Resistance training may lower blood pressure and resting heart rate after menopause, extending its potential benefits beyond muscle and bone.
Resistance training is usually framed as protection against muscle and bone loss after menopause.
Its benefits may also reach cardiovascular regulation for women experiencing the vascular and autonomic effects associated with the hormonal transition of menopause.
A systematic review examined 60 studies involving 1,931 women ages 52 to 78, including 45 randomized trials. Most programs used two or three sessions per week for eight to 24 weeks at roughly 50% to 80% of one-repetition maximum.
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Compared with no exercise:
- Resistance training produced small standardized improvements in resting heart rate and diastolic blood pressure and moderate improvements in systolic and mean blood pressure. These were relative effect sizes, not absolute changes in millimeters of mercury.
- Several nonpooled studies suggested modest improvements in vascular function and heart rate variability, but only three assessed cardiac structure.
One thing the authors pointed out in this review is that every randomized trial was rated at high risk of bias. Menopause status was clearly reported in only one-third of the studies, while medication use, adherence, and adverse events were often poorly documented. The review also did not assess heart attacks, strokes, or cardiovascular mortality, leaving the clinical magnitude and an optimal prescription unresolved.
Taken together, the findings suggest that resistance training's benefits after menopause may extend beyond the tissues it mechanically loads. They point to blood-pressure and autonomic regulation as plausible parts of that benefit, while leaving its clinical magnitude unresolved. Learn more about resistance training in this episode featuring muscle physiology expert Dr. Brad Schoenfeld.