I just finished teaching one of my weekly live classes in my online studio and had this amazing conversation with one of my students.

We were talking about how our relationship to movement changed from our 20’s to our 40’s. She noticed that her mom, who just retired at 67, walks unsteadily and struggles with balance — and that this has impacted her own relationship with movement.

She doesn’t want to be 67 and feeling unsteady.

She wants to feel strong.

Which is why even though she doesn’t love strength training, she’s started to do a bit more because she knows it helps with that.

And that she sort of wishes that when she was in her 20’s she cared more about her 67 year old body.

The thing is, when we’re in our 20’s, we’re not thinking about our 67 year old bodies and that’s sort of ok.

The bigger issue is that we’ve been taught that our 40 year old bodies are not still young.

We’re made to believe that at 40 (or 45 or 50 or 60) we’re not capable of heavy lifting or hard work that will build our strength.

We’re given supplements and protein shakes and weighted vests, none of which really help.

The people trying to convince us to be smaller, quieter, and take up less space, do so because the profit off of that messaging and the pain it creates.

This is exactly why I focus my efforts on working with women in their 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s — women heading into perimenopause, moving through it, or on the other side.

We are capable of so much.

We don’t need to slow down in middle age; we need to step up.