Share and Follow
If you’re a woman over 50 looking to maximize your workout efficiency, a 12-minute standing exercise routine might be just what you need to burn calories effectively and fit exercise into your busy day.
As women age, particularly after 50, losing fat can become more challenging due to various physiological changes. Starting around age 35, testosterone levels naturally decline, leading to a reduction in muscle mass. Since muscle tissue burns more calories than fat, maintaining muscle mass is crucial for a higher metabolic rate.
Why You Struggle More With Fat Loss After 50
There are many reasons why women over 50 may struggle more to lose fat. Testosterone begins to decline around the age of 35, which contributes to the loss of muscle mass. Muscle burns more calories than fat, thus people with more muscle will burn more calories than someone without as much muscle mass.
As estrogen production begins to decline in the ovaries around the menopause transition, the body stores extra fat around the midsection as a sort of insurance policy to ease the transition in hormone production from the ovaries to the adrenal glands post menopause. If the adrenal glands are already fatigued, it can be more challenging for women to have the energy to exercise. Sleep can also be challenging during hormonal fluctuations, resulting in a lack of interest in exercise.
Additionally, women over 50 are more likely to be affected by previous injuries or have pain from arthritis. This may make them more reluctant to engage in physical activity for fear of re-injury, compensatory injury, or pain.
Why Short Workouts Work
The current best practice for women going through the menopause transition, which occurs around age 51 in the U.S., is to engage in HIIT training 3-4 times per week. The thinking is that because workouts spike cortisol, which is commonly referred to as the belly fat hormone, you want to burn more calories in a shorter amount of time, reducing your cortisol exposure. (It’s important to note that while there is a short-term cortisol spike from participating in a workout, there is an overall reduction of cortisol over time for those who exercise regularly.)
The Complete 12-Minute Routine
For all the exercises below, I would recommend operating at a high-intensity level. This will help you make the most of your workout time. The rate of perceived exertion should be 7-9, meaning it should feel very hard or tiring. You can allow for short periods of rest in between sets.
Squat with Arnold Press
This is a full-body exercise, and it gets multiple muscle groups working. This means that you can expend more energy and tone more muscle groups in a shorter amount of time.
How to do it:
- Engage the core and eliminate the curvature of the lower spine
- Send your hips back as if you were going to sit in a chair
- Simultaneously, lift weights into a bicep curl
- As you return to standing, rotate the weights and extend the arms overhead, squeezing the lats
- Lift as heavy a weight as you can while maintaining proper form and alignment
- Aim for two sets of six to eight repetitions
Mistakes to avoid:
- Be careful to return the spine to neutral as you stand up from the squat position
- Ensure your tailbone is pointing directly down to the floor as you extend the arms overhead if your range of motion allows
- If you cannot extend your arms all the way overhead due to pain or limitations in your range of motion, you can complete the exercise without weights
Curtsy Squat with Dumbbell or Medicine Ball
This is another complex whole-body movement that will increase your overall calorie burn and muscle tone. Taking a deeper curtsy position will increase your overall calorie burn, as will increasing the amount of weight you are carrying.
How to do it:
- Hold a dumbbell lengthwise or a medicine ball in front of your chest
- Send one foot behind you into a curtsy position
- As you step the back foot out to shoulder-width apart, raise the weight overhead
- Repeat on the other side
- Aim for two sets of six to eight repetitions on each side
Mistakes to avoid:
- In the curtsy position, ensure that the back knee is aligned over the back foot to protect the knee joint
- Be careful to maintain a straight spine as you raise the weight over your head
- Ensure that you are lifting only as much as you can control while maintaining proper form
- If you have a limited range of motion or need to modify the exercise, you can always do it without weights
- You can also raise your arms in front of you to shoulder height if you are unable to raise them overhead
Plie Pulses on the Rise
This is another great whole-body exercise that brings the heat. It also requires core stabilization, balance, and coordination. If it is too challenging to incorporate the arm movements first, you can try balancing with your hands on your hips. If you would like more support, you can rest your fingertips on a kitchen counter, the back of a chair, or a barre for added stability.
How to do it:
- Step the feet shoulder-width apart and rotate the legs from the hips out roughly 45 degrees
- Lift the heels so that you are balancing on the balls of your feet
- Gently bend your knees and lower down about six inches or until you feel challenged
- Straighten your knees slightly, raising and lowering the torso two to three inches each time
- For an extra challenge, bring your elbows into your waist, rotate your palms up, and then extend your arms straight out to each side
- Return your elbows to your waist after each repetition
- If you’re feeling strong and balanced, you can even incorporate wrist weights or light hand weights
- Try this exercise for two minutes
Mistakes to avoid:
- Ensure that your knees do not roll inward and that the knee bends in alignment with the foot
- Your feet should also not roll inwards or outwards
- Turnout should never be forced
- The seat should never drop below the knees
Arabesque Taps
This exercise is great for improving core stability and toning the legs. The quads, hamstrings, and glutes are some of the largest muscles in our bodies. This means that they require the most energy to move, so lower-body exercises can be great fat burners.
How to do it:
- Point one foot out behind you as you rest your hands on the kitchen counter, a chair, or the back of the sofa for stability
- Lower your upper body parallel to the floor while engaging and stabilizing through your core
- Externally rotate your leg from the hip and send one leg behind you
- Point your foot and rest the inside of your big toe on the floor
- Bend your standing leg slightly
- Raise your back working leg to or above 90 degrees, then return to the starting position
- Aim to do this exercise for two minutes on each side
Mistakes to avoid:
- Keep a straight leg to help you engage and target the muscles on the outside of the leg
- Make sure to keep your core engaged as you lift and lower the leg
What Results You Can Expect
I would recommend adding this to your routine 3-4 times a week.
Fat loss will be dependent on your unique body, your overall fitness level, what you’re experiencing hormonally, and your overall health. If you’re in a caloric deficit and incorporating this workout into your weekly routine, you should see some fat loss pretty quickly. It’s also important to remember that fat loss is not the same as weight loss because you could be gaining muscle, which weighs more than fat.
Annie Landry, M.A., NASM-CPT, CES, CNC, BCS, VCS, AFAA-CGFI
