{"id":34451,"date":"2025-04-20T02:33:13","date_gmt":"2025-04-20T02:33:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/34451\/"},"modified":"2025-04-20T02:33:13","modified_gmt":"2025-04-20T02:33:13","slug":"theres-a-workout-specifically-for-menopausal-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/34451\/","title":{"rendered":"There’s a Workout Specifically for Menopausal Women"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maybe it\u2019s the middle-aged theater kid in me, but I can\u2019t do a workout without somehow pretending that I\u2019m learning a dance routine that I will someday perform in front of cheering audiences. Over the past few decades, I\u2019ve danced with a Bollywood-style performance team, taken African-dance classes accompanied by a troupe of drummers, learned routines from Broadway shows taught by former cast members, and lunged and bounced through numerous Zumba and Jazzercise classes. But sweating and grunting while lifting weights in a gym? Oh, hell no. <\/p>\n

My preference for acting out my Glee fantasies in dance workout classes kept me agile and in shape for most of my adult life. But since I am a health writer, I couldn\u2019t avoid learning (and living!) the fact that as I hit my perimenopausal<\/a> and menopausal<\/a> years, I needed something\u2026 more. Around 7 or 8 years ago, my estrogen levels shifted, along with my shape. Certain joints started to ache for no discernible reason, and I found myself getting winded walking up the stairs.<\/p>\n

The answer, I knew, was introducing more weight-bearing exercise,<\/a> which is so crucial to midlife health, but even though I\u2019ve written about it, the thought of actually doing it was a major challenge for me. And then I heard about Jazzercise\u2019s new Vital Sculpt HIIT workout<\/a><\/strong>,<\/a> which combines the company\u2019s music-and-dance-based party vibe with some hardcore strength-training moves specifically designed for midlife women<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

\"group<\/p>\n

VitalSculpt<\/p>\n

\"women<\/p>\n

VitalSculpt<\/p>\n

I learned about this workout directly from its creator, Jazzercise CEO and Chief Choreographer Shanna M. Nelson (her mom, Judi Sheppard Missett,<\/a> founded the company in 1969 and at 81 she still teaches one class a week!). Shanna is roughly the same age as me, and she looks as fit and strong as you would imagine the CEO of an international fitness company would be, but when I visited the Jazzercise headquarters in Carlsbad, CA, <\/a>a few months ago on a press trip, she told me she had struggled with midlife changes, too. \u201cLast year, all of a sudden, my body composition changed \u2014 and not in a direction that I wanted to go,\u201d Shanna told me. \u201cI felt like I wasn\u2019t as strong in class, I was experiencing fatigue, so I thought, What is going on?\u201d <\/p>\n

After doing a deep dive into the research on how menopause affects your body and brain, Shanna realized she needed to create a new workout specifically for women going through midlife hormonal changes, which she says can start as early as in your 30s. <\/p>\n

She decided to focus the workout on strength training with heavier weights to activate the central nervous system and build muscle, intense cardio for short periods of time for cardiovascular health, lots of movement up and down off the floor to approve balance and agility, and plenty of multi-directional jumping \u2014 which research has shown is crucial for improving bone density in postmenopausal women.<\/a> <\/p>\n

The results were the Vital Sculpt HIIT workout, which you can take at some of Jazzercise’s in-person locations across the country, or On Demand. (You can try out free livestreams of the Vital Sculpt HIIT workout through the end of April 2025 by signing up at this link.<\/a>)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Intrigued by the idea of a class designed specifically for a woman my age, that would give me the kick in the pants I needed to build muscle, strength, and balance, I gave the class a try. <\/p>\n

The class<\/p>\n

At the start of the class, Shanna explained that to really get the benefit of this workout, we should all use weights that are 2 to 4 pounds heavier than what we usually use. For most people this would mean 8 or 10 pound weights, but since I usually use no weights at all, I grabbed a pair of 3-pounders I found in the back of a closet. We started out doing some stretching and warm-up cardio \u2014 easy so far! \u2014 and then moved into the strength work. Holding the weights, we did a series of lunges, before getting down on the floor and doing more legwork with weights. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m not gonna lie, it was hard! But here\u2019s the great thing about this workout \u2014 just when you think you can\u2019t possibly do one more rep, you\u2019re on to the next song, which means another set of moves. \u201cYou want to feel fatigue at the end of each strength training segment, where you feel like, I don\u2019t know if I can keep going,\u201d Shanna told me after the class. \u201cThat\u2019s when you get the maximum benefit.\u201d Okay, accomplishment unlocked!<\/p>\n

About 20 minutes into the routine, at a point when I was grunting so hard that my dog literally came over to check if I was okay, it was suddenly time to put down the weights and do a burst of cardio. This was the strutting, bouncing and kicking that Jazzercise is known for, and boy did it feel good after all that intensive strength work!<\/p>\n

Over the course of the 45-minute class we were down on the floor, back up, on our knees, back up again, on the floor doing push-ups (I will confess I used the push-up section to take a water break, but plan to give it a go the next time). It was really the perfect mix of hard-core weight work offset by marching, bouncing, stretching, jumping, and doing chass\u00e9s, so you never got too overwhelmed with one move. <\/p>\n

The verdict<\/p>\n

Reader, I survived. I managed to do an entire workout (ahem, minus the pushups) that kicked my butt yet kept me interested and motivated through to the end. There was music, there was just enough dance, there was the high-energy camaraderie (even felt through the video screen) that Jazzercise is known for. The next couple of days I felt the workout all over, especially in my thighs and upper arms, a reminder that I had gone out of my comfort zone and made a difference for those parts of my body.<\/p>\n

Since she started working on this new routine, Shanna has seen major changes in her own body, she told me. \u201cI feel so much stronger, and the fatigue I was experiencing when I was teaching or taking classes is not there,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd my body composition has changed: I\u2019ve put on muscle in a good way, and I\u2019m leaner, not necessarily lighter in pounds on the scale, but that\u2019s okay! If your clothes fit, and you feel good, that\u2019s where you want to go.\u201d <\/p>\n

That’s something I can get behind. I know I will never be as slim as I was in my 20s, but I fully believe I can feel more powerful, have more energy, and keep my bones strong enough to do all the things I love, including dancing my semi-awkward, semi-coordinated body along to the tunes I love. That pair of red 3-pound weights are still sitting out by my desk, reminding me to keep going. I made it through one session of a strength-training workout, and I know each time it will get a little less scary, and a whole lot more fun.<\/p>\n

We’ve Got So Much More on This Topic<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maybe it\u2019s the middle-aged theater kid in me, but I can\u2019t do a workout without somehow pretending that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4322],"tags":[17687,19991,1331,1630,105,1381,19990,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-34451","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fitness","8":"tag-content-type-how-to-service","9":"tag-contentid-34d9071a-6ffb-492d-918b-08a6cc1c5b8b","10":"tag-displaytype-standard-article","11":"tag-fitness","12":"tag-health","13":"tag-locale-us","14":"tag-shorttitle-i-tried-a-workout-designed-for-menopausal-women","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114367955418754054","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}