# Strength Training and Menopause: What Heavy Lifting Did > Updated: 2026-07-16 · Source: https://dorsi.ai/blog/strength-training-menopause-bone-density Heavy lifting is usually discouraged for women with low bone mass. One trial tested it in 101 postmenopausal women and measured what happened. ![An illustration of a woman lifting a loaded barbell from the floor while another person stands nearby supervising.](/blog/strength-training-menopause-bone-density.webp) Women with low bone mass are usually steered away from heavy lifting, on the reasoning that loading a fragile spine risks fracturing it. The advice is intuitive and it went untested for a long time. In 2018 a group at Griffith University published the trial that tested it. They took postmenopausal women with low bone density and had them lift heavy twice a week for eight months.

Key Takeaways

## The trial [LIFTMOR, published in the *Journal of Bone and Mineral Research*](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28975661/), recruited 101 postmenopausal women with a T-score below -1.0. That threshold spans osteopenia through to osteoporosis, and the paper's title says so directly. Average age was 65. The abstract states participants were screened for conditions and medications that influence bone and physical function, without specifying where each line was drawn, so the eligibility detail is worth reading in the paper itself if it applies to you. They were randomised to one of two programmes for eight months. The training group did supervised high-intensity resistance and impact training twice a week for 30 minutes: five sets of five repetitions at more than 85% of a one-repetition maximum, which is heavy lifting by any standard, plus impact loading. The comparison group did a home-based low-intensity exercise programme. The rationale is a point about bone that gets lost in general exercise advice. Bone responds to high-magnitude strain applied at high rates. Light, comfortable loading does not supply that signal, which is why walking is a poor stimulus for bone even though it is good for many other things. ## What happened Lumbar spine bone mineral density rose 2.9% in the training group and fell 1.2% in the comparison group. Femoral neck density rose 0.3% against a 1.9% fall. Femoral neck cortical thickness increased more in the training group. Every functional performance measure favoured training, including timed up-and-go, five-times sit-to-stand, and back and leg strength. Height moved in opposite directions: the training group gained 0.2 cm on average and the comparison group lost 0.2 cm. Height loss in later life often reflects vertebral compression, though the trial measured height rather than vertebral morphology, so what produced that difference is not established. Compliance was 92% in the training group. Across eight months, one adverse event was reported: a minor lower back spasm that cost two missed sessions out of 70. ## The conditions that came with it The authors are explicit that their conclusion applies under the conditions they created, and those conditions are part of the finding. Every session was supervised by the research team. The trial ran for eight months in 101 women at a single site, and the screening funnel was steep, which tells you the sample was selected rather than typical. The intervention combined heavy resistance training with impact loading. Because both were delivered together and compared against a low-intensity home programme, the trial cannot tell you which component did the work, or how much of the difference came from supervision and from training at all rather than from intensity specifically. What it establishes is narrower than "heavy lifting is safe for osteoporosis" and more useful than the blanket caution it replaced. In this supervised trial, in postmenopausal women whose bone density ranged from osteopenia into osteoporosis, a brief high-intensity programme improved bone density and function, and the anticipated harm did not appear over eight months. One trial reporting one adverse event is encouraging rather than a safety guarantee. ## What changes around menopause The bone question sits inside a broader set of changes, and here the evidence is more observational. A [five-year longitudinal study in *Maturitas*](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31883663/) tracked body composition in women through the perimenopause and beyond. Longitudinal tracking of this kind describes what happens over time in a group; it cannot separate the effect of menopause from the effect of simply getting five years older, and it does not test any intervention. A [2023 trial in *BMC Women's Health*](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10559623/) is more directly useful for training decisions, finding that the body composition response to resistance training in middle-aged women differed by menopausal status. That is a reason to expect your own response to depend on where you are in the transition rather than on your age. ## What to do with this If your bone density is normal, the general case for resistance training applies and is covered in [the companion piece](/blog/strength-training-for-women-over-50). If you have been told you have low bone mass, LIFTMOR is the trial to know about. Its useful contribution is that the harm assumed to follow from heavy loading did not appear in a supervised trial of women in that situation. The operative word is supervised, and the sensible next step is a clinician or a coach who works with bone loss rather than a five-by-five programme taken from an article. The programme itself was short and structurally unremarkable: two sessions, half an hour, heavy sets of five, plus impact work. What stands out is that it was heavy at all, which is the element usually softened out of exercise advice given to women this age. ## References 1. Watson SL, Weeks BK, Weis LJ, Harding AT, Horan SA, Beck BR. [High-Intensity Resistance and Impact Training Improves Bone Mineral Density and Physical Function in Postmenopausal Women With Osteopenia and Osteoporosis: The LIFTMOR Randomized Controlled Trial](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28975661/). *Journal of Bone and Mineral Research*. 2018;33(2):211–220. doi:10.1002/jbmr.3284. 2. Wong JCH, O'Neill S, Beck BR, Forwood MR, Khoo SK. [A 5-year longitudinal study of changes in body composition in women in the perimenopause and beyond](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31883663/). *Maturitas*. 2020;132:49–56. doi:10.1016/j.maturitas.2019.12.001. 3. Isenmann E, Kaluza D, Havers T, Elbeshausen A, Geisler S. [Resistance training alters body composition in middle-aged women depending on menopause](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10559623/). *BMC Women's Health*. 2023;23(1):526. doi:10.1186/s12905-023-02671-y. Free full text.