August 31, 2026
Muscle Is So Much More Than Strength
Why It May Be One of Your Most Important Organs
Why It May Be One of Your Most Important Organs
When we think about muscle, we tend to think about strength.
Being able to lift something heavy. Looking toned. Staying mobile. Perhaps maintaining our physique as we get older.
But muscle is doing far more than moving your skeleton around.
Muscle is metabolically active tissue. It communicates with other parts of your body, helps regulate blood sugar, influences inflammation, supports your bones and protects your independence as you age.
In many ways, we need to start thinking about muscle almost as an organ in its own right.
And particularly as we move through midlife, preserving it becomes one of the most important investments we can make in our future health.
One of muscle's most important jobs happens every time we eat.
After a meal, glucose enters the bloodstream and needs somewhere to go. Skeletal muscle is one of the major places where that glucose can be taken up and stored or used for energy.
Think of muscle as a large metabolic sink.
The healthier and more active that muscle tissue is, the better equipped the body is to handle glucose. This is one reason resistance training can be such an important part of improving insulin sensitivity and metabolic health.
And it isn't simply about having bigger muscles.
The quality of the muscle matters too.
Muscle can become infiltrated with fat, meaning someone can have a perfectly normal weight or BMI while their muscle tissue is metabolically less healthy. The podcast discussion that inspired this article makes this distinction beautifully: the goal isn't necessarily to put on enormous amounts of muscle, but to make the muscle tissue you already have healthier.
This is why I am far more interested in body composition and metabolic health than simply the number on the scales.
Two people can weigh exactly the same and have very different metabolic health depending on what that weight consists of.
This is perhaps the part I find most fascinating.
When muscles contract, they release signalling molecules called myokines.
These chemical messengers allow muscle to communicate with other tissues and organs, including the brain, gut and metabolic systems.
So exercise isn't simply burning calories.
Every time you use your muscles, you are creating biological signals.
That changes the conversation completely.
Instead of asking:
“How many calories did I burn?”
perhaps we should be asking:
“What message did I just send my body?”
A walk sends one type of message. Cardiovascular exercise sends another. Resistance training places muscle under load and tells the body:
We still need this tissue. Keep it. Strengthen it. Adapt.
And as we get older, that message becomes increasingly important.
For women, this becomes particularly relevant through perimenopause and menopause.
Oestrogen doesn't just affect periods, fertility or hot flushes. Oestrogen receptors are found throughout the body, and changing oestrogen levels can influence muscle metabolism, mitochondrial function and insulin sensitivity.
As oestrogen declines through menopause, the environment changes. We can see increasing oxidative stress and inflammation within muscle, changes in mitochondrial function and a greater tendency towards insulin resistance and fat deposition within the muscle.
At the same time, testosterone also matters.
Women produce testosterone too, and normal androgen levels contribute to the maintenance of lean tissue as well as bone health and other aspects of wellbeing.
So there is a two-way conversation happening.
Hormones influence the health of our muscles, while healthy, active muscle helps support the metabolic environment in which our hormones operate.
That is one reason I don't think we can talk meaningfully about women's health in midlife without talking about muscle.
For decades, many women were taught that exercise meant cardio.
Run. Walk. Cycle. Do an aerobics class. Get your heart rate up. Burn calories.
And all of those things can be wonderful for health.
But they don't replace resistance training.
Walking is fantastic. I would never discourage someone from walking more. But if we want to preserve muscle tissue, we also need to give that muscle a reason to stay.
And that means resistance.
Weights are one option, but resistance training doesn't have to mean walking into the free-weights section of a gym and deadlifting your body weight.
It might begin with resistance bands.
Bodyweight squats.
Wall sits.
Push-ups against a kitchen counter.
Light dumbbells.
Machines at the gym.
The source discussion even highlights research in older women where an eight-week resistance-band programme produced improvements in strength, biomarkers and gait speed.
You don't have to become a bodybuilder.
You just need to challenge your muscles.
This, for me, is where muscle becomes about something much bigger than looking good.
As we age, we naturally begin to lose muscle mass, strength and particularly some of our fast-twitch muscle capacity.
Fast-twitch fibres are involved in rapid, powerful movements.
Why does that matter at 70 or 80?
Because sometimes what keeps you upright isn't endurance.
It's the ability to react quickly when you trip.
It's catching yourself.
Getting out of a chair.
Climbing stairs.
Carrying your shopping.
Getting up from the floor.
Maintaining your balance.
A fall in later life can be catastrophic, particularly if it results in a hip fracture. Preserving strength and muscle function is therefore not simply about fitness.
It is about preserving independence.
And importantly, it is not too late.
We can still build lean tissue in our 60s, 70s and even 80s. Age may change how we train and recover, but it doesn't remove our ability to adapt.
I think we have spent far too long focusing on weight loss.
Particularly with women.
The question has always been:
How much weight have you lost?
But perhaps a much more useful question is:
What are you made of?
Are you preserving muscle?
Are you getting stronger?
Is your muscle metabolically healthy?
Can your body handle glucose effectively?
Can you lift things that used to feel heavy?
Can you get off the floor easily?
Can you carry your suitcase?
Can you climb stairs without thinking about it?
Those are very different measures of health.
And with the enormous interest in weight-loss medications such as GLP-1 drugs, protecting lean tissue becomes even more important. Losing weight while losing significant muscle alongside it is not the metabolic outcome we should be aiming for.
The goal isn't simply a smaller body.
The goal is a stronger, healthier, more metabolically resilient body.
You don't need an elaborate gym programme.
You don't need to lift enormous weights.
And you certainly don't need to suddenly train six days a week.
If resistance training is completely new to you, getting a few sessions with a knowledgeable trainer can be invaluable, particularly for learning good technique and building confidence.
But even small amounts count.
A few squats while the kettle boils.
Calf raises at your desk.
A short resistance-band session.
Ten minutes with dumbbells.
These little “exercise snacks” can be surprisingly useful, particularly for people who spend much of the day sitting. The discussion that inspired this article makes exactly this point: movement doesn't always have to happen inside a formal workout.
Then gradually, we can build from there.
Because muscle isn't vanity.
It isn't just something for athletes.
And strength training isn't simply about looking toned.
Muscle is metabolic health. Muscle is glucose control. Muscle is resilience. Muscle is protection. Muscle is independence.
And the older we get, the more valuable it becomes.
In the next article, I'll look at the other half of this conversation: protein — how much we actually need, why the usual recommendations may not tell the whole story, and why simply sprinkling a little protein throughout the day may not be enough to support muscle as we age.
Image by drobotdean on Magnific