The 52-year-old recently showcased her virtually gladiatorial physique in a Victoria Beckham<\/a> slip dress at her wedding to Chris Dingwall in the Lake District, attracting much attention for her bulging biceps and impressive back muscles. She\u2019s not alone \u2013 from Davina McCall<\/a>, 58, to actress Hannah Waddingham<\/a>, 52, more and more women of a certain age are choosing to bulk up, not just for their look, but to future-proof their health.<\/p>\n Indeed, research published last month saw scientists prove weight lifting to be key to a longer life, with regular sessions lowering the risk of premature death for men and women from any cause by 13 per cent.<\/p>\n Cardiovascular deaths were 19 per cent lower and those from neurological diseases such as dementia were reduced by 27 per cent.<\/p>\n But at an age when many succumb to a menopause middle, how are so many women in their 40s and 50s achieving such astonishing muscles? Four weight-lifting devotees share their secrets \u2013 and reveal the mixed feedback they\u2019ve received from partners and loved ones…<\/p>\n Weights helped me heal after multiple miscarriages\u00a0<\/p>\n Leila Martyn, 49, lives in St Albans with her partner James and their two sons Louie, eight, and Luca, seven. They run a women\u2019s hormonal health company.<\/p>\n My 50th birthday is fast approaching next year \u2013 and never in a million years did I think I\u2019d be marking the last year of my 40s by competing in not one, but two, bikini model competitions, wearing nothing but a G-string, heels and a bikini top.<\/p>\n Leila Martyn was 60kg and wore a size 10 when she started her fitness journey but is now 53kg and wears a size 6<\/p>\n Leila used to diet and exercise to look waif-like in her teens and 20s, but now she loves bodybuilding and the muscle growth it’s given her<\/p>\n I have the confidence to do so because, after a lifetime of avoiding exercise that might have made me look too \u2018bulky\u2019, I\u2019m newly muscly thanks to taking up bodybuilding last January.<\/p>\n Now, my biceps are positively bulging, my abs ripple and you can see every single muscle in my back.<\/p>\n I\u2019m unrecognisable from the woman I was just six months ago, when my mind and body felt broken after a decade of fertility struggles, multiple miscarriages and then \u2013 finally \u2013 having two children in my 40s.<\/p>\n Weight lifting has helped me heal, inside and out.<\/p>\n Like many women of my generation, in my teens and 20s, I dieted and exercised to look as waif-like as the supermodels on the catwalk. I restricted myself to exhausting HIIT (high intensity interval training) workouts and hour-long runs, believing this would help me burn calories.<\/p>\n When my partner James and I started trying for a baby when I was 34, I stopped exercising altogether, hoping it would help my body conserve energy for a much-longed-for conception. We didn\u2019t do IVF, but six miscarriages took their toll on my body.<\/p>\n We were elated when we finally had our boys naturally just 20 months apart when I was 40 and 42.<\/p>\n Two years ago, I had a bit of a wake-up call: as an older mum, I had to do everything possible to be around for my kids for as long as possible. I needed to be strong, not skinny.<\/p>\n So in April 2024, I joined a gym and started training for a Hyrox competition, which involves completing an 8km run combined with eight workouts along the way, including deadlifts, back squats, sprints on the rower, endless burpees and \u2018farmer\u2019s carries\u2019 while holding heavy kettlebells. It was such a buzz, and my physique became leaner and stronger.<\/p>\n But when I began experiencing perimenopause symptoms last year, like brain fog, insomnia and extreme fatigue, I eased back on the extreme cardio, which can cause spikes of the stress hormone cortisol.<\/p>\n James suggested bodybuilding and I found a coach, who also devised a weekly diet plan for me \u2013 it involves a lot of lean chicken!<\/p>\n Five days a week, I leave the house at 5.30am for a 12-minute walk to the gym wearing a 7kg weighted vest, followed by 30 minutes on the Stairmaster for a steady, but intense, cardio session. I complete my gym time with 70 minutes\u2019 worth of weight training.<\/p>\n After school drop-off, I walk for another 35 minutes and in the evenings I return to the gym to do interval sprints on the assault bike for 10 minutes.<\/p>\n On my two rest days, I do everything except weight training.<\/p>\n After the bikini competitions, I\u2019ll continue training at a lesser intensity and regain some body fat, as mine is currently just 12 per cent.<\/p>\n I started off at 60kg and a dress size 10 and am now 53kg and a size 6 \u2013 not an achievable physique all year round and I won\u2019t be training this hard after my competitions have ended. I have more muscle on my body than I have ever had \u2013 it\u2019s taken a lot of effort but I\u2019m proud of myself for turning up every day and training no matter what.<\/p>\n This is a lifestyle change for me, and I hope to still be lifting weights in my 80s. James, however, prefers me to have a bit more meat on my bones. He recently commented, \u2018I\u2019ve never seen you so muscly!\u2019 \u2013 he\u2019s still so proud of what I\u2019ve achieved, though. My children love to tell him: \u2018Mummy\u2019s got bigger muscles than you!\u2019 To be fair, I do.<\/p>\n After major spinal surgery, I built a new body in just 15 minutes a day\u00a0<\/p>\n Cara Metz, 52, lives in Horley, Surrey, with husband Larry, 62, a national account manager for a music licensing company. They have two daughters, aged 28 and 26.<\/p>\n When other women compliment me on my defined back muscles and shapely arms, they\u2019re gobsmacked when I tell them I\u2019ve achieved this with just 15 minutes a day.<\/p>\n Before she started using weights six years ago, Cara Metz weighed 9st, wore a size 10 and\u00a0 described her body as ‘squishy and frail’<\/p>\n In her early career as a professional dancer, Cara did exercise to be thin. Now, she has a strong physique developed through weight lifting, squats and lunges<\/p>\n I\u2019m especially proud of my back, after having major spinal surgery in 2021 to fuse several discs together.<\/p>\n My back problems were caused by my professional dance career, which lasted until I was 21 \u2013 my coach was Strictly\u2019s Shirley Ballas \u2013 along with decades of high-impact cardio, including twice-weekly 10km runs. All the exercise I did was part of a quest to be thin.<\/p>\n My strong physique now is down to lifting heavy weights at home five days a week \u2013 from 5kg to 11kg depending on the exercise. I do things like deadlifts, bicep curls, squats, lunges and tricep extensions.<\/p>\n Before I started using weights six years ago, I weighed 9st, was a dress size 10, and I\u2019d describe my body as squishy and frail. Now it\u2019s strong and lean, I\u2019m a dress size 8 and, at a guess, I weigh 8st 7lbs \u2013 I don\u2019t get on the scales.<\/p>\n My surgeon says my back\u2019s as strong as a 19-year-old man\u2019s, which is worth everything.<\/p>\n It was when I turned 46 and suddenly experienced low mood and libido, brain fog, weight gain, and waking at 3am every night \u2013 hello, perimenopause! \u2013 that I started making changes.<\/p>\n I watched Davina McCall\u2019s documentary on menopause and HRT and out went sugar and processed food; walking became my main cardio with a couple of short HIIT sessions a week.<\/p>\n I was also prescribed HRT and I made weight training my main focus, with my 15-minute regime every day.<\/p>\n Friends asked how I\u2019d achieved such a body transformation and didn\u2019t believe me when I said just a quarter of an hour a day had done the trick.<\/p>\n To prove it, I put a challenge on my personal Facebook page in September 2019 for my friends to do the same for 30 days. Two hundred joined in and I realised I\u2019d happened upon something.<\/p>\n In January 2020, I launched my online fitness business (midlifemayhem.co.uk) and now have 2,000 members from Australia and America to the UK and Europe.<\/p>\n I can\u2019t deny that I am incredibly proud of the body I\u2019ve created, as are Larry and our daughters, who both lift weights and are strong and fit.<\/p>\n Online trolls say I\u2019m too muscular, but I don\u2019t care. Yes, my grandmother lived well into her 90s but I want to live better than previous generations \u2013 and to keep my back and bones healthy.<\/p>\n One friend said she’d never want to look like me \u2013 but I couldn’t care less\u00a0<\/p>\n Jo Burland, 53, is a primary school teacher and lives in London with her husband and two children aged 16 and 15.<\/p>\n To the boy I had a crush on at university, it was just a casual, if cruel, comment. He pointed to to another girl on my course and said to me: \u2018If only you had her body and your own face, you\u2019d be perfect!\u2019<\/p>\n Jo Burland spent decades trying to work out how to look and feel her best through swimming, cycling and, in her 30s and 40s, marathons<\/p>\n Four years ago, when her 50th birthday was approaching, Jo started to realise how important it was to improve her strength and bone density<\/p>\n Now 33 years on, I\u2019ve never forgotten that humiliation of being mocked for being a dress size 14 at the time.<\/p>\n Ever since, I\u2019ve spent decades trying to work out how to look and feel my best: swimming, cycling and, in my 30s and 40s, marathons. Weights and gyms were out of bounds, in case they made me bulky.<\/p>\n Then, four years ago, with my 50th birthday approaching, I started to realise how important it was to improve my strength and bone density.<\/p>\n I tentatively started to lift weights in a local gym and quickly noticed a difference in my shape.<\/p>\n I devoured articles about how PTs eat and work out, learning that, to look a certain way, you need a precise pattern to train your muscles.<\/p>\n Now I go to the gym four or five days a week, training two body parts each time, for example back and biceps, or shoulders and legs.<\/p>\n I can deadlift 100kg and chest press 60kg. I also cycle the 16-mile round trip to the school where I teach every day. In the summer, I train extra hard to get super lean but ease off a little during winter when I live in joggers.<\/p>\n But I love food and the idea of restricting it makes me miserable so I still enjoy my favourite almond croissants and a bar of Fruit & Nut. I never weigh myself but I\u2019m a dress size 10.<\/p>\n I often get women asking me how I\u2019ve got so muscly \u2013 \u2018Wow, look at your arms!\u2019 is a typical comment.<\/p>\n Not that everyone agrees. Recently, I asked a slim but unfit friend if she fancied joining me at the gym, to which she replied: \u2018No thanks, I\u2019d never want to look like you!\u2019<\/p>\n Needless to say, we\u2019re no longer friends.<\/p>\n I think I\u2019m in the best shape of my life.<\/p>\n I turned to weight training after a toxic relationship\u00a0<\/p>\n Jo Francis, 52, an online advertising specialist, lives in Maidstone, Kent, with her 15-year-old son.<\/p>\n Seven years ago, I was bloated, chubby, unhealthy and had zero muscle definition. The four-year relationship I had fallen into after my marriage ended had turned toxic, and I was drinking too much prosecco and not looking after myself.\u00a0<\/p>\n As her four-year relationship turned toxic, Jo Francis weighed around 68kg but, at a petite 5ft 3in, said she didn’t carry weight well and ‘was feeling the pinch’ in her size 12 clothes<\/p>\n Jo likes her bodybuilding coach’s strict approach to training and nutrition\u00a0\u2013 and the increased confidence and clarity the training has brought to her life<\/p>\n I weighed around 68kg but, at a petite 5ft 3in, I don\u2019t carry any weight well and was feeling the pinch in my size 12 clothes. It\u2019s probably the heaviest I\u2019ve ever been other than during pregnancy.<\/p>\n When I broke up with my boyfriend, I signed up to a strict 90-day programme with lots of push-ups, burpees and abdominal exercises, as well as a strict diet which cuts out pasta, cereal, bread, butter, sauces, cheese, lamb, bacon and sausages, amongst other things.<\/p>\n All I\u2019d ever wanted was to be thin, a legacy of growing up in the heroin chic supermodel era. But as I got further into mid-life, I realised this wasn\u2019t sensible, and that the healthiest old ladies aren\u2019t scrawny.<\/p>\n A business acquaintance recommended a bodybuilding coach they said could help me to achieve muscle definition in my lower half.<\/p>\n Three years on, I\u2019m still training with him. While I don\u2019t want to be a professional bodybuilder, I like his strict approach to training and nutrition \u2013 lots of lean protein! \u2013 and the increased confidence and clarity it\u2019s brought to my life.<\/p>\n My body is transformed, with highly defined glutes and quads. Forget Kate Moss; I\u2019d rather have biceps of steel than a thigh gap.<\/p>\n Although I\u2019m allowed two rest days, I choose to train every day, with five focused on strength and the other two on cardio. I leg press 200kg, lift 85kg while doing Romanian deadlifts (which target hamstrings, glutes and lower back) and can carry all my supermarket shopping in one hand. I also do 12,000 steps a day, some on the treadmill and the rest walking my dog.<\/p>\n When I nipped into a luxury beauty shop last week straight after a training session, a staff member in her 20s commented: \u2018My colleague and I were just saying how amazing you look in those gym leggings \u2013 we need to start working on our own bodies!\u2019<\/p>\n Being 52 feels like an admin error. My daughter, who\u2019s 30 and lives in Australia, tells me I\u2019m aspirational, and bodybuilding has been an unexpectedly wonderful way to connect with my teenage son who loves coming to the gym with me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They grew up in an era when to be skinny was the ultimate aspiration \u2013 and there was…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":966739,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[38],"tags":[4740,211,215306,3533,388367,1198,45755,210,14273,1165,161832,67,132,68,32866],"class_list":["post-966738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fitness","tag-australia","tag-dailymail","tag-davina-mccall","tag-femail","tag-femail-mag","tag-fitness","tag-hannah-waddingham","tag-health","tag-jennifer-aniston","tag-lifestyle","tag-lifestylefitnesswellbeing","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-victoria-beckham"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117003201223283694","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=966738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/966739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=966738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=966738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=966738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Leila](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/110317467-16013169-image-m-27_1785320325853.jpg\")
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