Training Less After Menopause: Why Less Can Be More

Nikkiey: What's up, WarriorBabes? Hey, everybody. Nikkiey here, and welcome to our WarriorBabe Wednesday live Q&A time together. I am so stoked to spend this time answering any questions that you guys have about your journey, or if you need some support or need some tough love. So when you guys are joining in, comment and say, hey, what's up, or send me the wave emoji so I can see who's here. James! Hey, everybody. Okay, there we go. There's a delay with Zoom and Facebook, so it's catching up on your end now.

As you guys are joining in, comment, say hey, what's up, give me the wave emoji so that I can see who is joining in on this Q&A time. Plus, the more that you guys comment underneath this video and this thread, the more it pushes the video to the top of the Facebook group so the other WarriorBabes can see it and join in. And if you're joining in at a later date or time after this live is complete, give me the hashtag replay, and then please leave any and all questions you have that pertain to this Q&A in the comment thread beneath this video, so that Kate and I can come back in after this live is complete and answer any questions that were left behind.

What's up, Samantha? What's up, Maurice? What's up, Jocelyn? Hey, babes. Hey, guys. All right, cool. We'll get this live Q&A started in just a few seconds. If you have any questions, you can start commenting your questions below this video right now, because like I said a second ago, there's a little bit of a delay. By the time this catches up to you guys, I'll start to see the questions coming through.

Before we kick off this live Q&A, I want to give a huge welcome to all of the new WarriorBabes who have joined us this week. You are a part of a community of thousands of women who are getting toned and becoming a stronger, more confident version of themselves. WarriorBabe is where strong is the new sexy. And our community is so freaking supportive, so inspiring, so motivating. So welcome to all the new WarriorBabes. I'm stoked that you guys are here and a part of this community. What's up, Debbie? What's up, Laura? What's up, Kelly? Hey, guys. What's up, babes?

If you're new, listen up. Please make sure that you are going through the WarriorBabe Revolution blast-off emails. They are so important as you start your journey here inside the WarriorBabe program. It's literally just one task to complete each day, sent to the email inbox you used to sign up for the program, and it's going to help you transition into this lifestyle and into this program, literally setting yourself up for success and for the long game it takes to change your body composition.

You're going to run through setting your goals. What are the goals you want to accomplish? Why do you want to accomplish them? Getting rid of any negative emotions or feelings about any of the past programs you've ever done, wiping them out and starting fresh with the concept WarriorBabe is sharing with you, which is going to get you toned and help you become a stronger, more confident version of yourself. Fourteen days of running through those blast-off emails and completing those tasks, and I guarantee you on the 14th day you're motivated and ready to rock and roll. And most importantly, your motivation is not going to dip. You're going to have your goal set, and if your goal is big enough, you're going to have a reason to show up every single day.

What's up, Dawn? What's up, Tanya? What's up, Rana? Hello. What's up, guys? Any questions? We're going to kick off this Q&A in just a second, so leave your questions in the comment box, the chat box, and we'll start firing off.

Before we do, really quick: if you're new, please, please, please don't flood the community with questions that can be easily answered inside the app. I say this because I want you to take the time to go into the application, search there, listen to everything I'm sharing with you, find the golden nuggets, learn your macronutrients, look at the daily meal plan, fire away at the workouts you should be following. And I guarantee you, if you're starting to have questions, the answers are inside there. If they're not inside there, they can be easily answered by going to the main home screen, clicking Need Help, and finding our FAQ page. It's our frequently asked questions resource page. My team keeps this entire platform updated for you guys. It's all of the questions we commonly get, answered in article form with pictures and all that, so you have the answer to your question.

Now, if your question can't be answered inside the app or the FAQs, this is a really good time to pop on these Q&As. Make sure you're here and showing up and asking me any questions you need clarification on. And if you need your question answered super fast, head into the Facebook community and ask the other WarriorBabes. I guarantee you one of the babes is going to fire away with an answer within a minute or two. That's how supportive our community is, which is so freaking awesome. You can also tag Kate. Kate is our community manager inside the group, and she's in there every single day making sure you guys feel super supported. All right, now let's fire away at this Q&A.

Keisha: "Three months in and loving it. Building muscle for sure. Should I add a day of cardio? Currently doing three days of cardio." Yep, that's the first thing I would recommend before pulling any macronutrients away: increase your energy expenditure first by adding one day of cardio. The next thing I would talk about to facilitate more results would be pulling a couple of macros away. I should really preface this: if you're stuck with your results, or progress is stalling a little bit over a three or four week period, increase your energy expenditure. Hit cardio for another day, and then ride that out to see what results follow.

Shannon: "Is there a certain spot to find your Q&As if you can't attend the live version? I can only find them if I scroll through the Facebook page. Just wondering if there's a spot I don't know about. Thank you. Love this program." Awesome, babe. Yeah, you can always find the Q&As by scrolling through the Facebook group like you mentioned, but you could also use the search inside the Facebook group and just type in "live Q&A." And the spot where we hold all of the recorded Q&As is our YouTube channel. Search WarriorBabe on YouTube and you'll find our entire channel with all of our past rally calls and all of our past Q&As. Keisha, thanks. Cool.

Chrissy: "Is it okay to do a leg workout in the morning and an upper body in the evening if I know I can't do five days this week but want to get all of the body parts in? I normally do a five-day rotation." Look, Chrissy, I wouldn't recommend doing two a day, because your energy expenditure is through the roof and you're probably burning way more calories doing a two-a-day. That's going to put you far, far, far into a deficit, so you don't want to do that. If it's just one week that's off, do a four-day routine. Look in the application, click on Build, click on the four-day routine, follow that, and then get back to your normal routine next week. I wouldn't recommend doing a two-a-day. It just puts more stress on your body, and then recovery time might be a bit longer. Shannon, you're welcome, babe.

All right, you guys, where are the questions at? Come on, I know you've got some questions for me. Chrissy: "Good to know, thank you." Yes, you're welcome. All right, squad, where's everybody at tonight?

Debbie: "Can we do the same exercises for several days, or should we always mix it up? For example, three days of shoulders and then two days of legs." No, you should always, always, always mix it up. You don't want to be training shoulders for three days. It depends on the split you're doing, but naturally with the five-day split, yes, you will be doing two days of legs, but you need more recovery time in between. You can't be hitting them every single day. You need to hit legs, then an upper body day, then another upper body day, and then legs again. Legs need at least 24 to 48 hours to recover before you start hitting them again.

And you really want to make sure you encompass every single muscle group. You don't want to neglect arms. You don't want to neglect back. Training every single muscle group not only creates balance within your physique, it also gives you that hourglass figure. You can't ignore specific muscle groups. So always follow the split that's recommended inside the app.

All right, you guys, to feed our Q&A right now, if you're watching me, click the like button. Fire away at that like button if you're loving this and enjoying this Q&A.

Debbie: "I'm also doing exercises in the pool along with the workouts." That's awesome. Fire away with those likes, guys. Let's go. Keep going, keep going. I love seeing the likes and the hearts going up the side. But either way, you want to make sure you're still creating that resistance on the muscle with weights. Weights trigger the resistance on the muscle for it to grow. Pool exercises are great, but what's going to create the most resistance is weight training.

Kelly: "The rally call hit home with me this week. I am moving from five a week to four per week, but I am nervous about it. Are there also any dietary differences for postmenopausal women, i.e. higher fat, lower carb, or do I simply follow the exact macros given in the program?" Awesome, babe. There are no dietary restrictions, or added dietary needs I should say, for postmenopausal women. You just really want to make sure you're emphasizing your nutrition in that stage of life, and that you're eating enough food to facilitate recovery through the stage you're going through or have gone through, so your body doesn't have added stress from not getting enough fuel from food.

And don't be nervous. I think I shared this story on the rally call, but one of the Blueprint babes had just joined the Blueprint and she was training six days a week. She's postmenopausal, in her later fifties if I remember correctly. She came on one of those Q&As and said, "Nikkiey, I'm just so freaking exhausted. I'm not seeing the results. I'm putting the work in at the gym and I'm not seeing the results. Why is this happening?" I got to dive a little bit deeper, because that's naturally what I'm able to do with the Blueprint program and those coaching calls. She was telling me how she was feeling, and then she told me she's postmenopausal, she has some slight hormonal imbalances, and she was tired. That's the stage of life.

Guys, if you haven't listened to that rally call, I recommend you go back and listen to it if you're in the same boat as this woman or postmenopausal. Anyway, I told her to pull it back, because at that stage of life, less is more. You should not be training like you were training when you were 30 or 35 years old. You can and will experience the same results you had at 35 by doing less. Why? Because strength training and being in the weight room is very important at that stage of life to prevent osteoporosis, but at the same time, doing less creates less stress on your body. Your body at 35 can handle that stress, but later in life, with the hormonal side of things and estrogen dropping and all that jazz, if I wanted to really dive deep, I could really dive deep. But at that stage of life, less is more. You can still get the same results at 55-plus that you were getting at 35 if you just pull back a day of training.

So if you're doing six days and you're hearing me right now, these are some golden nuggets, you guys, listen up. Drop down to five, maybe drop down to four, and I'll tell you what's going to happen if you're experiencing this stuff and can relate to the woman's story I just shared. That woman came back on the Q&A two weeks later. In the community, they post their photos and their stats, and then I talk to them on the Q&As. She got on the Q&A and she was like, "Nikkiey, oh my god, I feel so much better." And let me tell you, her pictures were a game changer. Results showed in the pictures, results showed in measurements, results showed in weight. Her weight dropped, her measurements dropped, her pictures were tighter, her skin was tighter.

So let that be inspiration to you guys. If you're listening right now and you're in that stage of life, you love working out and crush the workout game, but you're kind of stalling, your body's feeling stressed, or you're not recovering fast enough, take it down a notch. Less is more. Those are some serious golden nuggets, you guys, so give that a try.

Keisha: "Is there a specific amount of grams of protein and carbs we should have pre and post workout?" Good question. You definitely want to aim for around 20 grams of protein and around 30 grams of carbs. That's a really good starting point. But let's say you have higher macros. To make it silly, stupid simple, take your carb number, divide it by six meals or five meals, and use that as a target number. It doesn't have to be perfect. Let's use 30 as an example. If that's what the math comes out to for each of your meals, that's your target number. You could be at 25, you could be at 32, whatever. You just want to aim for around that much at each meal. But pre and post workout, you definitely want at least 20 grams of protein and 30 grams of carbs, so it fuels the process and gives you energy for your workout.

Bo: "Do you ever add weight training exercises specific to other muscles, such as traps or shins?" Traps are naturally incorporated in some shoulder exercises like upright rows, overhead presses and Arnold presses, so they work as secondary muscles in those exercises. I've honestly never heard anybody ask for shin exercises. I could be completely wrong, but I've never heard of exercises that specifically target the shins. That would probably be more like the calf muscles. But anyway, traps naturally get hit with some of the shoulder exercises, or if you want, add in some shrugs at the end of your workout. That's a way to hit traps as well.

Debra: "I finally made a Q&A." Yes, let's go, Debra. I'm happy you're here.

"Any suggestions on where you can find dumbbells in stock?" Oh, I don't know. That depends on the location where you live. I would just keep looking on eBay and Craigslist, and check sporting goods stores and Amazon. I'm not sure, but that's some of the research I would do if I were you.

Rhonda: "Dive deep for us old gals." Yes, there you go. Well, that's a pretty solid golden nugget. Really, guys, at your stage of life it literally comes down to proper nutrition and really emphasizing the strength training side of things. Really, really important. If you're understanding what I'm saying right now, hit that like button even more. If it makes sense, it's hitting home for you and the light bulbs are going off, smash that freaking like button.

Thank you.