RT, menopause and hot flashes (flushes): All good news! Fewer flushes. More muscle. More strength. Berin et al. reported that 15 weeks of resistance training reduced moderate to severe hot flushes by 44%, while the control group showed essentially no change. Nearly 45% of the women in the training group cut their flushes by at least half, and the improvement was already apparent by week 3. Then Thorell et al. followed up with MRI data from the same trial and found even more good news: muscle volume increased by about 4%, strength rose in every tested exercise. So the take-home is pretty simple: the same program that helped hot flushes also built muscle and strength. Best of all, this was a practical, progressive, moderate-volume routine done 3 times/week with 6 machine exercises and 2 body-weight exercises, mostly 2 sets of 8 to 12 reps, plus a lighter 3-week ramp-up to ease women in. That lines up nicely with the recent ACSM position stand, which shows that progressive RT done at ...