The Strongest Women I Know Aren’t 25.

There is a strange message women receive as they get older.

Slow down. Be careful. Accept that your best years are behind you. Exercise—but don't overdo it. Lift weights—but nothing too heavy.

And somewhere along the way, the goal quietly changes from becoming stronger to simply trying not to lose too much.

I don't buy it.

Some of the strongest women I've known aren't 25 years old. They're 45. 55. 65. Some are even older.

They have careers, children, grandchildren, mortgages, aging parents, injuries, responsibilities, stress, and calendars that rarely cooperate. They don't train because they're trying to become fitness influencers.

They train because they've discovered something far more valuable:

We Have Spent Too Much Time Teaching Women to Become Smaller

Think about the language traditionally used to market fitness to women: lose weight, burn calories, flatten your stomach, drop a dress size, get toned, shrink this, reduce that.

Women have spent decades being sold exercise primarily as a way to occupy less physical space.

I think we've aimed at the wrong target.

I'm far more interested in what a woman can do. Can you pick something heavy off the floor? Carry groceries without struggling? Climb stairs without getting winded? Get yourself off the ground? Move furniture? Handle your own luggage? Hike? Play with your grandchildren? Push, pull, carry, squat, climb and move confidently?

And ten or twenty years from now, will you still be able to?

Those questions matter a hell of a lot more to me than whether the scale says 142 or 147.

Muscle Changes Meaning as You Get Older

At 25, muscle might be something you want because you like how it looks. Later in life, muscle becomes something else entirely.

It's physical reserve.

It's part of what allows you to continue doing things for yourself. Aging is associated with losses in muscle mass and strength, but resistance training can meaningfully improve strength and physical function in middle-aged and older women. A systematic review examining women ages 45–80 found resistance training improved strength and functional fitness.

And the ability to improve doesn't suddenly disappear when you reach some imaginary age limit. Research in adults 75 and older has found significant strength improvements from resistance training, including among people over 80.

So when a healthy 48-year-old woman tells me she's worried she's “too old to start lifting,” I don't see an old woman. I see someone who potentially has decades of life ahead of her and an enormous opportunity to influence what those decades feel like.

Menopause Doesn't Cancel Your Membership in the Weight Room

Perimenopause and menopause are real transitions. Hormonal changes can affect body composition, bone health, recovery and other aspects of health. Pretending those changes don't exist isn't empowering.

But neither is treating them like a surrender notice.

This is exactly when strength training deserves serious attention. Bone health is one reason. A 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized trials in postmenopausal women found resistance training improved bone mineral density at the lumbar spine, femoral neck and total hip.

The exact prescription still depends on the individual. Training history matters. Injuries matter. Medical conditions matter. Recovery matters. Experience matters.

“I Don't Want to Get Bulky.”

I've heard this one more times than I could possibly count—usually from a woman who hasn't touched a challenging barbell yet.

Building significant muscle is difficult. It takes consistent training, adequate nutrition, progressive overload, recovery and time. You're not going to accidentally wake up looking like a competitive bodybuilder because you started deadlifting twice a week.

What you might notice is something much more useful. Your legs become stronger. Your shoulders develop. Your posture changes. Things that used to feel heavy stop feeling heavy. Your body composition may change. You begin seeing muscle where you previously saw weakness.

And suddenly the conversation changes. Instead of asking, “How much weight did I lose?” you start asking, “How much weight can I move?”

The Scale Can't Measure Capability

A woman trains for three months. She's lifting more. Her conditioning improves. Her clothes fit differently. She feels stronger. She moves better. Then she steps on the scale. It hasn't changed much. And somehow she thinks she failed.

That's insanity.

Body weight is one measurement. That's all. It doesn't tell me whether you can deadlift 50 pounds more than you could six months ago. It doesn't tell me whether you can perform ten good push-ups when you couldn't do one. It doesn't tell me whether you can carry two heavy kettlebells across the gym.

Research in middle-aged and older women has found resistance-based training can improve strength and cardiorespiratory fitness alongside favorable body-composition changes.

There are many useful things we can measure. Your gravitational relationship with the bathroom floor doesn't have to be the most important one.

You Are Not Too Old to Get Stronger

Here's another myth I'd like buried: “I wish I had started when I was younger.”

Sure. Starting earlier would have been great. Know what would be even worse? Saying the same thing ten years from now.

Research comparing resistance-training adaptations in adults over 50 found that older women made substantial relative strength gains; in that analysis, women gained more relative lower-body strength than men, although men generally gained more absolute strength and muscle size.

So stop asking whether you missed your chance. You didn't. Your starting point is your starting point. Start there.

Strength Training Doesn't Mean Destroying Yourself

I'm telling women to get stronger. I'm not telling every woman to walk into a gym tomorrow and attempt a one-rep-max deadlift.

Hard training and stupid training are not the same thing.

Good strength training is progressive. You learn the movement. Establish control. Gradually increase resistance. Train consistently. Recover. Then repeat the process.

Sometimes you push. Sometimes you back off. Sometimes the win is adding weight. Sometimes it's another repetition. Sometimes it's moving the same weight better. Sometimes it's simply showing up during a week when life tried everything it could to keep you away.

You Don't Need “Women's Weights”

I have nothing against light dumbbells. They are tools. So are heavy dumbbells. Barbells are tools. Kettlebells are tools. Machines are tools. Sleds are tools. Sandbags are tools. Farmer walks are tools.

Your body doesn't know whether something came from the “women's section.” It understands resistance.

The resistance needs to be appropriate for the person and the exercise. Sometimes that's five pounds. Sometimes it's fifty. Sometimes it's considerably more. The important part is that as you adapt, the training progresses.

And Yes—Women Should Carry Heavy Things

Anyone who has spent time around Gorilla Strong knows I have a soft spot for loaded carries.

There's a reason. They are brutally simple. Pick something up. Don't drop it. Move.

Farmer walks challenge grip, trunk strength, posture and the ability to produce force while moving under load. But I like them for another reason too: they feel real.

There's something different about watching a woman who once doubted whether she belonged in a strength gym grab two heavy handles and walk confidently across the floor.

No complicated choreography. No pretending. Just capability.

The Gym Starts Changing the Way You See Yourself

This part is harder to quantify in a laboratory. But coaches see it.

I've seen women walk into gyms unsure of themselves. They apologize for being weak. They tell me everything they can't do. They worry everyone is watching them.

Then they train. Weeks become months. Something happens.

The language changes. “I can't do that” becomes: “How many?”

They start loading their own bar. They grab heavier dumbbells without asking permission. They stop looking around to see whether somebody thinks they belong. Eventually, they're encouraging the new woman who walked through the door feeling exactly like they once did.

Taking Care of Yourself Isn't Selfish

I've coached enough people to recognize the pattern. Everybody else's needs come first. Children. Spouse. Career. Parents. House. Appointments. Deadlines. Emergencies. Then, somewhere at the very bottom of the list: you.

If there's time.

And strangely, there never seems to be time.

You are not an unlimited resource. Taking care of your strength, health and physical capacity isn't stealing something from your family. It may be one of the most valuable things you can do for the people who depend on you.

You don't need two hours a day. You don't need seven workouts a week. You don't need fitness to consume your life. But you do need to stop treating your body like something you'll take care of after everything else is finished.

Everything else is never finished. Put yourself on the damn calendar.

What Should a Strong Woman Actually Train?

It doesn't have to be complicated. A good program should generally develop the major patterns and abilities your life requires:

Build your legs. Build your hips. Build your back. Build your shoulders. Build your grip. Train your trunk. Maintain cardiovascular fitness. Walk. Recover. Eat enough quality food and protein to support what you're asking your body to do. Sleep. Then come back and do it again.

The exact exercises will change depending on the individual. A 42-year-old experienced lifter and a 67-year-old beginner shouldn't necessarily receive identical programs. But both can train toward the same larger goal: become stronger than you are today.

Stop Comparing Yourself to 25-Year-Old You

Maybe at 25 you weighed less. Maybe you recovered faster. Maybe you could stay up until 2 AM, eat garbage, sleep five hours and somehow function the next day.

Congratulations. You were 25.

You're not supposed to spend the rest of your life trying to recreate her.

Maybe the woman you're building now has something she didn't have: discipline, patience, perspective, resources, consistency, a better understanding of herself, and perhaps—for the first time—a reason to train that has absolutely nothing to do with trying to impress somebody else.

Don't spend 50 trying to become 25 again.

Build the strongest 50-year-old version of yourself you can. Then build the strongest 51-year-old. Then 52. Keep going.

What I Want for the Women at Gorilla Strong

I don't want you dependent on me forever. That's not successful coaching.

I want you learning. I want you understanding your body. I want you knowing how to lift. I want you recognizing the difference between discomfort and injury. I want you capable of walking into a weight room anywhere in the world and knowing you belong there.

I want you carrying your own bags. Getting yourself off the floor. Playing with your grandchildren. Traveling. Working. Hiking. Living.

And yes, I want you picking up heavy shit sometimes simply because you still can.

Because one day you'll realize this was never just about training.

We were building options.

The Strongest Woman You Know May Still Be Ahead of You

Maybe you're 40 and haven't trained seriously since college. Start.

Maybe you're 50 and menopause has changed the way your body feels. Adapt and keep going.

Maybe you're 60 and you've never touched a barbell. Learn.

Maybe you're 70 and you're wondering whether there's any point now. There is.

You don't need to become the strongest woman in the gym. You don't need to compete. You don't need to look like anybody else. You simply need to refuse the idea that aging automatically means surrendering your strength.

And I'd like you to meet her.