to Those physiological changes that are happening because of the estrogen, the testosterone and the progesterone fluctuations that whether you like it or not, whatever you do, they do start to happen after age 30. Very brief synopsis of what these three hormones do. Estrogen helps us recovery. It supports your muscle growth.

It helps us repairing those muscles after you tear them up in the gym. It also helps you maintain lean muscle mass. It is good for your metabolism. Think of estrogen as fat burning, muscle building fuel. When your estrogen estrogen starts fluctuating as it does after 30, your workouts feel harder, your recovery is not happening, and your strength is inconsistent and you might not notice that until or unless you are a lifter. Like for you it might look something similar to some days you can do a pull up, some days you can do 2 pull ups, other days you can barely do a dead hang which is just hanging from the bar.

Your strength is fluctuating because your estrogen is also fluctuating. And then you have progesterone. And progesterone is kind of the opposite of estrogen in my brain. It kind of has more of a catabolic effect on your body. So it actually can be supportive of muscle growth or it can make you more prone to muscle breaking down. It kind of binds. It's a testosterone binder. So when I think of progesterone and having those levels be elevated, to me that's red flag. No, don't want that. But it does have to coincide with estrogen in your system, and as those two hormones fluctuate at different times at different periods, that creates an atmosphere in your body that is not conducive to build muscle.

On to testosterone. Yes, you have testosterone. So as your testosterone is starting to decline even even just a little bit, that has an impact on your strength gains. That has an impact on the amount of muscle tone you can visibly see in your body and it is much more difficult to maintain the muscle mass you do have. So when you combine those 3 hormones and their fluctuations which are completely normal, that is what's to be expected in your life. You have a recipe that is just as I said, it's an environment that is not supporting body composition.

But there's a way we can combat this and that is training hard. All you ladies who are doing cardio or Orangetheory classes endlessly, that is not the type of training I'm talking about. Actually in Stacey Sims book it says after age 40 high levels of aerobic activity do not translate into any meaningful changes in lean body mass. The only solution to drop your fat to maintain your muscle is strength training. It has to be strength training and we are not talking about 5 LB dumbbells or Pilates or any sort of class.

You need to apply the stimulus to the muscles that will actually produce change, and that requires pretty pretty heavy weights, pretty high intensity. While you are lifting these heavy weights, your goal is to activate as many muscle fibers as you can. I, when I'm lifting A heavyweight, like if I'm doing a hip thrust, I am mentally envisioning my glute muscles firing, all kicking into gear, some of them snapping and tearing. Really I am. It's intense, my hamstrings, every part of that movement. I am envisioning my muscles engaging.

I want to go so heavy. I want to recruit the maximum amount of engagement from the muscles that I'm asking to complete the task. The task being the hip thrust. And those types of muscle fibers are your type 2. OK, because you have two different types. You have type 1. Those are your endurance fibers. That is what sticks around in women. So you don't need to worry about those. Those are what are ignited when you're running and doing long distance things and not applying the stimulus. I'm talking about type 2 are the muscle fibers that are going to give you shape and tone.

Those are the ones we lose with age. Those are the ones we need to stimulate through heavy strength training. Now you might be thinking how heavy is heavy enough? Because it's a really subjective term like lift heavy. What does that mean? And it's and it's different across the board. But I love the test that Doctor Stacey Sims puts in her book and I will just read this. It says how heavy is heavy enough? Pick up a weight and lift it 8 times. How hard are those last two reps? You have chosen the right weight if you are barely able to eke out the final Rep while maintaining good form.

So for me to put it into context, if I'm going to do a bicep curl, OK, I might grab some 10 LB dumbbells. I wouldn't. But if I was a newbie, I'll grab some 10 LB dumbbells. If I do eight of those and that was easy peasy. That's that's too light. If I'm not struggling to complete those last two reps, I have to bump up the weight. And this is applied across the board. If I'm doing a squat and I'm using a rack or even a machine, say I'm doing a squat and I put £100 on there and I easily crank out eight reps Was I struggling with the last two?

No. So add some weight. Keep adding weight to whatever exercise you're doing until you can barely finish the last two reps of eight. If you can barely finish those last two reps, you are lifting heavy enough. Strategy #2 To stop the inevitable muscle loss that happens after age 30, you need to challenge your muscles so your body adapts really quickly. If your workouts are becoming lighter and kind of less structured and more cardio based, which I fall into this trap all the time. Sometimes I just find myself heading towards the treadmill because I haven't planned out my week.

I haven't planned out my lifts, I haven't updated my this or that. And so I just kind of mindlessly go through the motions of being at the gym. This isn't common for me because I, I know when I'm doing it, I'm aware and I really am focused on building muscle. But sometimes I'll just be going through the motions. I'll go to the treadmill, Maybe I'll do some light intervals, who knows. Then I'll go over here and do some of these. Oh, whatever. My body is not challenged during that workout. Your workout needs to be hard.

Your workout needs to be hard. If your workout is not hard, that means your body has adapted to it and you need to increase the intensity, whatever that might be. Maybe you increase the reps, maybe you increase the weight you're lifting. Maybe you really hone in on mind to muscle connection and just go slow and change the tempo of your lifts. You need to do something because if your body has no reason to keep the muscle, it's going to let it go. So if your workout is not hard, your body says, well, I don't have to build muscle for this activity.

And it literally has no reason to keep the muscle to build the muscle because you're not challenging your body enough. So less cardio, switch things up and really challenge your body. Make that work out hard strategy #3 to combat that muscle loss, you have to eat enough. If you haven't listened to my last two episodes on low energy availability, I am telling you this is I, I think it's honestly more common than what research stage, which states, which is 50% of women who identify as active are suffering with Lea, which is low energy availability, which just means that you are not giving your body enough calories to actually feel safe enough to let go of body fat.

Your body doesn't feel safe enough to build muscle. So I have these women, my clients, who oftentimes they are very similar in personality types. They are higher achievers, they are detail oriented, and they really, really care about their health. Most of my clients are struggling with low energy availability. They're not fueling their body enough to build muscle. You can't build muscle when you're not giving your body the building blocks to build it. That's like saying build a house, but I'm not going to give you any materials to do that.

It really is. That's, as I said in a couple of my episodes, that's the issue with GOP ones is you can't build muscle while on a GOP1 unless you're eating enough protein to actually build the muscle. And not just protein, you have to be eating enough carbs and fats as well. Now that right there, eating enough carbs, that is imperative for women after the age of 35 because carbohydrates play an even more critical role in your body composition at this point. So as a general rule of thumb from Doctor Stacy Sims book, she prescribes about 40% of your daily caloric intake to be coming from carbohydrates.

That's best for athletes. It's best for body composition, it's best for building muscle and dropping fat. So remember, roughly 40% of your intake should be coming from carbohydrates. For me, I like to have about 39% of my food coming from carbohydrates. I have roughly 40% of my food coming from protein and the remainder is fat. That is a great formula for my body to drop fat and build muscle. The final strategy to stop that muscle loss after age 30 is to cut down your cardio. OK, cardio burns calories, but it does not send that strong signal to build or maintain muscle.

Remember, cardio is type 1 muscle fibers. US women, we don't need to worry about type one. We keep those. We hold on to those. Those are endurance fibers. The long lean ones that come from running and doing all these long bouts of cardio you're used to doing. But we don't need to work on those because we want to build muscle. We want to ignite our type twos. Remember the ones that actually give us shape? The tone you're talking about, the only way to see that tone is to really build up those type 2 shaping muscle fibers.

You cannot do that with cardio. That's not the objective of cardio. Cardio's objective is aerobic fitness. It's still, you know, burn calories, whatever it may be, but your objective with cardio is not going to coincide with muscle building unless you use it really strategically. Doctor Stacey Sims talks about high intensity intervals for cardio, Sprint interval training for cardio. I have some episodes on that if you want more information pertaining to the types of cardio that she prescribes and I also prescribe to my clients and zone 2.

So zone 2 is great. Zone 2 means that you find your heart rate zones, it's about 5 of them, and you stay within your zone to your second zone because that is the fat burning zone where your body is primarily running on its fat stores as fuel instead of carbohydrates. So keep your cardio strategic and keep your lifting sessions. 2 to 5 ladies, 2 to 5 high intensity. Now I made this silly little acronym for my clients to help them remember the rules for making muscle and call them the RAC rules. So R resistance that challenges you.

You need to lift heavy enough to stimulate the muscle and remember that eight Rep rule. If you're lifting with eight reps and you can easily complete the last two, you got to go up and weight. OK? That's how you know that the resistance is challenging enough to actually build muscle. A. The A of our rack rules to build muscle apply progressive overload. Your body adapts fast. You have to give it a reason to change. So over time, increase the weight that you're lifting, increase the reps, change up the tempo, change up the exercises.

As I said, your body adapts fast. You have to give it a reason to change. No progression, no change. And C Consistency over perfection. You do not need perfect workouts. Sometimes you're going to walk into the gym, do a couple of things and walk out. And that's OK because you're building the habit. You are consistently repeating the action that you want ingrained in your mindset as your identity. If you want to be somebody who goes to the gym five times a week and one of those workouts is crappy, but you still got there, you did it.

You completed your objective. You solidified the habit. You are consistently repeating the action that you want to be part of your identity. Consistency builds the muscle that you want to see. In closing, remember that muscle loss after 30 is normal. What's happening to your body is physiologically expected. You are not broken. There is nothing wrong with you, but staying that way is optional. Once you understand that you have options and that you can empower yourself through education and the choices you make, that you can combat those physiological changes to see what you want to see, to feel how you want to feel, that's when you will actually start seeing change.

You have to stop chasing that small, tiny physique because if you chase that after age 30, you're going to be frail, skinny fat, fall apart, and you're going to keep a lot of fat in your midsection to be honest. It's just, it's, it is what it is. It's your body's defense mechanism of you starving it. So stop chasing smaller, start building stronger, get consistent in the gym, empower yourself with education, and do what you need to do to see the changes. You want to see? Thank you for listening, ladies.

If you do want custom macro formulations, custom strength training programs, my coaching client list is at capacity right now, but I may or may not have some spots going into the summer. So if you need anything, don't hesitate to e-mail me at [email protected]. And as I always say, ladies, please put your questions on Spotify or you could even put them on Instagram wherever you want because I would love for women to see your questions. Many of you have the same questions. And to me, it is so empowering to see women ask those questions that they're not afraid of how they look or what they might portray.

Ask your questions, there is no bad question except for the one that goes unasked. So thank you for your emails, your messages, your kind words. I read them all. I might not be able to get back to all of them at all times, but I read them all. They fill my heart and they motivate me to keep doing what I'm doing for you ladies. So have a great week and you'll hear from me soon.

How to Stop Losing Muscle After 30 Naturally and Why it Happens

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