Women's Strength Academy

Pilates is wonderful. I personally love Pilates.

But Pilates alone does not provide the same progressive bone-loading stimulus that heavy resistance training can.

You can add springs. You can make the movements harder. You can twist, balance and challenge your core. Those things have value.

But they are not the same as progressively loading a squat, deadlift, press, pull or carry with substantial external resistance.

Bones adapt to load.

Bone is constantly remodeling. Osteoclasts resorb old bone, while osteoblasts form new bone. Mechanical loading is one of the signals that influences this process — and as we get older, providing enough stimulus becomes increasingly important.

This isn’t just theory.

In the LIFTMOR randomized controlled trial, postmenopausal women with low bone mass performed supervised high-intensity resistance and impact training for 8 months.

The result?

Lumbar spine BMD increased by 2.9% in the training group, while the control group declined by 1.2%.

Research specifically examining Pilates in postmenopausal women has not shown comparable improvements in bone mineral density at the lumbar spine, total hip or femoral neck.

That doesn’t make Pilates bad.

It means Pilates and strength training have different jobs.

Keep Pilates for the things it does beautifully.

But if protecting muscle and bone after 40 is the goal:

KEEP PILATES. ADD STRENGTH.

Watson et al., 2018, Journal of Bone and Mineral Research
de Oliveira et al., 2022, Journal of Geriatric Physical Therapy

The scale is only telling you how much you weigh. It cannot tell you what that weight is made of.

When you start progressive strength training, you can build muscle while simultaneously losing body fat. That means your body composition can change significantly while your weight on the scale changes very little — and in some cases, it may even increase.

You may be stronger.
Your clothes may fit differently.
Your waist may change.
You may have more lean mass and less body fat.
You may look and feel completely different.

And the scale may barely move.

This is why I don’t want women — especially after 40 — using scale weight as their only measure of progress.

If you want a more detailed assessment, ask your healthcare provider or imaging facility whether a DEXA body-composition scan is available. DEXA can estimate fat mass, lean soft tissue and bone mineral content, giving you a much more complete picture than body weight alone.

Then think long term.

Train consistently. Progressively overload. Eat enough protein. Recover. And measure progress over months — not by what the bathroom scale says from one morning to the next.

The goal isn’t simply to weigh less. The goal is to build a stronger body.

🎥 JUST POSTED in the Subscribers Club: Natasha’s full-body strength workout!

Here on my public page, I share individual exercises, form corrections, technique, and training tips.

Inside the Subscribers Club, I share complete, ready-to-save workouts you can take to the gym or do at home.

This one includes Natasha’s complete exercise sequence, reps, rounds, rest periods, and the weights she used.

You don’t need to match her weights — choose resistance that’s appropriate for your current strength and experience.

Some Subscriber workouts are bodyweight. Others use dumbbells or other equipment. You’ll see workouts from my own training and real sessions with my clients, broken down so you can save them and try them yourself.

Subscribe to access the workouts and train with us. 💪

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Getting Stronger Together! 💪

There’s a concept in business called reverse engineering:

Decide where you want to end up. Then work backward.

We should do the same with aging.

Picture yourself at 70.

Can you carry your suitcase?
Get up from the floor?
Climb stairs?
Travel?
Live independently?

Now ask a harder question:

What would the 70-year-old you want you to start doing today?

Because we don’t suddenly become strong at 70.

The muscle. The balance. The habits. The identity of someone who takes care of her body — those are built decades earlier.

We can’t control everything about aging.

But we can train for the future we want.

Your 70-year-old body is under construction now.

Same age. Different muscle.

From mid-adulthood, muscle mass can decline by approximately 3–8% per decade, with losses accelerating later in life. For women, the menopausal transition can make preserving muscle and strength even more important.

When age-related losses in muscle and strength become clinically significant, we call it sarcopenia.

And it’s not just about looking less muscular.

Less muscle and strength can mean lower physical capacity, greater risk of falls and frailty, difficulty with everyday tasks, and loss of independence later in life.

The good news? Muscle remains trainable as we age.

Progressive resistance training is one of our strongest evidence-based tools for maintaining—and building—muscle and strength.

After 40, strength training isn’t just about how you look today.

It’s about what your body will still be able to do decades from now.