Move with Shan

Move with Shan đŸ’ȘđŸŒ Helping women get stronger, more confident
đŸ’„ Simple nutrition for everyday life
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08/09/2026

After a full day of coaching strength training with midlife women, then coming home to cook dinner and sort the kids, sometimes I honestly cannot be bothered to do a workout myself. And that’s ok.

Here’s what I do instead.

I go for a walk. Exercise isn’t just for your muscles and bones, it’s for your head too. And a 30 minute walk beats no movement at all.

I eat like normal. I don’t cut carbs or reduce my food because I skipped the gym.

I make peace with it. I used to feel guilty about missing a session, but one skipped workout doesn’t mean I’ll lose progress. So I pack my gym bag for the following day, pop a ‘gym’ meeting in my calendar, and let it go.

What do you do on the days you can’t be bothered?

If you've searched "midlife strength training plan" more times than you'd like to admit, and closed your phone none the ...
04/09/2026

If you've searched "midlife strength training plan" more times than you'd like to admit, and closed your phone none the wiser, here's one I made earlier! Save it share it but more importantly, let me know how you get on!

02/09/2026

Recently, strength training in midlife is being sold as a miracle anti-aging skincare routine. And while those benefits have been shown in a small 2023 study, they’re not why any of my clients actually keep showing up. Or why you should.

My clients keep showing up because they can carry their own shopping or open tight jar lids without help, because they get off the floor, or can walk for hours on a city break without thinking about it, and because their DEXA scans prove their bones are getting stronger.

Yes, youthful skin, a tighter jawline and achieving that “glow” everyone’s chasing are all bonuses. But the focus should still be making sure you are fully capable and independent, decades from now.

What has strength training actually given you that has nothing to do with how you look?

01/09/2026

Every September midlife women are told the same thing. New season, new you, it’s time for a reset.

So you cut carbs, add sessions you don’t actually enjoy, and set an alarm an hour earlier than you need to, all in the same week. By day ten you’re knackered, not stronger, and you call it a lack of willpower when it was never that.

You don’t need six changes on Monday. You need one you can still be doing in a couple of weeks time.

Tip: choose strength training. That’s it, and everything else can follow when you’re ready.

What’s the one change you’re actually making that you’ll be keeping this September?

27/08/2026

Controversial 
 but: In midlife, showing up and strength training consistently will not make you stronger. Not unless you’re doing two things đŸ‘‡đŸŒ

You need power work, not just steady, controlled reps. And not just for your bones. Fast twitch fibres are what build strength, and they’re the first to go with age if you’re not training them directly.

And you need to progress your training, the same lifts, done slightly harder over time (reps, time under tension, weight, more advanced workouts)

Progression and power work in your 40s are what keep you getting stronger. Consistency is a great first step - but on its own just keeps you where you are.

Are you progressing your strength training, or just repeating it? And do you power train every week?

26/08/2026

Here’s what I told her:

Start your session with strength training and finish with cardio.

Start progressing the same strength training exercises, instead of changing your programme every few weeks.

Start eating enough on training days. Your muscles repair while you rest, and you can’t build strength on too little fuel.

Start showing up, even when life gets busy. A 20 minutes session is better than restarting from zero every few weeks.

Start treating mobility as its own session, not as an afterthought. Without full range of movement, you can’t get stronger.

Out of the five, which one could you start doing today?

25/08/2026

Carbs are not the enemy. The scale is.

Carbs give you the glycogen you need to strength train. Cut them and you won’t have the energy to exercise.

And the scales lie. Because it’s perfectly normal for your weight to fluctuate a little every day, especially if you’ve eaten more salt than usual, or you just need a good poo.

So 
 Team carbs, or team cut the carbs?

This is the boring fat loss advice that no one wants to sell to you. You cannot target fat loss. Not in midlife, not at ...
21/08/2026

This is the boring fat loss advice that no one wants to sell to you. You cannot target fat loss. Not in midlife, not at any stage of life.

What’s the most ridiculous midlife belly fat fix you’ve been sold?

(Mine was lemon juice before coffee in the morning, which caused tooth decay 😭)

19/08/2026

Strength training in midlife gets blamed for bad backs, when it’s usually part of the fix.

And one of the biggest myths midlife women are told is that the deadlift will injure your back.

So a lot of women are either advised to avoid it or they stick to lifting as light as possible.

But a back that’s never been strengthened gets weaker, and a weak back is the one that lets you down when you pick up something heavy in everyday life.

Here’s what the research actually shows. Lifting a weight from the floor works your whole posterior chain, the glutes, hamstrings and the muscles either side of your spine, harder than almost anything else. Load them, and they get stronger.

FACT: You were never too fragile to deadlift. You just weren’t shown how to do it properly.

Would you give it a go if someone showed you how?

18/08/2026

Somewhere along the way, building muscle in midlife turned into a to-do list as long as your arm. Here are 5 things you’re allowed to stop doing, today đŸ‘‡đŸŒ

1. Protein maxxing. You need enough, spread across the day. You don’t need to turn every meal into a numbers game and every snack into a shake.

2. Strength training 5 days a week. Muscle is built in the recovery, not just the session. 3 good sessions will do more than 5 sessions that exhaust you.

3. More than 6 exercises in a session. A long list isn’t a better workout. It’s just a longer one. One of each of the basics, squat, hinge, push, pull, carry, rotate, is all you need.

4. 15 to 20 reps with a light dumbbell. That was sold to you as toning. It isn’t building anything. Pick up something that makes the last few reps so hard, you train to failure.

5. Treating recovery like it’s optional. Rest isn’t a reward. It’s part of your programme. Skip it and it will take a lot longer to build muscle in perimenopause.

Which one have you been doing?

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