Stronger with Age (2025)

01/12/2025

Personal Trainer? Exercise Physiologist? GP? Nurse? Allied healthcare professional?

RESEARCH NEEDS YOU!!

I have a few ongoing research studies looking for insights that only you can provide!

Thank you to all my participants so far. Conversations have been incredibly illuminating. Please contact me for more details if you can spare ~45 minutes of your time (on Teams).

25/11/2025

FACT: Women are less likely to participate in strength training when compared to men.

AND

FACT: The gym can act as a major barrier to participation.

BUT

We can (easily) do something about this!

So we did!

Our first pilot of the STRONGER with AGE programme proved that women who never participated in strength training and never held a gym membership can and do thrive in small, fully supervised, women only groups!!

In our participant’s own words:

‘It’s an excellent centre and using a gym can be really daunting, not only for women but for women of a certain age – this programme has and continues to give us the confidence to attend.’

21/11/2025

So excited to roll this out in Wigan, Greater Manchester 🤩💪🏻

21/11/2025

✨✨✨Dreams do come true✨✨✨

Ever since my first post-doc position, my dream has been to implement STRONGER with AGE into community-settings.

Leadership from were the first people in the UK I think I ever spoke to about the potential benefits of delivering a fully supervised, small group, strength training class for the prevention of low muscle strength and promotion of healthy ageing.

Yesterday, we completed an eight-week pilot of the programme. The first time ever, that I’ve let STRONGER with AGE into the wild. No more highly controlled academic settings, where we know strength training works, but does very little to impact behaviour and health at scale.

For this first cohort, we focused on women early in their menopause journey.

Using a word play on TATT, ‘Tired All The Time,’ a menopause symptom that was starting to define their lives, after a few weeks in, they decided to call themselves the TAT group, ‘Tired AND Thriving!!’

I think the quote on the wall behind us says it all with menopause sometimes!

I think this shows the power of small group strength training (delivered by someone who believes in their capabilities!!) for supporting relatedness, social connection, belonging, autonomy, competence, and exercise self-efficacy for increasing intrinsic motivation for healthier behaviours, growth, and wellbeing.

✨Grateful✨

18/11/2025

Is MUSCLE STRENGTH the key to increasing healthy life expectancy in an ageing society?

I am new to policy, but I was personally invited by the Department of Health and Social Care, so, I tried my hand at convincing the Committee that it is!

I was thrilled to be listed as 1 of 49 individuals and/or organisations to contribute written evidence to the POST, UK Parliament’s conversation in Physical Activity in an Ageing Society.

Giants before me have been banging this drum for over 3 decades, so I’ll update you on my progress in 2055😆

(you probably shouldn’t wait that long to get strong, though - the evidence is overwhelming, it’s real-world practice that lags seriously behind)

Who’s excited to see the full list of published evidence!? 🙋🏻‍♀️

An option to download the full PDF’s - link in my story

31/10/2025

We all know that gyms are not popular places for many older adults (just yet 😉).

However, they are an incredibly important tool for developing significant and meaningful levels of muscle strength, power, confidence, and independence in later life.

So, here are a few things that we can do to change the narrative and perception that gyms and group classes cater only to young people -

✔️ Increase the opportunities for long-term, meaningful social connection between like-minded, ability-matched cohorts. This can be as simple as offering seated areas in order for participants to come together and linger before or after classes. Additionally, exercise (especially strength exercise) is seen as more enjoyable when done together than when doing it on one’s own

✔️ Consider turning the music down or off for classes targeted for older adults. Not being able to hear directions, having to yell over it to get their questions heard = not a pleasurable experience

✔️ Consider huge windows to the outside and plenty of green plants and shrubs to make some spaces more like the outdoors and less like a dungeon of 4 black walls

✔️ I cannot overstate how important the instructor is to long-term adherence. Find one that is empathetic and caring, knowledgable and can communicate that knowledge in simple, easy to understand ways, persuasive about the abilities of ageing cohorts (i.e. no compassionate ageism please!), and one who has a toolbox of progressive strategies - empowering exercise self-efficacy is the key to behaviour change.

(link to paper in story)

23/10/2025

I am so excited to announce that we’ve been awarded a Small Research Grant from the British Academy supported by the Wellcome Trust.

In the first stage of this two-year funded programme, we are seeking (allied) healthcare providers working in the UK who personally participate in and/or professionally promote the Chief Medical Officers’ muscle-strengthening guidelines in their clinical consultations.

As a volunteer you will be asked to participate in one interview online (approximately 45-60 minutes).

If you want to read more, have any queries about the study, or if you are interested in taking part, then please email or DM me your email address.

23/09/2025

Just 22% of healthy adults report to be meeting the muscle-strengthening guidelines!

Those that report lower levels of muscle strength in mid-life, report more difficulty performing the everyday activities of daily life as an older adult. In the UK alone, we spend an estimated excess of £2.5 billion (!!) each year in health and social care costs due to muscle weakness.

Avoiding low muscle strength in mid-life and beyond is an urgent Public Health priority.

Our frontline workers, community-based exercise instructors, are directly responsible for essential physical activity services to the general public. We need to ensure not only that muscle-strengthening activity is included in their training and leisure centre offer, but that training and services are evidence-based (i.e. actually building muscle strength), so we can begin to improve muscle fitness and subsequently, population level health.

With the help of our champions in this area, Greater Manchester Moving, we brought together both community-based instructors as well as those in leadership roles around Greater Manchester to discuss barriers and facilitators to adopting and implementing a preventative strength training programme, STRONGER with AGE.

👀 Watch to see how it went (video by .works, full video over on LinkedIn)
📖 Read more (link in story)

15/09/2025

Who said strength training can’t be fun and games?

colleagues and Salford City citizens - get ready for something very exciting, right in your own backyard 🏋🏻‍♀️🛝👾🕹️

Stay tuned for updates!!

29/08/2025

Are we trading obesity for frailty?

Mounjaro is here for GPs in the NHS to prescribe - but only for those patients with a BMI > 40 *AND* at least four additional health conditions (cardiovascular disease, hypertension, dyslipidaemia, type 2 diabetes, sleep apnea).

I’ve been talking to some very switched on clinicians lately about their (un)willingness to simply trade one condition for another.

As clinicians, we need to ask ourselves, are we really willing to

∘ Trade obesity for frailty?

∘ Trade being over weight for under muscled?

Or would the most responsible prescription mandate simultaneous strength training participation?

If used in this way, weight loss medications could act as a ‘teachable moment’

✔︎ for clinicians to encourage strength training in line with the physical activity guidelines,
✔︎ for patients to start new healthy behaviours, and
✔︎ to ensure strength training becomes a habit before patients discontinue their medication to help avoid weight regain

In that case, we could trade obesity for a healthy habit of a twice-per-week dose of strength training.

Not sure where clinical populations should start on their strength training journey? Print this poster by STRONGER at HOME to help you talk through the FITT-VP prescription with your patients!

Remember: You don’t have to be strong to start. But you do have to start to get strong.

21/08/2025

Are you an exercise professional looking to keep your practice aligned with the latest evidence for the very best outcomes for your clients?

American College of Sports Medicine’s latest issue in Health & Fitness is a must read!

This month, it’s all about Power Training!

In our article (link in my stories), Prof Stuart Phillips and I provide an easy to read background on this hot topic

💥 What muscle power is and why it’s important, especially as we age
💥 How and why we need to assess muscle power in practice
💥 Evidence-informed strategies to improve muscle power
💥 How to address barriers and implementation challenges to power training

Our suggested progression to power training is pictured below -

⚠️ With all the hype surrounding power training, it’s important that you (or your clients) have a solid foundation of muscle strength before you move on to power training.
🧠 Remember: you’re only as powerful as the force you can produce. No muscle strength = no muscle power.
🏋🏻‍♀️ But do ensure you move to power training as it is safe, effective, and indicated for older adults. For example, moving load quickly is incredibly important to being able to get your legs back under you after a slip or trip or just generally getting out of danger’s way in time (like clearing a cross-walk in time)

I hope this graphic and article are useful in helping you turn exercise science into practice!!

30/07/2025

Active healthcare providers make *AMAZING* advocates for physical activity.

Healthcare providers have an enormous reach, especially into underserved populations. They see far more people than researchers could ever hope to!

With active healthcare providers on-board, we have a real shot at increasing the health of our communities and the healthspan of our nations.

As a result, we *urgently* need to look at ways at increasing the physical activity of our healthcare colleagues and help them have meaningful conversations about the importance of muscle strength to healthy ageing 💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻

Stronger with Age

01/12/2025

25/11/2025

21/11/2025

21/11/2025

18/11/2025

31/10/2025

23/10/2025

23/09/2025

15/09/2025

29/08/2025

21/08/2025

30/07/2025

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