A few weeks ago, my friends and I—women ranging from our mid-thirties to mid-forties—all started weight lifting.
This is for several reasons. In general, strength training and functional fitness are more popular. But also, women between the ages of 30 and 50 lose about 3 to 8 percent of their muscle mass per year, and the drop in estrogen that happens during menopause can accelerate this. I no longer care about bulking up; I just don’t want to collapse in a rickety bag of bones when I’m 50. Lastly, I’m not saying that my sudden desire to be able to, say, fireman’s carry a body across state lines has anything to do with the results of the US presidential election. Then again, I’m not saying it doesn’t.