Our fitness expert, Ollie Thompson, explains why it’s essential.
When most people hear the words ‘strength training’, they picture something that isn’t for them - the idea of bodybuilders, loud gyms, and sore muscles. But the strength training I’m talking about doesn’t really look like this.
What it does for your long-term health, your ability to function well, move freely, and live independently as you get older - is something I wish more people understood. In this month’s column, I break down why it matters, and what you can do about it.
From our mid-30s onwards, we begin to lose muscle mass gradually - a process called sarcopenia. Without any active effort to counteract this, the average person loses somewhere between 3 and 8 per cent of their total muscle per decade, and that rate accelerates after 60. On its own that might not sound dramatic, but the knock-on effects are significant and wide-reaching.
It’s not really about how your body looks or feels in the mirror. It’s about your quality of life and the things you can physically still do as you get older. The things you enjoy - walking the dog, playing with grandchildren, a round of golf, tending to the garden - all require a baseline of strength and physical capability that quietly erodes if we don’t actively protect it.
We’ve all witnessed declining physical function in someone older than us at some point, and most of us have had that same thought - “I really hope that isn’t me one day.” The uncomfortable truth is that without the right habits in place, that decline is the default. The reassuring truth is that it doesn’t have to be.
And it goes deeper than movement and physical capability. Healthy, well-maintained muscle tissue is one of the most important organs in the body - and most people don’t think of it that way at all.
Muscle plays a central role in regulating blood sugar, it’s the primary place your body stores and uses glucose, which is why people with more muscle mass tend to have significantly better insulin sensitivity and a much lower risk of type 2 diabetes.
It supports a healthier metabolism, helps regulate blood pressure, and reduces systemic inflammation - the kind of low-grade, chronic inflammation that sits quietly in the background and drives many of the most serious long-term diseases. Put simply, the quality and health of your muscle tissue has a profound influence on how well your entire body functions, far beyond anything visible on the outside.
It’s also worth briefly addressing a common belief - that metabolism takes a sharp nosedive through midlife, making everything harder. Recent research tells a different story. Metabolic rate actually remains relatively stable from your 20s through to around 60. What does change is muscle mass - and since muscle is a fairly metabolically active tissue, losing it slows the metabolism. The issue isn’t age, it’s inactivity.
Why weight training is the answer
It directly counters muscle and strength loss by giving your muscles a reason to stay strong and healthy. It improves insulin sensitivity and blood sugar regulation, increases your metabolism, boosts brain health and helps regulate hormones. It strengthens the connective tissue around your joints, reducing the risk of injury. It’s one of the most effective tools available for improving bone density - particularly important for women going through and beyond the menopause, where the risk of osteoporosis increases significantly. And the research on strength training and fall prevention in older adults is about as compelling as it gets - stronger healthier muscles mean better balance, better coordination, and a body that’s not only far more capable of catching itself when you trip, but also less likely to fracture if you do fall.
I’ve worked with plenty of clients in their 50s and 60s who came to me having never lifted a weight in their lives, and within a matter of months the changes go far beyond what they expected.
Everyday tasks that used to feel like an effort suddenly don’t. One client recently told me that for the first time in years she could take her elderly dog out on her own, because she felt confident that if she needed to carry her, she now was capable of doing so.
What it actually looks like in practice
Two weight workouts a week is enough to see meaningful results. Not two hours - two sessions, each one could be as short as 30 minutes. Done consistently over months and years, that modest commitment produces genuinely significant changes to your muscle mass, your strength, your bone density, your balance, and your overall health. You certainly don’t need to be in the gym five days a week to benefit from strength training - you just need to be doing it regularly and with some degree of effort and intention.
In terms of what those sessions look like - the most effective exercises for this stage of life are the ones that mimic the movements you actually use day to day. Squatting, hinging forward, pushing, pulling and carrying. These are the fundamental movement patterns that keep your body functional and capable, and they can be trained with a set of dumbbells at home, resistance bands, or in a gym environment.
For strength training to produce the adaptations we’ve talked about, it needs to be challenging. Not painful, not extreme, but genuinely effortful. If every session feels completely comfortable and easy, your body has no reason to change. Gradually increasing the challenge over time - whether that’s adding a little more weight, doing a few more repetitions, or simply moving with better control - is what drives progress.
Practical takeaways:
Aim for two resistance training sessions per week as your starting point
Each session can be as short as 30 minutes
Focus on movements that mirror everyday life - squatting, hinging, pushing, pulling
Start light, focus on technique, and build gradually over time
Bodyweight, dumbbells, resistance bands or a gym - all can work.
The bottom line
Strength training isn’t about vanity, and it isn’t about the gym culture that puts so many people off. It’s about building a body that works well, feels good, and keeps doing the things you love for as long as possible.
The research is clear - the people who maintain their strength and muscle mass as they age are the ones who stay independent, stay mobile, and stay healthy for longer. It is, in my opinion, the single most impactful thing you can do for your long-term quality of life. And unlike so many aspects of how we age, it’s almost entirely within your control.
Cambridge-based Ollie Thompson specialises in helping career-focused professionals get into great shape, build long-term health and perform better in their work. Ollie offers both in-person and virtual personal training. Visit welltolead.com and follow Ollie on Instagram @olliethompsonhealth for more.