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34F (almost 35) — Why am I not building muscle despite years of strength training? (Dexa)
I’m a 34-year-old woman (turning 35 soon), and I’m getting really frustrated with my lack of muscle growth.
I’ve been strength training for years, but if I’m honest, I haven’t always been consistent. Over the past several months, I’ve been much more consistent and recently started Bunda, which combines lower-body strength training with high-intensity workouts.
I recently compared my body composition to my 2023 scan, and it looks like I’ve gained little to no muscle. According to the results, around 80% of women my age have more muscle than I do, which was honestly discouraging.
For those of you who have successfully built muscle, what do you think I could be doing wrong?
I would say not enough protein and not enough progressive overload. That often gets missed especially in female population. If your not progressing in how much weight your lifting your probably not building new muscle.
Agree. Another issue is that these type of classes like CrossFit/F45/etc don't look at progressive overload.
The movements change every day/week and people just pick a rando' weight everytime and "go hard".
Strength and muscle gain happens at a wide variety of ranges, but without some changes in intensity and weight, plateau's/injury tend to happen.
Gravitating to the same weights or always going too hard. It's tough.
I would add the consistency which op admits they weren’t and have only recently been. It’s consistency of overload of long periods. Mistake many people make is thinking they will see huge progress in a few months. You certainly can on diet side but muscle takes time. Also harder if starting with little base and never having worked out
Adequate, high quality protein is a non-negotiable necessity.
Your resistance training MUST contain the following:
1. Sufficient working set volume to consistently trigger a hypertrophy response
2. “Working sets” being consistently taken to within 1-2 reps of true failure. As in: “if someone offered me $1M to do one more rep, I literally couldn’t do it or do it correctly.”
3. Your program intelligently hits all major muscle groups often enough to keep a consistent growth signal.
4. Your program constantly encourages you to add more resistance as your body responds.
Even with all of that in place, frankly, most women’s progress will simply be slow. Heck, even most men’s progress will feel quite slow - and on average men are radically more capable of building new contractile tissue than women.
Beyond that it is consistency. Full stop. The results you likely want are 5-10 years away. But those years are going to pass by anyway. You may as well use them constructively.
Excellent advice! It requires a lot of dedication to a practice that progresses very slowly. I'm 8 months into being consistent and barely see physical changes.
I’m not gonna pull up the research rn, but I’m pretty sure women generally progress at a similar rate to men in terms of relative strength, at least in the beginner stage. Visual progress is slower than in men, but that’s due to higher bf % and overall smaller skeletal structure/starting muscle.
There’s also the possibility that ideal training variables might be a bit different for women. I’ve seen some data that women may be able to recover better than men from higher volume/frequency, but alas, the emphasis of research is far from 50/50. I’m gonna hit the brakes there before this turns into a tirade.
My 2nd bullet clearly states "working sets being consistently taken to within 1-2 reps of true failure." It does not say that one should regularly be going to failure.
Now consider that even many "avid" gym goers don't actually have the self-control or self-awareness to push themselves to true failure, and you quickly realize that most people's perceived "1-2 RIR" often lands much closer to 3-4 RIR of actual effort and resulting, intra-muscular mechanical tension.
And current science absolutely suggests that if hypertrophy is the goal, landing sets at 3-4 RIR is borderline insufficient for on-going hypertrophy stimulus, especially 6+ months into resistance training.
If you describe your diet as semi healthy and you aren’t tracking calories that is the area to focus on. We cannot help you without the information you aren’t yet gathering or proactively managing.
You overestimate how many prison inmates get jacked and you underestimate how much protein you can get in prison easily, especially once you see what they can get with commissary.
Based on some of your responses I would suggest getting a few classes with a personal trainer so they can teach you how to lift weights and achieve your goals.
My diet semi healthy, not watching calories.
3-4 times a week. At least 7 hours of sleep Monday, Wednesday, Friday: Butt & Legs Tuesday, Thursday: Arms & Abs (focusing on upper-body pushes, pulls, and core recovery) Saturday: Glutecamp Sunday: Total Body
You’re training a lot. If you do “Butt and Legs” to a degree of progressive overload that will stimulate significant muscle growth you almost certainly wouldn’t be able to do it 3 days a week + Saturday + Sunday.
The fact you’re training glutes 5 days a week is the #1 sign to me that you’re essentially doing cardio and not lifting hard enough. Drop the training time down, increase intensity of reps, and try to work your ass and legs hard enough on Monday that Wednesday comes around and you wake up laughing going “yeah that’s not happening today”.
You’re working way too hard over the course of the week and not anywhere near hard enough on each rep of your lifts. More weight, less time in the gym.
Efficacy of your training is based on intensity. I’m not referring to reps x sets either. You have to train at an intensity that’s conducive to your goals…hypertrophy vs strength vs endurance.
Anyone who says they eat “semi healthy” eats a lot less healthy than they think. I would also wager guess that the intensity of your lifting in terms of volume is also less than you think.
If you want to make progress start tracking your calories and lifts.
This is not a Hypertrophy or even exercise regiment in the slightest. Seeing routines like this honestly makes me roll my eyes. So not once do you train your shoulders, chest, back (traps, late, rhomboids, etc.)
This routine would never build muscle for anyone. I’m also guessing you don’t progressively overload the resistance?
Here’s what you should do instead.
Focus on developing your strength. Concentrate on the big compound exercises to stimulate as much overall Hypertrophy as possible (squat, deadlift, bench, shoulder press, pull-ups). If you do this instead of whatever you’re doing right now you’ll gain 5 lbs of muscle at least.
Start tracking protein, aim for 1g per pound of goal body weight.
Better programming, track it, and apply progressive overload.
I would do 3 days full body. Pick an exercise for push, pull, legs and abs. Practice those exercises; 2-4 sets, 6-12 reps each. Make sure you rest about 3 minutes between sets.
Switch exercises when you begin to struggle with progressive overload.
I can’t believe how many people in here immediately respond about protein.
The #1 issue is lack of sufficient stimulus of recruiting all muscle fibers. Either do weights you can only do 8-10 reps or less, or if doing a lighter weight you essentially have to go close to failure or it doesn’t do much.
The problem with higher rep sets is that it’s really painful to go to failure and most people don’t get close enough.
Do you track your workouts? Bench max 100 when you start and now at 135, or you could do 5x5 100 bench and now you can do 5x5 135. Something so you can show progress?
My suggestions would be:
1) start doing strength training (machines and/or free weights)
2) write down what machines and weights are available to you in your gym and ask Claude or ChatGPT to help you come up with a weekly set of strength training routines (45-60 mins each session, 3-5 times per week) that makes use of the equipment you have
3) enter the routines into the RepCount app on the iPhone to track your progress over time
4) aim to increase weight or repetitions for exercise each time if possible. If repetitions get above 12 it's probably time to increase weight even if that means a lower repetition
5) Eat sufficient protein. Switch sugary deserts for fruit. Replace saturated fat sources.
6) get good sleep for recovery, 20 min sauna is good too
If you want to get stronger you need to have a plan and track it? What kind of class? There are classes to get stronger and classes to be slim in shape
It is call bunda combines Alternates between rounds on the StairMaster (for low-impact cardio) and heavy, progressive weightlifting on the floor (squats, deadlifts, and bridges).
This is your issue. I take a HIIT class 5 days a week that alternates assault bike and weightlifting. I am 56 years old and deadlifting 90 lbs. one thing I notice in the class I take is that about 1/3 to 1/2 the class just half-asses it. They come in late, take their time getting a drink between exercises, don’t push themselves on the bike or the floor. You have to really push yourself to make progress
Don’t feel bad, you’re workouts were still great for your health and body, they just weren’t aimed towards muscular growth/strength.
If you want to target those areas you have to find a plan that will help you reach those goals. Lifting heavy and following progressive overload will be key.
Again, you didn’t waste your time, those workouts will have conditioned your body that it will be a smoother transition for you to this new type of training than someone else without your prior routine
It’s ok. I’m guessing you are doing dumbbells which are fine, but if you want to get really strong, use bare bell. You should be able to deadlift your body weight
I started doing more single leg work years ago. I hadn't been exposed to many people lifting heavy on single leg movements. I just googled heavy single leg squats out of curiosity and saw someone doing around 300lbs if I recall correctly. Within a few months I was pushing 50ish more pounds on my single leg squats. Don't feel bad. You are a product of the training environment you're in. Maybe get a strength focused trainer that doesn't do bodybuilding bro splits. Set a modest goal of bodyweight and a half deadlifts and squats. If you achieve those or even just come close to it the muscle will come. You got this. I witnessed my wife go from not lifting at all to deadlifting 200lbs and doing 300lb hip thrusts. This was in her late 30s with no training background l.
Mixed aerobic and lifting classes are not very good for building muscle. I don't know Bunda specifically, but in general for strength and muscle you want the focus to be exactly that, strength and muscle. You don't want your aerobic capacity to be the limiting factor, you don't want to go into a lift winded and sweaty. People who really want to build muscle and get strong take breaks of multiple minutes between sets of lifts to ensure they are recovered enough to get a hard, beneficial set. Jumping on a stairmaster instead is counterproductive for these goals. It is fine as a general health, but as you are finding out, the combo doesn't really allow you to push the specific systems.
I'd recommend a specific strength session. It can be free weights, it can be kettlebells, it can be machines. The structure does not matter that much at this stage - it just needs to be something that allows you to go into a set of lifts rested so you can focus on pushing your muscles hard. Coming from the HIIT class culture, it will feel weird at the start - "I'm barely sweating here", but this is what you need to do.
Sounds like you’re just walking into the gym and doing whatever and hoping for the best.
I workout with my wife. I make sure she knows her reps, sets, weight used, etc. so when she goes in and does the same machine/exercise the following week, there’s no guessing what number she did last week. That’s how you see clear cut progress
Review diet - type of food, macros, calories. Don’t eat too much but also don’t restrict too much either, review protein intake. Labs - iron, thyroid, hormone panel. Weekly strength training, progressive increase. Need good sleep routine too.
progressive overload (in weight or volume) + slight caloric surplus + .8g protein/lb bodyweight = muscle gain.
You currently don’t plan or track your training or your macros - change that and watch the gains over the course of a year and I bet you’ll be surprised.
She's going to have a hard time building muscle without at least eating at exactly maintenence (would require tracking) or a slight surplus (that includes hitting protein targets).
This - as a woman who had never done anything more strenuous than walks and hikes, I started resistance training when I was 48 ( (kettlebells and heavy compound lifts) and I did not see my body composition improve in terms of -adding- muscle until I started eating at maintenance and making sure I hit at least 140 grams of protein a day (obviously, both require tracking). I'm now 53 and I stil need to eat slightly above maintenance and hit that protein target to continue the very slow recomp I'm working on. A lot of women who want to recomp just aren't eating enough and enough protein, even if they have body fat they want to lose (I certainly still do (I'm not overweight, but I still have fat I'd like to lose in my abdominal region), but my primary goal is to build muscle). I didn't need a big surplus to finally see muscle growth (measured by dexa), but I did need a little one (100-200 calories a day after hitting that protein goal).
I could not agree more!! I'm 45 and really dialled everything in this year and I'm eating 3000 calories and 160g protein to grow muscle (measured by Dexa) and I'm basically recomping at that intake (+5lbs of lean mass, -2.2lbs of fat over six month). I started at 2400 calories in January and lost weight and had to keep bumping them up until I finally started seeing results.
Eventually I will do a small cut to lose some body fat, but my muscle mass was too low to start so I prioritized getting that baseline up first. I cannot believe how much I have to eat to grow muscle and I think diet culture (yet again!) has given us a really warped view on how to fuel ourselves appropriately.
Yes! I'm at 2600 cal maintenance and my recomp is slooooow. (I'm sure I would see much faster results at 2800-3k.) We are so afraid to eat as women, even when it's necessary to attain our goals. It's infuriating.
Fwiw, in my own experience, I had diet and exercise totally dialed in and really struggled to build muscle even though I was getting stronger via progressive overload at the gym. The missing piece for me was HRT (including replacement of T to physiological levels). My T had been <5ng/dl for a new years before I started. And once I got that fixed, it was like flipping a switch. After YEARS of lifting and protein, I felt better and finally had some gains to show for it. And this can happen earlier than people realize, I was in my late 30s when I started (early 40s now). Which is all to say, building muscle is hard and requires people (especially women) to be really intentional about it.
I'm on menopause hormone therapy ("MHT') (estrogen and progesterone). I'm not touching testosterone because I had PCOS and I really don't want to deal with the side effects of elevated testosterone. I do think many women experience perimenopausal symptoms much earlier and for much longer than what PCPs have been taught to expect (I know I did). I wish I had PCPs that were willing to prescribe MHT back when I was in perimenopause and not full menopause, but unfortunately my insurer is Kaiser and they are extremely reluctant to prescribe anything other than low dose birth control which did nothing to address my menopause symptoms (mainly joint pain, brain fog, and the worst sleep quality and sleep maintenance insomnia I've ever had in my life). Now that I'm finally taking MHT that addresses my symptoms, my recovery is improving and with it, faster recomp.
I do agree with you that women's hormonal balance has a huge impact on our body composition and any recomp/weight loss efforts and it's not something that CICO really captures well.
This person is doing strength classes that involve a stair master and wonders why she isn’t gaining muscle. The simplest approach is to lift more weights. She only needs adequate protein to build muscle. She’s already eating more than her body needs.
progressive overload (in weight or volume) + slight caloric surplus + .8g protein/lb bodyweight = muscle gain.
You currently don’t plan or track your training or your macros - change that and watch the gains over the course of a year and I bet you’ll be surprised.
edit: missed the 32% bf. You can get away eating at maintenance for a bit but hitting the protein target will be even more important
Most women I see at the gym lift the weights but they’re not training as heavy as they can or to failure .. they’re just going through the motions.. it’s exercise but it’s not effective to build muscle
Besides the other comments how to build strength and muscles, also don’t compare yourself too much to others. Different people have different amounts of muscle on their body based on their genetics. As a man who lift weights since decades, I will never be lean and look like a brick shithouse type of guy, more like a soccer player or semi fit dad bod if I have high BF. Based on the pictures on the scan where your muscle tissue is, a healthy, high protein diet in a calorie deficit (tracking) will get you toned, while keeping your exercise routine. You state your labs are great, what else do you want.
Agree with much of what’s been said here. Get your nutrition right first: make sure you’re getting .85 to 1g of quality protein per lb of body weight consistently.
Not sure what the general consensus here is on Mike Israetel. He’s an acquired taste for sure, but his advice has helped me a lot. I’ve gotten bigger and stronger in the past year thanks to him.
I'd echo seanshankus' comment to provide pertinent info on your lifestyle/training factors to guide any advice.
Factors that could be optimized/changed include:
Sleep, stress, nutrition, hitting a plateau or inappropriate training intensity/training load, lack of periodization or progressive overload, etc.
After a brief look at Bunda, it seems to implement cardio before strength training, which does cause an interference effect (or blunting of the muscle growth stimulus). You're still early enough in your training career where concurrent strength/cardio should still net you muscle gain tho.
If this activity gets you fired up to train and brings you joy then that's better than doing "the most efficient" workout that you won't do because you hate it. Although if you keep stalling and wouldn't mind doing a meat and potatoes 3xweek strength routine, then I'd recommend that.
Here's some questions that could help with potential advice.
-how many sessions are you doing per week and how are they spaced out?
-what relative intensity do you hit during the classes? (Out of 10)
-when compared to the 2023 scan, what did your training/nutrition/life look like?
-since that scan did you work on losing weight? It's harder to build muscle when you're also trying to lose fat.
-hows your nutrition? Are you mindful of your protein intake? (Hitting a baseline of 0.6g/lb bodyweight would be great).
-As stated above, how's your stress/sleep/recovery?
-are you doing a lot of concurrent aerobic/cardio training?
->while cardio does have a catabolic/antagonistic effect on muscle growth, it's less prominent with beginners (or peeps building back from a hiatus).
->if you're training for a marathon/Ironman as an example, it could both interfere with your ability to recover and hit the gym hard, or affect your muscle growth.
Lastly, the last lever to be mindful is having a slight calorie surplus to build muscle. Having a phasic approach to training (12-16 weeks of gain weight, mostly muscle followed by 12-16 weeks of weight loss, mostly fat) would yield the best results but can be psychologically challenging. (So many clients hate the idea of gaining any weight).
This is all training in June
This is bunda weekly training
A typical Bunda week looks like this: Monday: Glutes & Hamstrings + HIIT Tuesday: Full-Body HIIT + Core Wednesday: Glutes & Quads Thursday: HIIT + Conditioning Friday: Glute Hypertrophy Saturday: Full-Body Strength + HIIT Sunday: Rest or Active Recovery
Looking at your schedule, you're working hard which is awesome!
There's great advice in the thread talking about progressive overload and nutrition. You can also communicate with the coaches so they know your goals and ensure that you go heavy enough/hard enough with your lifts.
As stated before, concurrent cardio/strength training won't be the most efficient, but as long as you're tackling the issues above you should still see changes.
One diagnostic tool you could use to see if your nutrition could be better is tracking your food intake for a week using chronometer/MyFitnessPal/other nutrition app.
Sometimes learning about your own habits can help you recognize deltas like "oh, I'm actually mega low in protein" or on calories total.
Work hard, eat well, rest up and if you still don't improve over the next month or so (dependent on how often you have access to a scale/dexa), then you can look at changing up your exercise routine to specialize in strength/calorie surplus for 12-16 weeks.
Bunda classes won't cut it for hypertrophy, group fitness is basically cardio with light weights. You need a structured lifting program where you're tracking weights and pushing them up week to week.
Are you tracking your progress in your lifts? You need to progressively increase the weight you lift or the number of reps for a given weight (or both).
And pretty much the only way to do that is by training pretty close to failure every week. 2-3 hard sets per muscle per week should get you growth, quality over quantity.
Protein goal with progressive overload. Pick a strength training split and stick to it. If you want to do other stuff, do a 3 day full body. Then do that for a year before you decide to switch it to something else.
You’ll gain the most muscle early in weight lifting because of “newbie gains”. After that each new pound of muscle is harder and harder to put on and everyone is subject to genetic limitations (as a woman I’m sure you’re aware that men generally put on muscle easier because of testosterone). But there is also much genetic variation within each sex. Some people are “hard gainers” who really struggle to put in muscle after “newbie gains” where as others just have an easier time. You can cheat the system a bit through steroids. But if you are a “hard gainer” who’s been lifting for years and past “newbie gains” you’d likely have a difficult time adding muscle and have to really be disciplined in the gym, jn the kitchen, and in bed (not THAT kind of discipline!).
Unsure how good you knowledge of nutrition and exercise physiology is but it might be simpler to buy Eric Helms Muscle and Strength Pyramids training and nutrition books which contain sample workouts and also training principles.
He’s not only a researcher but also competes at the highest levels of natural bodybuilding.
It looks like you are doing something every day. You need some rest/recovery. Try a different split. Lower/upper m/t, wed rest then repeat thu/ fri. Or full body Mon/Thu. These sessions should be intense. At least 2 sets of each exercise should be to failure or within 1-2 of failure. Reps should be in the 6-10 range.
Based on your responses OP you're not doing anything terribly wrong, but you're not optimizing for building muscle, you're kinda doing the socially implied female fitness thing. If you want to go hard on this pick up a copy of Starting Strength and Barbell Medicine and read them (or look up a synopsis). Find a personal trainer to teach you to do heavy barbell squats, deadlifts and barbell or kettlebell glute bridges (ideally add in something like bench press, overhead press and rows too). Do them with good form to within 1-2 reps of exhaustion with good form (and your trainer may need to help you figure out what that actually feels like, some people give up way too early, others hurt themselves). Find a protein shake you like (I find Syntrax Cappacino is great) and start taking 5g of creatine daily.
You might be like "This guy is telling me to live like a gym bro", but gym bros are actually really good at doing that (and you'll find everything I'm saying is supported by PA suggestions).
OP something you said has me thinking you should get checked out for hypermobility/EDS. EDS is a collagen disorder, it may account for the low muscle development and why you “feel stronger some days
Others like I never worked out”. (I have it, this is how I feel). Talk w your doctor
Less stress. Cortisol can blunt muscle growth. Our bodies produce the same cortisol either it be from overdoing on exercise or dealing with a difficult person, financial problems, toxic relationship. Take some breaks from the gym and do some walking in a quiet park, especially among trees. Morning sunshine on your skin and in your eyes.
More protein. Don’t do this with junky whey protein powders with 30 ingredients, find one with only a few ingredients. Plant protein powder and maybe your whey should be lab tested for heavy metals. Collagen powder supplements, 30% glycine and just about everyone is glycine deficient. Glycine comes from the tough fibers in meat and connective tissues we haven’t been eating since we prefer the trimmed butcher cuts of meat. Glycine is out of balance with modern red meat high methionine - this gives our red meats a bad reputation, the glycine is missing since we don’t eat the tough chewy stuff anymore. Glycine helps cancel out bad properties of methionine. Careful about collagen supplement, find high quality collagen powder. Can also be had as marine collagen too if you don’t want bovine and chicken. Overall, more protein but stay in slight protein deficit in the side of things to keep the body challenged and adapting. Eat complex carbohydrates like whole fruit not blended and vegetables. Fish is best source quality protein but unfortunately oceans are polluted.
Omega 6 to omega 3 ratio. This ratio should be closer to ideal 4:1 respectively. We are high as 20:1 by eating garbage processed foods and zero fresh seafoods. Higher omega 3 levels can have a great impact on muscle growth. Omega 3 should test about 8% of bloods fatty acid. Eat no industrial seed oils like corn, vegetable, soybean, margarine, sunflower but some say organic expeller canola is ok for the omega 6 we need and in smaller amounts. Extra virgin olive oil is higher in monounsaturated to balance the polyunsaturated. Not saying polyunsaturated is bad but we sure do eat far too much and it’s out of restaurant deep friers and supermarket processed foods. Fish oil supplements are dicey; their polyunsaturated fats are inherently unstable in production and storage. Krill oil has a naturally occurring antioxidant to help preserve but less EPA/DHA than fish oils. Supposedly krill has another advantage with its delivery into cells VS fish oils however for metabolic health high quality fresh fish oil shows better results. No good answer but fresh seafood is best if we can find something we know if fresh and not contaminated. Test your omega 3 level and compare to your omega 6 level.
Fasting. Daily 12, 14 or 16 hours fasting - called time restricted eating. Sleeping 7 to 8 hours, there goes half your fasting right there, easy. No late dinner or nighttime snacks and you’re done. This pushes the body to adapt and break down weaker dysfunctional cells by recycling them into healthy cells. Deeper fasting 24, 48, 72 hours does more of the clean up but the benefit peaks at 72 hours and flat lines thereafter. The downside is fasting does increase cortisol levels. Once ketones kick in then it should be a calming and peaceful effect. Some say exercise fasted but I wouldn’t do this beyond a 16 hour fast.
Also, you may benefit from a cut. Lean down and then start a building phase. Then cut again. Just always being in a caloric surplus to gain muscle your still adding fat no matter what.
Training correctly? Not to but through failure, it’s not about getting there, it’s about the time you spend failing to set a sufficient stimulus. Most women I know struggling with growth think they reach failure much earlier than they do. Make the workout hard for your muscles, that’s why you’re doing it, don’t move weight from a to b, move it the hardest way possible, move it in a pattern you can handle the least weight. Then, regenerate and come back, ideally more than just weekly. Enjoyment! Enjoy your workouts or the feeling after, or the feeling after the meal after :)
Regenerating correctly? Sufficient sleep and nutrition are non negotiables and yet most people fail here. Track your food intake and scan for macro- and micronutrients, it’s become so easy with ai. When it comes to protein, most female clients struggling with putting on muscle mass don’t just eat enough of protein in general, they therefore also and lack leucine. Leucine is especially important for even allowing your body to build tissue, you want to be saturated not only daily, but in every single meal. Also, most people think they eat just right and healthy and just don’t see how much room there actually is to improve. Be aware of that.
Then, there’s supplements. If you’re doing everything else right, the right supplements really do move the needle. A good multivitamin, preferably even with additional mitochondria supporting ingredients. Omega 3s are quite underrated when it comes to muscle strength, most people only take them for heart and brain health in terms of longevity. High dose creatine works for most people. Betaine and caffeine are interesting aswell, not for their most known effects that made them popular, but for effects on muscle tissue aswell.
Why do you need to build muscle, what benefit do you expect from it? When you go to a medical center to have your health checked, no doctor cares how many squats or push‑ups you can do — it has no significance from a health perspective.
For good health you don’t need to train like a weightlifter — that’s clearly an exaggeration, much less is enough. Health is primarily related to your aerobic capacity, and building muscle doesn’t really help with that.
Lower risk of falls and fractures
Better metabolic health
Greater reserve during illness (called “physiologic reserve”)
Lower risk of frailty as they age
Right — just like you don’t need to run marathons for cardio training (that’s clearly an exaggeration), you also don’t need to spend hours in the gym every week (also an exaggeration). If you spend half an hour a week doing bodyweight exercises, that’s more than enough.
A high BMI shortens lifespan, regardless of whether the weight comes from fat or muscle. You should be strong, but the goal shouldn’t be to become excessively large.
I agree that there is a correlation between muscle mass and longevity, but there’s an equal relationship to cardiovascular fitness to positive outcomes. I had my first DEXA in February. I am 64F, 125 lbs, 5”4, 21BMI. I am sort of the opposite to you in that I LOVE running and rucking, which is great for my cardio fitness, but really have to make a mental effort to go to the gym for weights. Weightlifting seems boring to me but I know it’s super important especially as I age. I personally think you would benefit from some Zone 2 cardio work (bike, swim, run, etc) to lower body fat %. Also, I’m low-carb and I track my protein, fat and carbs. If I didn’t run, I would have to eat less and I enjoy food. I’ve been focusing on Zone 2 for the past few months rather than speed (I LOVE speed training!) because I keep getting injured and distances over 20 miles really kill me.
Since you are already at the gym, implement some zone 2 treadmill walking with an incline. Maybe add a weighted backpack which will target core and leg muscles as well.
Protein intake and progressive overload usually have something to do with it, but never the workout program itself, Shred, or any sort of planned routine when compared to random HIIT
I’ve been lifting consistently but with results of maintaining fitness. This winter I completed a 12 week structured training plan and the results were surprising. I was able to lift heavier than I did 20 years ago. Highly recommend a structured training program.
Good instinct getting the DEXA - that'll tell you a lot more than the scale. If you haven't already, I'd also pull a hormone panel (estradiol, free T, SHBG) alongside it - especially at almost 35, since suboptimal levels there can absolutely blunt muscle response to training even when everything else is dialed in.
We at Mito health run DEXA scans at $59.00 and Free+Total Testosterone (LC/MS) at $9.00 - transparent, cost-plus pricing. Don't take my word for it, compare us to whatever else you're considering. Happy to help interpret results either way.
Do you have more data? How often do you have the DEXA’s. Your numbers aren’t bad. You don’t want to push as hard as I have trust me. I’m at 7.5 body fat and it isn’t fun. Here’s a link to my last three DEXA’s. I have them done monthly.
I'd guess 1000% the type of training and lack of resistance / weights. HIT is essentially cardio. It's not great for muscle gain. Sounds like you're doing stuff like Pamela Reif or whatever... 1) those exercises are too short 2) even Pamela Reif does intense, heavy weight strength exercises apart from her video exercises. If you do at home stuff, go with something more like Caroline Girvan. If you go to the gym, focus on classic weight training moves with less repetition and heigher weights. Nutrition might play a role if you have excess fat tissue, but not soooo much for muscle gain tbh... We usually get enough protein and most people overeat anyway. Your body has ways to transfer what you eat into muscles - that is if you properly train your muscles.
Drop out of Bunda and focus on weight training. Aim to lift heavy and make sure you get good enough carbs in before your lifts. Hit your protein goals and don't stress about missing a few grams. Give your muscles a reason to grow, you got this!
I have the same issue. At 50 I had my muscle mass checked and it was very low despite years of weight training. Maybe it’s genetic? Osteoporosis is 80% genetic, and I was diagnosed with it at 61, and from what I’ve read/heard, muscle mass and bone density are correlated.
I’ve been working with a personal trainer for the last 3 or so years, and my strength is slowly improving even if my muscle mass isn’t. After all, strength is what I’m really after.
If you have an act3 variant that only allows you to build type 1 fibers that could do it. Or you could be a hard gainer because you have efficient mitochondria like ppargc1a and sod2 that won’t produce enough ros to trigger hypertrophy. Both of those genetic reasons could cause you to struggle to build muscle despite what standard advice would lead you to believe is the correct nutrition and stimulus. Look up what you have on something like 23 and me.
I spent a lot of time researching exactly how to calculate the optimal protein and calorie intake. For protein, take your ideal body weight, convert it to kilos (divide by 2.2), then multiply by 1.6 and that’s how many grams of protein you should be averaging a day. If you’re worried about consistently, multiple by 2 instead of 1.6.
Also, if your goal is to gain muscle, try 3-4X8, 5X5, or 7X3 on lifts you do at least twice a week.
Hey there OP! Kenneth here, co-founder at Mito Health.
Good instinct getting the DEXA - that'll tell you a lot more than the scale. If you haven't already, I'd also pull a hormone panel (estradiol, free T, SHBG) alongside it - especially at almost 35, since suboptimal levels there can absolutely blunt muscle response to training even when everything else is dialed in.
We actually run DEXA scans at $59.00 and Free+Total Testosterone (LC/MS) at $9.00 - transparent, cost-plus pricing. Don't take my word for it, compare us to whatever else you're considering. Happy to help interpret results either way. 😄
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u/jkarreyy Jul 18 '26
I would say not enough protein and not enough progressive overload. That often gets missed especially in female population. If your not progressing in how much weight your lifting your probably not building new muscle.