Stronger with Age

11/08/2026

Some of the most commonly cited barriers to muscle-strengthening exercise participation are

✔️ a lack of awareness that muscle-strengthening recommendations and guidelines even exist

✔️ a lack of understanding of what activities count towards the muscle-strengthening guidelines and

✔️ a lack of knowledge on how to safely and effectively perform muscle-strengthening exercise

Both the World Health Organization and ISPAH - The International Society for Physical Activity and Health suggest that developing a mass media campaign can transmit clear, consistent messages about physical activity to large populations. The House of Commons Department of Health and Social Care also recently called for a 'national movement campaign.'

We think a well coordinated campaign that is designed with and resonates with the public can help increase the awareness of the importance of muscle-strengthening exercise, what counts as muscle-strengthening exercise, and convey how to safely and effectively get started with muscle-strengthening exercise.

So, we engaged the public to help us form 11 initial recommendations for future muscle-strengthening campaigns.

Here's what they suggested...

1. Use images of real people being active and strong in a variety of ways, focusing on diversity of body types, ethnicities, and ages. Avoid stick people or cartoon icons.

2. Quotes and success stories are an excellent use of text.

3. Peers are the preferred source of information and inspiration. Capitalise by asking more people to share their stories and experiences (see guidelines 1 and 2).

Interested in seeing all 11 recommendations? Check out our paper (link in bio)

29/07/2026

Have you listened to the latest Exercise Science podcast yet?

We discuss the FITT-VP framework to help you remember the variables when starting on your strength training journey!

28/07/2026

Join us as we talk about how to get started with strength training in later life!

Want to convince an older adult to start strength training? This is the episode for you!

28/07/2026

Lunges in primary care?!

While we all know there are countless benefits of physical activity, we know that primary care practitioners who are physically active themselves are more likely to give physical activity advice to their patients (Lee, 2024).

Greater Manchester Moving supports GP surgeries across Greater Manchester to sign up to the Active Practice Charter, an initative from the Royal College of General Practitioners and to inspire and celebrate GP practices that commit to increasing activity and reducing sedentary behaviour in both staff and patients.

However, all too often, increasing physical activity conjures up ideas on how to get more aerobic-based activity in only...and sadly, muscle-strengthening activity is often forgotten.

So, what better way to increase activity and reduce sedentary behaviour than to take a 1-minute lunge break before and after sitting for my seminar about how to increase activity and reduce sedentary behaviour during the workday? 😆

I am honoured to contribute to this fantastic initiative by ensuring that strength exercises are seen as an effective, efficient, and enjoyable way to both break up sedentary behaviour and get a little moderate to vigorous muscle-strengthening activity in too!

And whether you’re inside or outside of Greater Manchester, follow over at - we have some new resources coming out shortly especially for primary care!!

21/07/2026

Feeling overwhelmingly grateful for the opportunity to put STRONGER with AGE out into the real world AND that it’s making a real difference in women’s lives 😍

This has been a dream of mine since the programme worked beyond my wildest expectations in research settings in New Zealand.

Implementation is hard, spreading and scaling is harder, sustainability and normalization will be even harder still - but stories like these continue to fuel my passion!!

14/07/2026

🆕 Our NEW SCOPING REVIEW highlights the implications of failing to critically investigate implementation outcomes when conducting real-world strength training research.

When real-wold research fails to report implementation outcomes, we cannot generate causal explanations for the failure of a strength training intervention to bring about the expected increases in muscle strength in these very important settings (for example, more than half of the studies in Van Roie et al.’s 2026 scoping review failed to show an increase in muscle strength in real-life muscle-strengthening research).

Therefore, we don’t know if
❓studies are failing to see increases in muscle strength because the intervention was unacceptable to those who delivered it or to those who received it

❓or, the intervention failed to deliver the core components of evidence-based strength training (i.e. sufficient frequency, intensity, or progressive overload) and thus, the intervention was not delivered as intended by its developers

❓or, was it that the intervention was cost-prohibitive and/or unsustainable in that particular setting?

Therefore, despite holding critical implications for our understanding in translating research to practice, evaluation of recognised implementation outcomes appears to be overlooked - at least for preventative strength training.

If we want to encourage decision makers to prioritise proactive or preventative strength training and increase resource allocation, we need to have a clearer picture about what works, for whom, in what circumstances, and how.

It’s time to open that black box!

01/07/2026

We have *A LOT* of data around barriers to strength training participation. We have evidence from college-aged adults, endurance athletes, older adults, individuals living with chronic health conditions and disability, minority groups, healthcare professionals, etc.

And guess what?

All subgroups report an enormous number of barriers to strength training participation.

Surprise! 😆

Women are no different. The most frequent barriers to strength training that women report (Vasudevan, 2021) are -

✔️ Gender-based stigma
✔️ Lack of support
✔️ Lack of results
✔️ Boredom
✔️ Poor knowledge of strength training
✔️ Perceived risk of injury due to incorrect technique
✔️ Lack of supervision
✔️ Lack of routine
✔️ Difficulty balancing work and family life

AND

I have seen *MOST* of these be *EASILY* overcome with the use of fully-supervised, small, homogenous group, evidence-based strength training.

I continue to see the sense of belonging and confidence soar higher than even I ever imagine, in just a couple weeks.

Expecting people new to the gym to just walk in and know what they are doing is completely naive. Why aren’t small group training introductions a part of every new gym membership? I think this would solve the massive drop out we see in new memberships - 63% of new members abandon their membership before the third month and less than 4% remain at one year (Sperandei, 2016)

A grateful shout out to Sou Kong, Be Well Wigan and Wigan Council who are making a life changing difference to their community of women with the implementation of STRONGER with AGE 💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻

13/06/2026

We are looking for our next cohort! If you’re in Wigan, this is for you!!

03/06/2026

You *might* have noticed my passion for strength training...but how did I get here?

1️⃣ I started in medical science at McMaster University. I went on to work in cardiac artery bypass grafting surgery and pharmaceutical clinical trials. I met older adults at their most vulnerable. We asked people who had never been physically active to attend cardiac rehab after surviving one of the most invasive surgeries on offer.

This experience got me thinking: why do we wait until people become sick in order to intervene with life saving exercise ESPECIALLY when we know that people with poor self-reported health and no prior physical activity history are least likely to engage???

I NEEDED to do more.

2️⃣ I went to Auckland University of Technology with the goal of developing the very best preventative intervention I could offer people who wanted the very best chance at reducing their risk of age-associated disability and disease. I knew there was something special about strength training but even I didn’t expect the results we obtained. Older adults LOVED the heavy load, progressive programme and the depth and breadth of benefits they gained. It’s at this point I truly fell in love with stories - the stories participants had about how strength training changed their lives, forever changed me.

My question became: so, why aren’t more people strength training???

3️⃣ At The University of Manchester, I started from the beginning - what do people *actually* know about muscle strength, strength training, and the muscle-strengthening guidelines? Not what ‘boxes’ they tick on a survey but what they really know. Turns out, older adults were not quite sure what strength training means or how to do it. And some community-based exercise instructors just didn’t seem to value the benefits that strength training will have in later life...

Continued in comments…