Does a Strong Body Build a Strong Mind?
Life is hard. No matter what age or stage of life you're in, there will always be mental challenges to overcome. Dealing with a difficult boss or a tight deadline at work. Managing a home and juggling everyone's schedules. Navigating through financial difficulties. All of these things require "mental toughness", the ability to work through the struggles, stay focused, confident, and in control when you face stress, pressure, or failure.
So how can we improve our mental toughness? The good news is you do not need to train in a 100 degree wrestling room or do endless wind sprints to improve your mental toughness. There is a growing body of research showing a strong link between regular weight training and mental toughness. Some of the most interesting findings are showing up in exactly the population that's often left out of exercise research: people in their 40s and 50s navigating the menopause transition.
Much of this research looks specifically at cognitive functioning (memory, focus, and mental flexibility under pressure), which is key to building the "mental toughness" we're after.
Resistance Training and Cognitive Function
Most of what we know about strength training and the brain comes from research in older adults. A 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis pooling 17 randomized controlled trials found that resistance training produced measurable improvements in overall cognitive function, working memory, verbal learning and memory, and spatial memory span (Wu & Huang, 2025).
That's not a small or cherry-picked effect. It's a synthesis of combined analyses of controlled trials. The improvements weren't just people feeling sharper because they felt good after a workout; they were measured on standardized cognitive tests.
The mechanism appears to involve more than general fitness. Muscle tissue itself releases signaling molecules called myokines during contraction that appear to support communication along the "muscle-brain axis." Working muscle may be sending direct biochemical signals that support brain function.
Interestingly, cardio doesn't appear to produce the same response. A 2025 network meta-analysis compared five exercise types: resistance training, aerobic exercise, mind-body exercise, multicomponent exercise, and high-intensity interval training. This study included nearly 4,350 healthy older adults. It was found that resistance training produced the largest overall improvement in global cognitive function and inhibitory control (the ability to stay focused despite distractions) (Han et al., 2025). Aerobic exercise was the strongest performer for general memory, but it did not match resistance training's effect on the broader measures of cognitive function and executive control (Han et al., 2025). That distinction supports the idea that it's the muscle contraction itself, not just improved cardiovascular fitness, driving the strength-training effect.
Why Midlife and Perimenopause Deserve Their Own Conversation
Here's where it gets more relevant to anyone entering perimenopause. Most of the evidence comes from research done on adults aged 60 and older, frequently already postmenopausal. Midlife, roughly ages 40 to 60, has been comparatively under-studied, despite being an arguably more important window to intervene.
We still know surprisingly little about how exercise affects brain health during midlife. This is an important research gap because perimenopause is one of life’s most significant hormonal transitions and may affect long-term dementia risk. Two-thirds of people living with dementia are women, and women face roughly double the lifetime risk compared to men. This makes the perimenopausal window a potentially critical opportunity to optimize mental health.
A pilot study, known as SMART Brain (Study of Menopause And Resistance Training on Brain Health), is one of the first research studies specifically looking at 40-60-year-old females. Thirty-five perimenopausal and early postmenopausal participants completed a nine-month resistance training program, twice weekly, with cognition assessed using the NIH Toolbox and brain activity measured through functional near-infrared spectroscopy. Compared with a waitlist control group, the training group showed a significant improvement in cognitive flexibility, as well as a trend toward improvements in processing speed, inhibitory control, and delayed verbal memory recall (Barha, 2025).
Cognitive flexibility is the ability to multitask and shows up constantly in daily life: switching between tasks at work, adapting a plan when something changes last minute, keeping track of multiple conversations. It's also one of the cognitive domains people in perimenopause frequently report struggling with.
Combining Exercise With Nutrition Strategy
A second study looked at what happens when a resistance-and-endurance circuit training program is paired with a calorie restriction via intermittent fasting. Fifty-nine perimenopausal, menopausal, and postmenopausal participants (average age 51) were split into an exercise-only group and a combined group that added 16:8 time-restricted eating, with cognitive health assessed over 12 weeks using the Stroop Test, N-back Test, and EEG, alongside BDNF and GDNF biomarker levels (Jóźwiak et al., 2025).
The results back up the hypothesis that a strong mind is linked to a strong body. The exercise-only group showed significant improvements in attention and processing speed on the Stroop Test, along with increased brain wave activity during a working-memory task. The group that did resistance training paired with intermittent fasting didn't no show any additional cognitive benefit (Jóźwiak et al., 2025). The authors concluded that structured exercise appears to be the primary driver of the cognitive changes observed.
What This Means, and What It Doesn't
Currently, direct randomized controlled trial data in healthy, midlife, perimenopausal adults is still limited to a small number of studies. It's not the kind of large, definitive trial that settles a question permanently.
However, those studies have shown a promising link between resistance training during the menopause transition and long-term cognitive health. Combined with the much larger body of evidence in older postmenopausal adults, and with what's understood about muscle-brain signaling mechanisms, the direction of the research is consistent even if the perimenopause-specific dataset is still being built.
For anyone lifting weights through this transition and wondering if it's doing more than building strength and muscle, the current answer is….YES!
Ready to Start Lifting?
If you’re navigating perimenopause and want a strength-training program designed around what your body and brain need right now, I’d love to help. Whether you're in the Charlotte area and looking for in-person coaching, or if your perfer to train from anywhere with online programming, let’s get started! .
References
Barha, C. (2025). SMART Brain: Study of Menopause and Resistance Training on Brain Health. Innovation in Aging, 9(Suppl 2), igaf122.1802. https://doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igaf122.1802
Jóźwiak, B., Kleka, P., & Laudańska-Krzemińska, I. (2025). Effect of exercise alone and in combination with time-restricted eating on cognitive health in menopausal women. Frontiers in Public Health, 13, 1640512. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2025.1640512
Wu, J., & Huang, C. (2025). A systematic review and meta-analysis of the effects of resistance exercise on cognitive function in older adults. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 16, 1708244. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1708244
