{"id":997943,"date":"2026-06-01T08:30:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T08:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/997943\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T08:30:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T08:30:14","slug":"women-are-now-being-commanded-to-lift-heavy-in-the-gym-by-algorithms-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/997943\/","title":{"rendered":"Women are now being commanded to \u2018lift heavy\u2019 in the gym by algorithms \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Though I have never used social media<\/a>, I listen to enough podcasts for some algorithms to have an eye on me. Lately they\u2019ve been suggesting that I might like to get into weightlifting; sometimes it\u2019s more than suggesting, it\u2019s commanding me. The latest edict is menopausal women must \u201clift heavy\u201d. \u201cCardio\u201d is discouraged; by some experts it is actually forbidden. Yoga is for wimps who care more about feeling good than succeeding at perimenopause<\/a>.<\/p>\n

These new rules reach me between the podcasts I listen to while running. (I don\u2019t listen to podcasts while doing yoga because it wouldn\u2019t be yoga if I did; I breathe, sometimes count, focus on movement and stillness.) At times in my life, rigid rules about diet and exercise have made me unwell, so I\u2019m deeply sceptical. <\/p>\n

Listen for a new set of rules to manage your routine, one voice demands, and I think absolutely not and what part of \u201cmenopausal woman\u201d makes you think we\u2019re looking for new sets of rules and routines?<\/p>\n

I like running. I like being outside, alone, moving fast. (Well, slightly fast. Faster than walking.) Just passing the gym on the way to yoga makes me feel queasy. Nothing about floor-shaking music, other people\u2019s sweat and alarming metal contraptions invites me to go in.<\/p>\n

I like yoga. I like the ritual of studios and classes. Despite reservations about cultural appropriation \u2013 rife and maybe inevitable in European yoga \u2013 I like the incense, the music and giving over my mind and body to following predictable instructions for an hour. <\/p>\n

The kind of yoga I do makes me stronger than I would be if I didn\u2019t do it. A serious practice has certainly coincided with the end \u2013 touch wood \u2013 of running injuries. I\u2019m more flexible, have better balance and posture and a more forgiving relationship with my body than I used to. I don\u2019t need to start counting the kilograms I can lift or getting competitive about muscle mass.<\/p>\n

One well-qualified expert suggests that middle-aged women runners are \u201cskinny fat\u201d. (Male runners, apparently, are allowed to keep doing what they enjoy without being secretly \u201cfat\u201d.) The body mass index (BMI) was designed around the population-level analysis of white men in 19th-century Belgium, never intended for individual use in other groups, so the categories are anyway dodgy, but \u201cskinny fat\u201d means that even if you meet the arbitrary cut-off points for acceptability you might still be invisibly wrong. <\/p>\n

The expert is very much having her cake and eating it \u2013 all puns intended \u2013 suggesting that even if we seem to be following the rules and the rules seem to have the intended effect, there\u2019s now a new set of rules to catch women and their apparently healthy bodies pretending to be good enough.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0I started strength training in my 60s – here are the seven things I learned in one year<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t care. After decades of difficulty, I\u2019m mostly okay with space I occupy. I\u2019ve found kinds of movement that make me feel good, which means I keep doing them because I want to rather than for fear of what will happen if I don\u2019t or longing for a body I\u2019ll never have or one I\u2019ll briefly achieve but never be able to sustain.<\/p>\n

If you enjoy going to the gym and \u201clifting heavy\u201d, and you have the time and money to keep it up, that\u2019s great for you. But for those of us who have come to other accommodations with our bodies and our lives in midlife, new sets of rules based on the usual fearmongering are not constructive.<\/p>\n

In the last few years, a whole industry has sprung up around monetising the menopause<\/a>. There\u2019s temptation in the idea that women at this time of life are uniquely fragile and special, because so much else in culture and society tells us that we\u2019re invisible, disposable, undeserving of care and attention. <\/p>\n

But the attention given to fragility can be a poisoned chalice. If the cost of receiving care is declaring deficit then we\u2019re making a dangerous bargain. <\/p>\n

Women in midlife are not intrinsically broken. This is not the same thing as saying that women in midlife don\u2019t need care and attention or that some women in midlife don\u2019t need care and attention because menopause is making them unwell. <\/p>\n

But the last things we need are new regimes of rules and instructions on how to be women, especially in relation to diet and exercise where, you may have noticed, the proliferation of rules and instructions has not brought health and happiness to anyone except those who make money from it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Though I have never used social media, I listen to enough podcasts for some algorithms to have an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":997944,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4322],"tags":[1630,28728,105,3392,2011,15987,205332,182,16,15,37368],"class_list":["post-997943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fitness","tag-fitness","tag-for-you","tag-health","tag-health-wellness","tag-menopause","tag-perimenopause","tag-sarah-moss","tag-social-media","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-weekendreview"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116673919572495939","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/997943","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=997943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/997943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/997944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=997943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=997943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=997943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}