6 Dumbbell Exercises to Build Muscle During Menopause

Nikkiey: If you're going through menopause and you've been walking, doing yoga, following along with YouTube cardio videos, and your body still isn't changing, it's because none of those are doing the one thing your body actually needs right now. You need to build muscle, and you don't need 20 exercises to do it. You need six. I've coached over 100,000 women through menopause, and the ones whose bodies actually changed all did these same six movements. Nothing else comes close. So today I'm going to show you exactly what they are, how to do them, how heavy to go, and how to put them into a weekly program that you can start this week.

Let's get into it. I want to tell you about Johanna, because when she came to us, she was the woman this video was made for. Johanna is 62. She had two total knee replacements. She'd been through upheavals in her personal life that brought her to the heaviest weight she's ever been. She didn't know what to eat. She didn't know how to exercise without guessing. She was doing the same thing that most women do: trying different things, hoping something would stick, quitting when it didn't work, and every year her body moved further from where she wanted it to be. She described the biggest change as taking the guesswork out of everything.

She didn't have to wonder what to eat. She didn't have to wonder what exercises to do. She didn't have to figure it all out herself. For the first time, she had a plan that was built for her knees, for her age, for her goals, and all she had to do was follow it. Two total knee replacements, and she's lifting. Think about that. Most women would assume they can't do this. And she's building muscle at 62. She said she has more energy now than she's had in years. She feels stronger and more self-confident than she's ever been.

Johanna: I feel fit. I feel in control and empowered just walking, just in my body, walking through the world, and that's worth everything to me.

Nikkiey: Oh my goodness, I love that. It's not a phase for her anymore. It's who she is. You don't need to be an athlete. You just need to start.

Here's what nobody explained to you when menopause started. Before menopause, estrogen was quietly maintaining your muscle mass behind the scenes. You didn't have to think about it. Estrogen supported muscle protein synthesis, the process that your body uses to build and maintain muscle tissue. It worked for you 24 hours a day without you doing a single thing. After menopause, that support is gone, and you're now losing muscle at roughly 1% per year.

That might not sound like a lot, but think about what that actually means. At 50, you have less muscle than you did at 45. At 55, less than at 50. Every year, your body is getting softer, your metabolism is getting slower, and the things that used to work, walking more, eating less, are producing less and less return, because the engine that drives your metabolism is shrinking. And here's the part that makes it worse. The scale doesn't change. You weigh the same, but your body looks completely different. That's because muscle is being replaced by fat. Same weight, different composition, and no amount of walking or calorie cutting will reverse that.

The only thing that reverses it is building the muscle back. Cardio burns calories while you're doing it. The second you stop, the burn stops. Muscle burns calories 24 hours a day. Every pound of muscle you build is raising your metabolism permanently. That's why these six exercises are not optional. They are the only thing that actually reverses what menopause is doing to your body. And if you're not doing them, everything else you're doing in the gym is just a band-aid. You need six movements that cover your entire body: push, pull, legs. And you need to get progressively stronger at them over time.

Most women going through menopause are spending their gym time on things that don't build muscle. Arm circles with two-pound dumbbells. Tricep kickbacks with a resistance band. Bodyweight-only workouts from YouTube. These feel like exercise, but they're not creating enough stimulus for your body to build new muscle tissue. Your body adapted to that level of resistance years ago. The push, pull, legs framework covers every major muscle group in your body with zero redundancy. Two pushing movements hit your chest, shoulders and triceps. One pulling movement hits your back and your biceps.

Three lower body movements hit your quads, hamstrings, glutes and your core. Here's what I want you to notice as we go through these. Every exercise I'm about to show you can be done with dumbbells. You don't need a gym membership.

Exercise 1: the goblet squat. This is the foundation. If you do nothing else on this list, this is the one that I tell you to do. Legs, glutes, your core. Everything starts with the squat. So hold one dumbbell at your chest with both hands, elbows pointing down, feet slightly wider than shoulder width.

Toes turned out just a little bit. Push your hips back and sit down like you're lowering yourself into a chair. Keep your chest upright. If your chest drops forward, the weight is pulling you down. Go as low as you can while keeping your heels on the floor. Then drive through your heels to stand back up and squeeze your glutes at the top. If you've never squatted with weight before, start with a 10 to 15 pound dumbbell. That's it. Don't worry about looking strong on day one. Worry about learning the movement. Why is this better than leg press machines or bodyweight squats?

The leg press takes your core out of the equation. Bodyweight squats don't create enough resistance to trigger muscle growth after the first couple of weeks. You need external load. The goblet squat forces your core to stabilize the weight, which means your abs are working the entire time. The last two to three reps of each set should feel hard. Not painful, just hard. When you can do 12 reps without struggling on the last few, then go heavier. That's the rule for every exercise in this video.

This is what gives you your hamstrings and your glutes back. The entire back of your body, the part that changes the most during menopause, this is the exercise that rebuilds it. Stand with a dumbbell in each hand, arms hanging in front of you, slight bend in your knees. Not a full bend, just enough to unlock them. Now hinge at your hips. Push your hips straight back like someone has a rope tied around your waist and they're pulling you backwards. Let those weights slide down the front of your legs, and you should feel a deep stretch in your hamstrings, the back of your thighs. Once the weight reaches about mid-shin, squeeze your glutes and drive your hips forward to stand back up.

The most important thing here is that your back stays flat the entire time. Think about keeping your chest proud and your shoulder blades pulled together. This exercise is specifically important during menopause for three reasons. First, your posterior chain, your glutes, hamstrings and lower back, is the muscle group that deteriorates the fastest with age and declining estrogen. The RDL directly targets all of it. Second, strong glutes and hamstrings protect your lower back. Most lower back pain in women over 60 isn't a spine problem. It's a weak glute problem.

Your glutes aren't doing their job, so your lower back picks up the slack and everything breaks down. Third, the RDL builds the shape that menopause takes away: the flatness in the back of your legs, the loss of definition in your glutes. This is the exercise that will reverse it. Three sets of 10 reps. But here's what most women get wrong about lower body training during menopause, and it connects directly to the next exercise.

This is where your posture changes and your waist starts to look smaller. That's not an exaggeration. Building your back muscles creates that visual illusion of an hourglass shape, because the wider your back gets, the narrower your waist appears by contrast. Next, dumbbell in each hand, hinge forward at your hips, the same hip hinge that you learned in the Romanian deadlift, about a 45 degree angle. Let the weight hang straight down from your shoulders. Now pull your elbows towards your hip bones, not towards your shoulders. Squeeze your shoulder blades together at the top like you're trying to pinch a pencil between them, and then lower with control. Most women skip upper body entirely. They do legs, they walk, maybe some abs.

And their upper body never changes. These are the muscle groups that change how you look in a tank top, how you carry yourself, how your clothes fit across your shoulders. If you're only training legs, you're only changing half of your body. When a woman starts doing rows consistently, within three to four weeks her posture shifts. She stands taller. And that posture change is visible before the muscle definition shows up. Do three sets of 10 reps of this exercise.

Shoulders and triceps. This is the one that changes how your arms look in a sleeveless top: the back of your arms, the shape of your shoulders. This is where it all happens. Sit or stand with a dumbbell in each hand at shoulder height, palms facing forward. Press the weight straight overhead until your arms are fully extended. Don't let them drift forward or out to the sides. Keep them straight up. Then lower them back to shoulder height with control. That's one rep. Watch your lower back on this one. If your back starts arching, the weight is too heavy. Your core should stay tight and your ribs should stay down.

If you can't press the weight without arching, then you have to drop to a lighter dumbbell. There's no shame in pressing eight or ten pounds with perfect form. That's building your muscle. Pressing 20 pounds with a banana-shaped spine is building an injury. Strong shoulders change the entire shape of your upper body. They create width across the top of your frame, which makes your waist look narrower. They fill out the cap of your shoulders, where most women have a slope. And the pressing motion works your triceps, the back of your arms, which is the area most women ask me about more than any other body part. The bat wings, the jiggle, the part that waves when you wave.

This exercise is the fix. Three sets of eight reps. If you want to know where to start with your body, I host a live training every single Thursday at 7 p.m. Eastern. The link is in the description.

Chest, shoulders and triceps. And I already know what you're thinking. No, this isn't going to make everything bigger. The chest press builds the muscle underneath, which improves the shape and the firmness of the entire area. This is the exercise that most women skip, and it's one of the most important for your upper body. Lie back on a flat bench with your feet planted firmly on the floor.

Hold a dumbbell in each hand at chest level with your elbows at about a 45 degree angle away from your body, not flared straight out to the sides. Press those dumbbells straight up over your chest until your arms are fully extended. Then lower the weight down with control until your elbows come just below bench level, press back up, and squeeze your chest at the top. The reason women skip this exercise is the myth that chest training will change their chest size. It won't. It improves the structure underneath. Think of it like putting a better foundation under a house.

The house doesn't get bigger. It looks better because it's supported. This exercise also hits your triceps, the back of your arm, from a different angle than the overhead press. That's why the women who do both of these consistently are the ones who see the fastest change in their arm definition. So do three sets of eight to ten reps of this exercise.

This is the one that reverses what menopause did to your shape below the waist. If you've noticed that your body has gone flat through the back, less shape, less lift, less definition in your glutes, the hip thrust is how you're going to build it back.

You're going to sit on the floor with your upper back resting against a bench or a sturdy couch or a box. Your feet are flat on the floor, knees bent at about 90 degrees. Place a dumbbell across your hip crease, right where your legs meet your torso, and hold it in place with both hands. Then drive through your heels and push your hips toward the ceiling. Squeeze your glutes hard at the top. Your body should form a straight line from your shoulders to your knees. Hold for a second and lower back down with control. Strong glutes reduce knee pain. Most knee pain in women over 40 isn't actually a knee problem. It's a glute problem.

Your knees take on extra stress during walking, climbing stairs, even standing up from a chair. Every time your glutes don't fire properly, your knee absorbs the force instead. What does three months of consistent hip thrusts look like? More shape through the glutes and your hamstrings. Your clothes are going to fit differently below the waist. Less knee and lower back discomfort, and a noticeable difference when you catch yourself in a mirror from the side. This is one of the fastest exercises to show visible results, because the glutes are a large muscle group.

So do three sets of 12 reps of this exercise. Now, here's how you put it all together. You don't need all six exercises every workout. You can split them up into two workouts. Workout A: goblet squat, bent-over row, overhead press. Workout B: Romanian deadlift, chest press, hip thrust. And you alternate them. Monday is A, Wednesday is B, Friday is A, and so on. That's the program. Six compound exercises in one workout is too much volume. You'd be in the gym for over an hour. Your form would break down by exercise four, and your recovery would suffer.

Three lifting days gives you the stimulus. Four recovery days gives you the growth. On your off days, walk. Not for the calorie burn. Walk for your recovery, for your mood, for your insulin sensitivity, for sleep quality. Here's the part that separates the women who transform their bodies from the women who look exactly the same six months from now: progressive overload. Progressive overload means gradually lifting heavier so your muscles keep growing. If you're pressing the same 10-pound dumbbells today that you were pressing six months ago, your body adapted to that weight months ago.

There's no reason for it to change. The rule is simple. If you can do 12 reps and you feel like you could do more, go up. Add two to five pounds. The last few reps will challenge you. That's the point. Now you might be thinking, but I don't have heavier weights at home. Slow the movement down. Instead of pressing the weight up in one second, take three seconds to lower it, pause at the bottom for one second, then take three seconds to press it back up. That's called tempo training, and it makes a 15-pound dumbbell feel like a 25. Same weight, dramatically more time under tension, which is what actually triggers muscle growth.

Progressive challenge creates change, and the women who understand this are the ones whose bodies transform. You don't need more exercises. You need to do these six consistently and push yourself harder than you think you're allowed to. You are not too old to build muscle. Your body is not past the point of change. It's waiting for a reason to change, and these six exercises are the reason.

If you want to see the two exercises that fix your back and your arms after 40, watch this next video. I break down exactly how to do them and why nothing else works. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you in the next video.