“ Our bodies are finely tuned machines, and if our hormones mixtures aren’t “Just Right”, everything goes into disrepair “ Suzanne Somers…
Recently I had a consultation with my nutrition coach James, and he spoke briefly on hormones, which resonated big time with me, and I could tell this was an important topic for him. He feels people need to take care of themselves more to improve the balance… I understand the endocrine system well enough to see the pitfalls that exercise, nutrition, and recovery behaviours can cause and so I decided to write this brief post on it….
In my 20s I exercised regularly and like most got away with a lot of poor lifestyle choices but suddenly in my 30s this changed forcing me to re-consider a few things… Now I’m in my 40s this pattern continues and because I want to remain active and in the best shape I can I’ve became more conscious of my lifestyle but also learning loads from other clients I coach in their 50s and 60s…. The fact is that when we’re in our 30s our bodies change and unless we change with it then our health and efforts to improve fitness and stay in shape are limited at best because our anabolic hormone production decreases with age….
I’m assuming you’re familiar with hormones?… Maybe not so much with their mechanisms and functions but simply put they’re like chemical messengers released by your endocrine glands and transported via the blood towards target tissues (think muscles etc)… Various hormones such as testosterone, growth hormone, oestrogen & thyroxine etc are just a few that facilitate adaptations to exercise like stimulating proteins to build muscle and synthesise enzymes involved in energy production so it makes sense to have more available otherwise making those fitness gains may become disheartening especially as we age…Cortisol is another key hormone but we get over-exposed to this through stress of any kind including exercise and results negatively impact our health and fitness gains…
To combat imbalanced hormone levels, you need to consider how to improve within three key areas of exercise, nutrition & recovery that the info graph below highlights… Within exercise, research has reported strength training alone can increase secretion of anabolic hormones such as testosterone, growth hormone & insulin-like growth factor that helps build & repair muscle but with poor nutrition & recovery practices gains expected will be limited and with age creeping up we should consider these a bit more…
The adaptations that we train for occur after exercise during recovery like when we sleep, for example growth hormone is released, amongst others but if we lack sleep then this again is limited… This is a massive problem I see in clients and have experienced myself when training my ass off grinding it out in the gym but when outside the gym I haven’t changed many of the lifestyle habits I had in my 20s and early 30s like staying up late at night watching TV or scrolling the phone to name only a few…
One thing to really impact hormone balance would be strength training. The anabolic effects that help build and maintain a healthier metabolism is most definitely supported by plenty of research… Secondly look at nutrition, make sure your eating enough calories, as it’s well documented if you restrict calories particularly whilst training intensely or for prolonged periods then simply put you don’t have enough nutrients available to produce sufficient levels of hormones that fully support your training and your health in general… Eating a less processed diet would help also…Thirdly, just get more sleep and general rest and implement recovery protocols such as stretching, mobility, sauna, ice bath, meditation and various stress reduction practices…
Females would particularly benefit from exercise at any stage of life with fluctuations in oestrogen & progesterone happening at different times especially within the menopausal periods… It would be wise however to begin strength training early in life to reduce the impact these changes have on women later in life such as maintaining bone density, muscle mass & reducing body fat…
To summarise, we really shouldn’t leave it till later in life to begin strength training or any exercise but equally if we consider a better balance as shown in the info graph between the main three, exercise, nutrition & recovery then our hormones stand a greater chance to flourish especially during periods in the absence of one of the three…
Keep active and have a great week
Andy
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