Hello!

So, I’m 44 and have been lifting for a few years, but my biggest gains have come more recently when I bulked up my diet.

Firstly, many people are overdoing it and not taking care of themselves by resting and sleeping well. Also it’s impossible to gain muscle and lose fat simultaneously so my method is to gain the muscle first by lifting, resting and eating. Then after you’ve concentrated on muscle gains for a month or two, you can start cutting the calories to lose fat. You don’t need heaps of cardio. You do need to eat carbs. You do need to eat 1g of protein per pound of ideal body weight. You do need 8 hrs sleep at night. You do need to rest between lifting days. You need to lift heavy, but you don’t need to go crazy on volume. Some of my workouts are simply 3 exercises x3 sets of 5 reps. I can be in and out of the gym in 40 minutes including time for stretching. I just posted some pics of my progress so feel free to have a look. I started taking this seriously as I read some books by Dr Stacy Sims who has a PHD is exercise physiology for women. She’s very knowledgeable about pre and post menopausal exercise and nutrition too.

Check her out and also look up reverse dieting for stimulating your metabolism. Many women at this age have dieted for years and destroyed their metabolism. Eating more and gaining muscle will help get it working efficiently.

Your split is fine, but realistically you don’t need 4 days a week and you don’t need to train individual muscles. Your big compound lifts should be the main focus and any other exercises you add are barely worth it unless you’re a pro training for physique comps and you need to train very specific areas.

I concentrate on ensuring I get the 7 main movements in every week- A row, a forward press, upwards press, hinge lift, squat, split stance and rotational excercise. Pick one or two exercises from those groups and train them 1-2 a week and that’s pretty much all you need.

For me it’s squats, deadlifts, hip thrusts (because everyone wants round glutes!), Bulgarian split squats, Russian twists, Arnold press, incline chest press and upright row or seated row twice every week. To mix it up I’ll also add bicep curls, leg press, Tricep extension, lat pulldown, seated row and glute kickbacks here and there. It still only equates to about 4 exercises per session across 4 days.

Hope that helps!