Health, Fitness & Personal Growth Tips for Women in Midlife: Asking for a Friend

Ep.178 Strong, Safe, and Ageless: Midlife Strength Training with Megan Dahlman

• Michele Henning Folan • Episode 178

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Want to feel stronger, steadier, and more capable for the next 30 years? In this episode, I sit down with strength coach Megan Dahlman to map out a clear, science-backed path for women 50+ to build real-world strength—without injury, confusion, or intimidation.

We bust common fitness myths (“just lift heavy,” “bash your bones,” “jump every day”) and replace them with smarter, safer strategies that protect joints, support bone density, and build lasting confidence. Megan shares how to train around arthritis, osteopenia, or joint replacements, use bodyweight and posture work to create balance, and why core control and rotation are key for mobility and pain relief.

From pickleball prep and agility drills to simple movement snacks you can do anywhere, this conversation gives you practical tools to move through life’s decades with strength and ease—so you can keep traveling, playing, and living fully without limits.

Website where you can find Megan's masterclasses, group training, and podcast.
https://www.vigeofit.com/about

https://www.instagram.com/megandahlman/

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1:1 health and nutrition coaching or Faster Way - Reach me anytime at mailto:mfolanfasterway@gmail.com

If you’re doing “all the right things” and still feel stuck, it may be time to look deeper. I’ve partnered with EllieMD, a trusted telehealth platform offering modern solutions for women in midlife—including micro-dosed GLP-1 peptide therapy—to support metabolic health and longevity.

https://elliemd.com/michelefolan - Create a free account to view all products.

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🎤 In addition to coaching, I speak to women’s groups, moderate health panel discussions, and bring experts together for real, evidence-based conversations about midlife health.

Transcripts are created with AI and may not be perfectly accurate.

Disclaimer: This podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine, nursing, or other professional healthcare services. It is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your qualified healthcare provider with any questions regarding a medical condition.

Michele Folan:

The holidays are coming fast, and if you're not careful, it's easy to lose yourself in the shuffle. So this year, what if you did the opposite? What if you built a healthy foundation before the chaos hits? I'm Michele Folan and my 21-day metabolism reset is designed to help you do exactly that. We'll tackle sugar cravings, dial in your nutrition, and get you moving in a way that fits your life. Beginner, I've got you. More advanced, there's plenty to challenge you to. This is your chance to hold space for you to reset, recharge, and finish the year feeling strong, not stressed. Join me now. The link is in the show notes. Let's build momentum together. Health, wellness, fitness, and everything in between. We're removing the taboo from what really matters in midlife. I'm your host, Michele Folan, and this is Asking for a Friend. Starting an exercise program in your 50s, 60s, or beyond can feel overwhelming, especially if you're dealing with arthritis, osteoporosis, hip or knee pain, or if you've never picked up a weight before. Where do you even begin and how do you know what's safe? That's exactly what we're digging into today with strength coach Megan Dahlman. Megan is passionate about helping women build strength the right way with proper form, smart progressions, and strategies that keep you mobile and confident for decades to come. She's here to cut through the confusion, calm the fear of injury, and show you how to move your body so you can stay strong, active, and out of the nursing home well into your 80s. This isn't about chasing skinny or trying to look 30 again. It's about creating the body that will carry you powerfully into the second half of life. Megan Dahlman, welcome back to Asking for a Friend. Thank you so much for having me back, Michele. I'm so excited to be back. Well, I am excited to have this conversation. We were together on episode 93. Yeah. We're into the 170s now. So that gives you an idea of how long it's been since we've connected. But Megan, I see some of the same things that you're seeing out there. And primarily when it comes to midlife women, we're being told to lift heavy, lift heavy. And there are some very prominent voices out there that are saying this, but they're not necessarily talking about the how.

Megan Dahlman:

Yeah. So I'm super excited to have this conversation today because there tends to be a chasm between guidance and recommendations, especially what we're hearing from doctors and from the research. But how does that show up in your everyday life? Like when you walk into your workout space, or maybe you've never done any strength training or anything, and you're like, how do I implement and put into practice all of this really important information that people are telling me I need to do? And that's where a coach and a proper trainer can come in and fill that gap and tell you and coach you through how to implement safely with nuance the recommendations and guidelines that are being told. And so hopefully we can clear up a lot of that today in our conversation. And you've been coaching women for years. How long has it been now? I started coaching women in 2006. So we're coming up on year 20 right now. So professionally as a strength and conditioning specialist. And I started with training high-level athletes right out of college. That's what I wanted to do with a degree in exercise science. I thought, you know, the fun, flashy, exciting thing is to train high-level athletes and, you know, fast forward to where we are now, where my career is now, it's it's training women in midlife. And I love to take midlife and beyond, truly, because a lot of the women I coach are in their 70s or 80s, even. And so it's training the, it's taking the knowledge that you have of how does a high functioning body operate? What do we know is needed for a body to operate really well at its best, to not have any limitations? And how can we apply that to the everyday woman who, you know, wants to be able to pick up her grandkids no problem, who wants to have energy as she goes about the day, who wants to be able to climb down on the floor and get back up again well into her 90s? What does that look like in her everyday workout program? And how can we do that in a very approachable way?

Michele Folan:

What myths about midlife fitness drive you the craziest?

Megan Dahlman:

Oh boy. I like this question. You know, there are so many myths out there, but but really most of them are rooted in some bit of truth, you know. So we have the recommendations to lift heavy, to, to jump every day, or the bone bashing myth. That's the one that bothers me a little bit because it just feels so negative. Or wear a weighted vest to prevent osteoporosis, or, you know, even something like intermittent fasting. So there's an element of truth in all of it. That's where it kind of starts from. It's someone reads a study or someone creates this recommendation. But where these recommendations go wrong is typically the extreme nature of them or the lack of nuance. You know, yes, lifting healthy, lifting heavy is very helpful for building muscle and bone strength. But that doesn't mean we go from nothing straight into being like an Olympic power lifter. That's not what that should look like. So, really, the myths that drive me the most crazy are the extreme nature of taking something that is real and and has some truth to it, but then going to the extreme with it. Yeah. That's what's the most bothersome.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, but you know, that gets, that's what gets clicks, right? It's the having this um, it's this black or white type of mentality when it comes to fitness. You have to do this, you have to do this. Well, that's great to get followers and for people to, you know, click through your your post or whatever, but it's not really being fair. Right. And let's let's talk about Megan. If someone is coming to you and they have arthritis, they have knee replacements, uh, that there's limited mobility. How do you first of all reframe what fitness even looks like?

Megan Dahlman:

So we have to start by looking through the lens of what we know are the healthiest and most important aspects of fitness for a woman's body as she ages. So understanding, like, okay, yes, muscular strength, very important, cardiovascular fitness, very important. But we don't stop there. Balance, very important too, flexibility or mobility, very important, coordination, power, all of these aspects are really important. So we have to look through that lens and then say, okay, cool. What can you do now? So of all of those things, you know, of the muscular strength, cardiovascular stamina, the balance, the mobility, you might not be doing six months from now what you can do today. What you can do today might look very different than what that evolves into six or 12 months from now. So, what can you do today that starts to move you in that direction? I work with a lot of women, and I hear a lot from a lot of women in on social media too. I'll I'll show an exercise demonstration. And unfortunately, a lot of women will say, Well, I have arthritis or I have a knee replacement, so I can't do that. What else do you got? It's like, well, you might not be able to do that yet. So let's expand, and that might be the challenge to everyone listening is like, let's not rule anything out yet. Let's say, okay, with through the lens of I know what is going to create the healthiest body for myself. What can I do today? And start there and just see where that goes. I've worked with so many women with knee replacements that are like, yeah, I can climb down on my hands and knees, no problem. I can I can do things with my new knees. That's the point, right? You get new knees. Yeah. I can do so many more things with my new knees than I could ever do before. My life has grown and expanded rather than become more limited. And that's the idea. Yeah.

Michele Folan:

You know, and I've had my knee issues. And I will say the more muscle that I have built around my knees, my thighs, a lot of that pain has dissipated. So I think we sometimes have to kind of get over some of that initial. Am I gonna make it worse before it feels better? But it's really about supporting the joints, right?

Megan Dahlman:

The joints are very complicated. So, especially the knee joint in particular. Knee joint is a very complicated joint. There's a lot of articulating surfaces, the hip joint is very complicated. Your spinal joints are completely different. Those are not hinge or ball and socket joints. Those are very different. So pretty much all the joints in your body operate slightly differently, but they all have bone surface and they all have cartilage that covers that bone surface to help create good articulation. But as you age, often, especially with poor alignment, maybe you've always had slightly knocked knees, or you've always had knees that were a little bowed. Over time, that's going to create some like undue wear and tear, and perhaps that cartilage starts to wear away. Some women might say, Yeah, I've got bone on bone now. But what's cool is that there's so many other things, there's so many other ingredients to what supports that knee and makes it healthy. The ligaments, the tendons that are connecting your muscles to the bones, the synovial fluid in the joint. I know the last time we had a conversation, we talked a lot about that synovial fluid, which is so interesting. It's basically like oil, it's like greasing uh like a hinge joint. You can put some grease in it, and it just is gonna articulate so much better. So as you get healthier, sure, we might not be able to replace some of the cartilage you may have lost, and that's part of the aging process, very normal. But the more muscle you have, the healthier your synovial fluid, the better the all of those connective tissues around the joint, we can make your knee or hip or whatever the joint is, we can make it start moving and articulating without pain and with so much more strength and stability. So something that might have limited you a year ago, it might not even be an issue anymore.

Michele Folan:

Yeah. And I know a lot of women right now are loving hearing this because we let some of those aches and pains really hold us back. And let's let's talk about that 50 plus woman who hasn't lifted a dumbbell ever. She's brand new to working out, but she's she's heard loud and clear that she needs to start building some muscle in order to protect her mobility as she gets older. What is step one for her?

Megan Dahlman:

Step one is understanding that not all exercises are the same. So you sure we could put a dumbbell in your hand and just do some bicep curls or simple arm movements or some basic, basic movements. But what you really need is movements that mimic the type of motions you need to encounter in everyday life. So something like a squat or a split squat, you know, that's going to impact your ability to be mobile for many years, your ability to easily climb down on the floor and get back up again. That simple action, so many women struggle with just climbing down on the floor and getting back up again. And so step one with building strength for someone who's never lifted a dumbbell in her life. We do not need to go straight to dumbbells. In fact, I don't recommend it. Step one is making sure that you do know how to do basic body weight only movements first. Spend some time learning how to push and pull and balance your own body in those activities that mimic how your body needs to work in everyday life. And it's so much easier if you do that without the distractions of equipment. So a squat, let's take a simple squat. You have to squat to get in and out of a chair. You have to squat to get down and up off of a toilet. That's like in and out of a car. Like most of those squats are a little bit offset too. Like your feet aren't perfectly parallel. So we have to do them in slightly like staggered positions. So it's so much better to start with those exercises that's going to mimic your everyday life, but don't have any weights in your hands. Just start doing a squat. Start doing staggered squats, progress it to a split squat, you know, where it kind of starts to look like a lunge a little bit. Once you feel confident with the technique, you're like, yeah, I could do this all day. Like this feels start, this is starting to feel pretty easy. It doesn't hurt any of my joints. I feel confident. I've got full range of motion here. Then we can start to put some weight in your hands and start to load it up a little bit. But that's where you're going to notice the direct correlation to what you need to be strong for.

Michele Folan:

Got it. Now, Megan, we're gonna take a quick break, and when we come back, I want to talk about osteoporosis specifically. Midlife can feel like you've hit a metabolic brick wall. You're doing everything right, eating well, moving daily, managing stress, and still your labs or your energy tell a different story. That's where peptides come in. We're not talking quick fixes or miracle shots. These are science-backed tools that can help support metabolic health, longevity, and body composition when paired with the right nutrition, training, and recovery. As someone who helped launch the first GLP1 therapy years ago, I've seen firsthand how powerful these pathways can be when used responsibly, but lifestyle will always be the foundation. If you've been curious about GLP1s or other peptides that target inflammation, energy, or muscle preservation, this might be the time to explore your options. I'm happy to connect you with my trusted medical resource so you can learn more and make an informed choice. All right, we are back. I've been very open about my own osteoporosis diagnosis. The first thing I did after I went through the emotions of, oh gosh, this is really bad news, you know, being worried, then I'm going, oh my gosh, what do what can I lift? What can I do without hurting myself? I did go to a PT and go through a whole couple sessions with her to ensure that I was lifting correctly, my form was good, all of those things. So highly recommend people do that. For women worried about hurting themselves, specifically with osteoporosis. What are some of those key safety guidelines to keep in mind? And I guess we should also kind of define, you know, if it's osteoporosis in the lumbar, maybe, you know, negative 2.5, negative three. Maybe we're not talking negative six. Maybe it's osteopenia in the hips. How do you how do you navigate that?

Megan Dahlman:

So it is so valuable to understand that it is a sliding scale. So it's a gradient, right? So when you first get that diagnosis, that can be very scary, but it doesn't mean that you suddenly went from like perfectly dense bones, like healthy 18-year-old woman bones, all the way to frail 95-year-old bones. Chances are you're probably somewhere along that spectrum. And what's beautiful is that we can, before a certain point, like once your bone loss has gotten to a certain point, then it is very difficult to reverse that level of bone loss. You're kind of at the point where it's like, let's just maintain what we've got. Like, let's make sure that this doesn't continue to progress. And so whenever you get that diagnosis, like, yes, that should be your top most important thing in your mind is like, whoa, let's make sure that this progression of bone loss, like we stop it in its tracks. I don't want to lose a single cell of bone more. You also can reverse some of that bone loss and start to build it back up with certain types of movements. But some things to keep in mind just to keep you safe, is when you start exercising, or let's say you haven't been exercising at all, and maybe that's what led to the osteoporosis, that's often not the case. I know, like in your case, Michelle, you're like, I've been working out, like I've been treating. So it's important that the exercises that you are going to do, you feel confident in them. You feel like you have full control through the full range of motion. Because the last thing you want, if you know, okay, my bones aren't quite as dense, this means that if I do lose my balance and fall, I am at a greater risk of having an unnecessary fracture here. For some women, depending upon where they're at along the spectrum of the bone density, it could be very catastrophic. For many women, if it's a catastrophic fracture, like a fracture of their femur or a fracture in their pelvis, quite often that is the beginning of the end. And for many women, it is the beginning of where their health declines very dramatically and within a few years they do pass away. And so we just want to make sure that you don't put yourself in a situation, whether it's in everyday life or in your workouts, that you are at risk of falling unnecessarily. So that's step one. That's the first thing you need to do with your workouts is make sure that you feel you always feel like you're in complete control. So if you're working on improving your balance, which you should, we now know that you are at greater risk of losing balance or of hurting something if you do fall. So building balance is important. Also, your coordination is important as well. Make sure that when you're practicing those, you're in a situation where you're right next to a wall, you're right next to a couch where you can hold on to something real quick if you happen to lose control and you don't go down. So that's important just to keep you safe in your workouts. With specific exercises, it's generally recommended to avoid twisting movements. Okay, but once again, there's nuance here. So twisting movements, especially for the spine, a fragile spine is going to be at greater risk of spinal fractures with twisting movements. Now, there's a big difference between doing like rotational slams with a 15-pound medicine ball against a wall where their spine is rotating fast while under load, versus a slow and controlled rotational reach. I would argue that the slow and controlled rotational reach that improves the posture of especially your thoracic spine is very beneficial for someone with osteoporosis, and they should do that to make sure that their posture doesn't slowly decline as they get older. So we don't want to have a lot of heavy load with twisting rotational movements. Make sure that when you're twisting, you have full control and you're going slow and smooth and controlled. So those are kind of the big things that, okay, yeah, I can do that. That feels good. That feels like I can now be confident in my workouts.

Michele Folan:

And there are some yoga moves that I know are kind of contraindicated with severe osteoporosis, some of the ones where you would like arch your back, that sort of thing, right?

Megan Dahlman:

Yeah, and honestly, there's a lot of moves in yoga, even for someone with a healthy spine that are contraindicated as well. So you just need to understand am I someone who already has a very healthy spine and healthy joints? And I have a knack for being more on the flexible side, then you would probably do really great in yoga. You might be someone that needs to be a bit more careful with doing really heavy weights because you're someone who has a little excess mobility. Someone who has a little extra mobility, who's like always been a flexible person. There's probably not as much stability around your joints, especially your spinal joints, and they could slip out of position a little more easily. So you're not someone that should be doing super heavy back squats or super heavy deadlifts. Doing some weight training is very important for you to build up some of that joint stability. But there's also some people that really have a knack for doing really heavy back squats or heavy deadlifts, those types of, they're just a really strong, stable person. They might not do great with a yoga type of movement. So there's nuance in all of it. So you can't say yoga is great for everybody or yoga, nobody should do yoga. Same with like heavy lifting. I wish there was like across the board, but it's really where is your body at and and what is going to feel good and be productive when you're actually exercising. I just thought of something. You know, pickleball has gotten very, very popular. Very bad. Have you played? Uh, just randomly. I want to. It's so fun looking, but um, I'm I'm I can't say that I'm a pickleballer.

Michele Folan:

Yeah. No, no, and I I'm definitely not. I've I've only played once, but but I'm watching a lot of women my age pick it up for the first time. And they're not maybe previous tennis players, right? We are really challenging our muscles and joints in to move in a whole different way. Yeah. Talk about that a little bit when we start something so brand new like that.

Megan Dahlman:

Yes. So with pickleball, especially, and we can use that as a good example, it's a sport where you're not focusing on your body movements. You're focusing on the ball, you're focusing on hitting the ball in the right spot. So you have to trust that as you move across the court, your body is going to do the right things. And the only way that you can trust that your body's gonna do the right things, meaning your ankle is going to be stable when you cut and push it out to the side and move back the other direction real quick. Or trust that your knee is not gonna buckle when you run forward towards the net and pause real quick, or trust that your spine is gonna hold out when you're doing this really strong, hard, fast hit from the back of the court. The only way that you can trust that you know your body's gonna just do the right things is to be following a really good training program separately. So making sure that you are supporting your pickleball or golf or tennis or whatever the activity, whatever the sport is, you always wanna be supporting it with good quality, full range of motion, full movement training and mobility separately. So I do not recommend someone who's a woman in her 50s or 60s who's been completely sedentary to suddenly go pick up pickleball. That's a recipe for an ankle injury, knee injury, back injury, shoulder injury. Um, suddenly, you know, your shoulder, as we know as women in midlife, are the shoulder is really susceptible to high levels of inflammation. And usually it's an injury that triggers something like frozen shoulder. So we have to train smart. We we no longer can afford just picking up a brand new sport and going and doing it. We have to be smart about the way that we move our body.

Michele Folan:

Yeah. And I've seen some nasty injuries. So I I don't discourage anyone from playing. I mean, I think it's great. It's great movement, it's wonderful exercise. But I was I was at a friend's house last week and one of the women said, Well, I play gentle pickleball. I said, Well, define gentle pickleball. Gentle is Carla. And she said, We don't we don't do any backward like pedaling, right? If a ball goes out, it goes out. And because that's where a lot of people are getting hurt. They're they're blowing out the Achilles, you know, going back for these balls, or they're tripping and falling backwards and and doing back injury. So anyway, I just I had I just had to bring that up after last week's conversation.

Megan Dahlman:

Yeah, and you know, like all of that can be trained. Like that's okay. Like maybe not do that yet and say, okay, I I know my physical limitations right at this at this moment, but what what else can I do to supplement to make sure that eventually, you know, a few months from now, I can be more aggressive with pickleball. And I don't have to worry that I'm gonna hurt my Achilles. Like, let's make sure that I do all the mobility and the strengthening work, I work on my coordination, you know, do some more of these athletic type of agility drills in a controlled environment where I'm not focusing on a ball. Yeah. So I'm really focusing on my feet and my foot, you know, the foot quickness and I work on the backpedaling and I practice it again and again and again so that when you're on the court in a play setting, your body has the muscle memory to do it properly. And then how much, how fun is that? You know, so like you don't have to worry about your body and you can play a little bit more aggressively and you feel really strong and powerful too.

Michele Folan:

Well, and I think what you're also saying is that there's the brain-muscle connection. And we're not just training our bodies, we're training our brains.

Megan Dahlman:

Yes, that is a huge, huge piece of training. And I think that's what gets overlooked a lot. Um, you know, going back to getting started with a training program, a lot of it is training your brain to tell your muscles how to activate properly and which ones and at what pace and at what intensity. Um that's coordination. So it's you know how difficult it is when you first start trying to like rub your belly and pat your head. Like you feel ridiculous, but if you continue to practice it, now your brain has the ability to send totally opposite signals to different body parts. At first, it's hard. And so you don't want to be someone that's like, oh, I can't do it right now, so I guess I'll never be able to rub my belly and pat my head at the same time. It's like, no, it's something that you can keep practicing. It's like juggling. So all of those things are, it can all be taught, but you have to respect the progression and respect, like, okay, if I'm someone who can't juggle yet, I don't have the coordination or the brain and the muscle communication to juggle. I'm not gonna try juggling with fiery wands, you know, that would be foolish. I'm gonna start with like two lightweight tennis balls and then build up from there. And that would be wise training to be able to do that. So the same thing exists when it comes to strength training and training our bodies.

Michele Folan:

You brought up something a little bit earlier, and I I forgot to tie it in there with the osteoporosis, but I want to go back to the jumping or the impact. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because we talk about this all the time on Instagram with the bashing of bones and that sort of thing. Define what bashing of bones means and how we're gonna do this safely.

Megan Dahlman:

So we know that applying some impact to the bones, so jumping is a form of impact, and you can do that with like running or plyometric style training, something like pickleball has some impact. We know that applying that impact to your bones does stimulate your bone cells to recreate more. So it does cause some more bone cell deposits. We know that. It's well researched and it's really good for your bones to have some of that impact. What's cool though is that's not the only way that your bones can get stronger. So So with jumping and pounding, it's not just your body's not just an empty skeleton. Yeah. We have we have muscles, we have tendons, we have ligaments, we have fascia. So we have all of these connective tissues that are also undergoing the impact. And the older we get and the less estrogen we have in our system, the more susceptible we are to inflammation in these connective tissues. And so if we aggravate those connective tissues, like your plantar fascia, let's say you just start a jump training program, every time you bounce your planner fascia, the fascia on the bottom of your foot, all the way up through your ankle into your Achilles. That Achilles is a giant connective piece of tissue. All of that is undergoing the same amount of stress and load that your bones are. And so if those aren't strong enough to handle it, we suddenly developed plantar fasci. So we traded out, you know, maybe a healthy plantar fascia for maybe stronger bones, but like for for what? Now you can't walk, right? So it's like at what cost? So the cool thing is that we can build strong bones too, without having to jump. And I actually prefer it because with strength training, we don't run the risk of those soft tissue injuries. And when you strength train through full ranges of motion, everywhere that your muscles are connected to your bones, they don't connect in like one tiny spot. They connect along like a whole like line and at different angles and they pull against the bone in different angles. So now we're creating load on the bone in all of these different angles along the full length of the bone, not just vertically up and down from jumping. And so we get to stimulate those bones in a more three-dimensional way with a good strength training program. Yeah.

Michele Folan:

I, you know, I I love the fact that there are options here because yeah, and I I do some jumping, but I didn't just like just start jumping. Yeah, I I mean, I've done a lot of stuff up into that point. But yeah, I I I like the fact that we don't have to do any one thing that there's there's options there for us to be able to to build bone at this point. Do you think we're ignoring the core here and the importance of our core?

Megan Dahlman:

Well, we definitely shouldn't. The core is huge. I mean, it's rightfully named. The core is where everything stems from. So everything we've been talking about, it makes me think of like legs, maybe shoulders, a little bit too. But to be honest and very frank, it doesn't matter how strong your ankles are if your core is weak. Um, it doesn't matter how strong your wrist is or how strong your shoulder is if your core is weak. A lot of extremity problems, so a lot of problems in the arms and the legs, all the way down to the feet and the ankles, they really start and stem from a core that's not functioning properly. Because if your if your pelvis is wobbly every time you step, if your spine is wobbly every time you step, if you don't have a really strong, stable core, then everything out from there has to work a way it was never designed to work. And so it good core training should be the core of your program. Like every time you show up to work out, you should be training your core somehow.

Michele Folan:

Yeah. And I brought this up because these conversations always go into leg strength and shoulders and arms and muscle, but I just feel like the core kind of gets ignored. Yeah. And it's it is super important. You you have to have a good, healthy core if you want to get up off the floor.

Megan Dahlman:

Yeah. And we and maybe it's because like as we get older, we kind of shut the door on ever having six pack, you know. Really? I think we're like probably not in the cards. And so we forget about it aesthetically too. And it's it's really fun to start to see shoulder muscles and shoulder definition. It's really fun to see calf and quad definition. And so I think a piece of us is still driven a little bit by our own aesthetics, and that's motivating. You know, it's motivating to see your muscles start to appear. And you, you know, core muscles, they just aren't that pretty. Like it's just not something that you see a lot to be like, oh wow, she's got really strong lumbar spinae muscles, like her spinae vectors are really strong.

Michele Folan:

Like, look at her transverse abdominis. That's not usually something we brag about. You should see my lumbar muscles. They're they're so hot.

Megan Dahlman:

Yeah, and I think even as we get older, we still get guilty of prioritizing muscles that we see. And at the expense of overlooking ones that are the most important. So your pelvic floor is part of your core. We know that's very, very important for all sorts of functions. Your diaphragm, it's the top of your core. That's really important. Then all of the muscles that wrap in and connect directly to your to your spine. If you have spinal osteoporosis or even osteoporosis in your pelvis, doing core training on a regular basis is the very best thing you can do. Very, like, put everything else aside and prioritize a strong, stable core, and it's going to change your life.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, this is such great advice. I want to talk about everyday ergonomics. Oh, yeah. And the the reason why I want to talk about this. So I've worked for some big major corporations where we would have to take these tests and courses on ergonomics, whether it's how you hold the steering wheel of the company car to the placement of your mouse on your desk, the height of your chair, right? Right. But I think this gets overlooked quite a bit, kind of like the core, gets overlooked a bit in terms of how our daily habits are affecting how we feel, like knee pain, shoulder pain, back pain, neck pain. We call it, remember, we call it tech neck when we when we spoke the first time. Yes. How do we make people a little bit more aware of just how they're behaving day to day and how that can affect their outcomes?

Megan Dahlman:

Bottom line is that a joint or a muscle that doesn't move, it's going to start losing its function and it will start to hurt. So I don't care how perfect your ergonomic setup is, if you have a chair that is at the exact proper height, if your elbows are hanging at the perfect position, if you're, if your computer monitor is at the exact same height or at the right height for like zero technic, whatever, if you're not, if you're staying in one spot for longer than a few minutes, like those joints and muscles, they'll they'll eventually hurt anyway. So the more important thing when we think about daily ergonomics, think about more of, yes, if you are going to be in a position for a little while, like let's say you're driving in the car for a while, or you do have to sit at your desk for a while, let's optimize that. But make sure that you are moving as often as you possibly can. So, like here in my office, I have a high-low desk. So I have a really cool like uplift desk that goes up, it goes down. I have a chair, like this whole time we've been talking, I've been like moving around constantly. So getting up, not staying in one position for very long is probably the most important thing that you could do for the health of your overall body. It's gonna keep you mobile for a long time. I think it's a danger that we encounter as we age is that we just stop being quite so active in our daily life and we start to look for chairs everywhere we go. We start to look for the closest parking spots in the parking lot. Yeah. The elevator. And we just start to look for all these ways that we can move a little less, and it it just compounds. So it's like the less we move, the more it hurts to move. So we start to lose, move a little bit less and less and less and less. And pretty soon we're we're confined to a wheelchair. And so improving your mobility about around the day or throughout the day is not about ergonomics, it's about moving throughout the day. That's the most important thing you can possibly do.

Michele Folan:

I call them exercise snacks. Yes. Yeah, you know, put a set your your phone, you know, to your alarm clock on your phone to go off every hour so that you get up, because we all can get so entrenched in what we're doing. And do do 10 squats, go to the bathroom, take the long way back, go take some stairs, whatever it is, but just get up and move because your joints will feel better. Yeah.

Megan Dahlman:

I have a bunch of like really simple little masterclasses. Um, they're totally free. They're like a balance masterclass, a posture masterclass, a hip flexor stretching masterclass. So each of those come with like five different exercises that you can do. Like, pick one, pick one of like a balance exercise and get up and just do it at one random moment throughout the day. Pick one of the posture exercises. I love like diagonal arm swings. They feel so good. You could just get up and just stretch your shoulders out at one moment of the day or a hip flexor stretch, like these little movements. Sometimes we just don't know what to do. Like, yeah, I want to move, but I don't know what to do. Right. And so having some direction can be really helpful and motivating to say, yeah, I want to do the exercise snacks, and now I know, like, okay, I'm gonna do this posture stretch, and the next time I'm gonna do this one, and then I'm gonna do this balance move. And so you've got you get that variety and something to actually do. But yeah, I love the idea of exercise snacks.

Michele Folan:

One other little tip that I this was self-discovery kind of thing, but I'm short. And a lot of times I don't have the opportunity to sit in chairs where my feet are flat on the floor floor. And what I was noticing, I was getting some knee pain. And like I sit at our bar stools around the kitchen island, and my knees are at a weird angle. Uh, but now, like right now, as you and I speak, I've got my feet up on a like an eight, nine-inch stool that keeps my knees more aligned and keeps my knees from hanging because I'm short. But uh but but paying attention to cues.

Megan Dahlman:

Yes.

Michele Folan:

Why do my knees hurt? What did I do today? You can do the same thing with shoulders. Oh, well, my neck hurts because I I was on my cell phone all day today, scrolling on Instagram. But start thinking about your daily activities and how that may be contributing to some of your aches.

Megan Dahlman:

100%. Yeah, it's connecting the dots and noticing, like, oh, I'm not just getting older. I think we just say it's easy to say that excuse and be like, oh man, it's just getting older. It's like, no, you've been sitting in a weird position all day long, or you've been looking down at your phone all day long. No wonder your body is cranky about that. So yeah, I love that tip of just paying attention to what your body is in throughout the day, how are your hips? The big joints that I like to highlight, and the ones that actually lose the most mobility as we age, um, are your ankles, your knees, your hips, and your shoulders. So those four big joints lose mobility the most. So ankles, knees, hips, and shoulders. So if every day you just did something to move your ankles a lot, did something to move your knees, like do full deep knee bends up and down, do that's gonna get your hips too. So, or do some hip circles, do some shoulder circles, move your shoulders through their full ranges of motion. That is going to help keep you so mobile. This is where a lot of women will get kind of stuck if all they have is like a walking program. Walking is excellent fitness, but unfortunately, it doesn't move these big joints through their largest, fullest ranges of motion. So you start to feel like you're losing your mobility a little bit as you get older.

Michele Folan:

Yeah.

Megan Dahlman:

So I just want to highlight like those are the big joints that we need to keep moving. So if you need to start somewhere, like think about those ones.

Michele Folan:

And the beauty of this, Megan, and your advice is always so wonderful. Even if you work in an office, you can move these joints. Yes. Right? I mean, it's just not, it's not just for those of us that are working from home. You can do this anywhere.

Megan Dahlman:

Yeah. And even if you've already lost a lot of mobility, that's okay too. Start where you're at. You know, it's kind of what we were talking about in the beginning. It's like, well, what can you do? Let's say, you know, I just mentioned a minute ago, like do a full deep knee bend, like a full squat all the way down and up. Someone probably listened to that and said, Well, I can't, I can't do that. I can't, I can't go all the way down. It's like, well, well, can you go halfway down? Can we do like a little perching squat, like almost pretending like you're sitting into a bar stool and then standing back up? If that's what you've got, let's do that. Let's optimize that, make sure that we maintain that amount of mobility. And then over time, as your muscles get stronger, those joints start to lubricate better, you're gonna realize, like, wait a second, I'm now going a little deeper than I was before. And it's just gonna continue and continue and continue. And so don't rule anything out because you don't, your, your body's not done. Like it's it's not done improving, you know, it's not all downhill from here. We can go uphill, you know, like in a good way.

Michele Folan:

We can improve no matter how old you are. Amen. I love that. Yeah, speaking of which, who is the oldest client you've ever coached and what was her story?

Megan Dahlman:

Oh, you know, 80s, definitely. I've worked with so many women in their early 80s, and someone comes to my mind. Um, I have a woman right now in her early 80s, and she'd never strength trained before. It was totally new. She'd done a little bit of golfing, a little bit of tennis in the past. Um, but she just was never what she would call like an athlete. Like it just wasn't even part of the the culture then. And most of the women she knew growing up, growing up, like you just didn't move very much. That's what the men did. They were the athletes. And so what I love about her is that she has a growth attitude. It's the the health of her body is really stemming from the attitude that she has, where she has a really coachable spirit, and she's coming to the table with like, I don't feel good, I don't know what to do. So just tell me and I'll I'll do it. And I'm willing to try. And so having that attitude rather than the attitude of like, I can't do that. Uh-uh, I can't do that. I can't, like, it's hard to get anywhere with someone who has an attitude of I can't. Right. And so she has such a beautiful attitude of like, I'm willing to try. And I'm, and she's encountered a few movements along the way that she she just can't do right now. And that's okay. And we work on some modifications, but where she is now physically compared to where she was even just six months ago, it's night and day. Like even her entire family, her her children who are in their like 60s are thanking me. They're like, you've given her her life back. Like she's able to now be a part of our family activities in more ways than than she was able to before.

Michele Folan:

Oh, I'm sure it shows up in how she presents herself, how she walks. I mean, I'm sure her gait has improved, her posture. I mean, all these things that they're they're not to be overlooked.

Megan Dahlman:

Yeah. And what's so fun, and what I love to tell every woman that I coach is like, you don't train to be good at training. Like you don't work out to be someone who's really good at working out. You work out, you train your body so that you can experience it in the wild. You know, like I know you and I, Michelle, we both went to Italy this last time. So yeah. Like the Italy is not a flat country. No, like you go to these small hill town, like you're climbing upstairs, you're you're walking on cobblestones, and it's beautiful and the event adventures there. And I know you got to visit some other countries too. And like that is your strength in the wild. Like everything that you do in your workout is so that you can go out and do all of those adventures for as long as you possibly can. Whatever is whatever's the thing on your bucket list, you still are able to do, and your body is not going to prevent you from doing that. That is the purpose of working out. You're not working out to be a professional worker out. It's working out so that you can experience your body in the world. Because that would be a really shitty job.

Michele Folan:

Sorry. Not in my job, yeah, but but you help other people differently.

Megan Dahlman:

Yeah, it's it's not not everybody needs to have this as their passion either. And that's okay. Like you just need to do the the bare necessities to make sure that your body is never getting in the way of anything you want to be able to do.

Michele Folan:

You know, when you said that, it made me think of that trip I took with my daughter because, oh my God, I I want to be able to do that 10 years from now. And I still want my daughter to say, oh my God, you kicked my ass on that hill. And and I felt so good after that trip, knowing that I never held her up, right? She was the one kind of lagging behind a little bit at times. And and you know, that felt it was very um self-affirming, I guess, that all this hard work that I've been putting in for years is is paying off. And I want that for the women I work with. I know you want that for the women you work with. And we we talk, we we talk about, you know, staying out of the nursing home, being able to get off the toilet, all those things, but those are just base, those are the basics.

Megan Dahlman:

Basics. Yeah. Yeah. I I want to experience life as long as I can, you know, as long as I have the blessing to wake up every day and see the sunrise and have the opportunity to spend moments with my kids. Like, I want to do what I need to do for my body to ensure that I can do those things for as long as possible. I mean, you talking about being able to travel with your daughter, it brings tears to my eyes. Like, like it's that's the bigger why. And that's something I always ask any anyone who ever comes into my programs, it's like, what is your why? We we rarely stop to actually think about why this is important. And the moment you can connect those dots of like, why am I even here? Why am I even doing this? It's like, oh, so that next year I can go back to Italy with my daughter and I can still kick her butt going up those hills so that the year after that I can do it again. And so when you get really clear on why this even matters to you, why is this valuable like and how does it impact you and your family and your relationships, like suddenly it all comes into focus and it gives you motivation and it makes it so much bigger than just like seeing your shoulder muscle. Yeah, like that's fun too. But like it it really highlights the value of what it is and and why we're doing what we're doing every day. Yep, for sure.

Michele Folan:

And so talking about clients, yeah, how do you work with clients? You I know you have a couple programs, correct?

Megan Dahlman:

Yes, and actually for many years I did one-on-one coaching with women and I I trained them in person and then started training them online, and now um there's so many. And so over the years I've shifted so that all of my coaching is available online through courses that anybody can take at any moment in time. So we have clients all over all over the world. So I have a handful of members in the UK and in New Zealand and in India and South Africa. So, what's beautiful about the power of the internet is that you can have access to good quality coaching, smart training from the comfort of your own home, no matter where you live. So, all of my courses are available online and they're all full follow-along videos, just plug and play. You don't have to overthink it. It's like, I know it's it can feel so overwhelming just to get started. And my goal from day one with creating these programs was to completely remove that feeling of being overwhelmed so that you can't get to that point where you're climbing those hills in Italy with your daughter.

Michele Folan:

And and maybe going to the gym, you know. Yeah, I do see some women that are older than I at the gym, and it always just makes me so happy. Like, I'll go up to them, like, how old are you? I just I love that you're here, right? And it it's so, but I know it takes it takes some courage to get there, and um, and maybe working with a coach like you, Megan, that can build that confidence as they go. Yeah, yeah. A personal question, and I I might be able to answer this one, but what is one of your non-negotiable self-care practices?

Megan Dahlman:

Oh, yeah. Well, on topic, definitely, it's just to move every day somehow. And you know, the last couple days, this is a crazy week. We're recording right now in the beginning of September. My kids just went to school. I've got a high schooler this year for the first time and a middle schooler, and and there's just been a lot of busyness. And Monday, Tuesday, I didn't have the time to do a real deal workout. But that didn't matter. I still went for a walk. I still did a couple stretches. And so it it's connecting the dots between I just feel better when I move and knowing that I feel so much better when I move, it motivates me to just move somehow every day, even if it's just a little exercise snack. Even if it's just one of those, it's still important to do. How wonderful if I do get a full workout in, it does feel really good. I was able to get one in this morning, but it doesn't happen every time. And that's okay too. So I just try to move somehow every day.

Michele Folan:

If you could put one billboard up for every woman over 50 to read about fitness, what would it say?

Megan Dahlman:

It would say it's never too late to be strong.

unknown:

Yes.

Megan Dahlman:

Yes. And it it brings tears to my eyes when I say that, but like it's so true. And don't write off the possibility of you being a really strong woman, even physically. And it's never too late to be strong.

Michele Folan:

Ooh, this was such a great way to wrap this up. So where can people find you, Megan Dolman?

Megan Dahlman:

Come find me over on Instagram. Just search my name. It's just at Megan Dalman. I'm posting four or five videos there every single day of simple little exercise snacks that you can do to just get you rolling. That's the best way to just come say hi. If you're not on Instagram, you can find me on my website, just Vigaofit.com.

Michele Folan:

All right, I will put all that in the show notes. Megan Dalman, I knew this was gonna be a robust conversation. It's great to have you back. Thank you so much, Michelle. I enjoyed it every minute. Thank you for listening. Please rate and review the podcast where you listen. And if you'd like to join the Asking for a Friend community, click on the link in the show notes to sign up for my weekly newsletter where I share midlife wellness and fitness tips, insights, my favorite finds, and recipes.