Menopause, Part 2: The 2,000-Year-Old Lie About Women and Exercise

The story goes that hard exercise is risky for women, and that the idea is ancient. Both halves fall apart on contact. In this solo episode, Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum follows the claim that physical effort harms the female body across twenty centuries, and shows that almost every version of it arrived as a verdict first, with the science bolted on afterward.

It runs from antiquity to the present: what Galen actually wrote, why Sparta trained its women on purpose, the Victorian “vital force” panic and Edward Clarke’s claim that studying would sterilize girls, the doctor who prescribed bed rest to women and the wilderness to men, and the 1928 Olympic 800m that was erased for 32 years over a collapse that never happened. Then the correction: the research that finally tested heavy training in older women and women with low bone mass, and what it found. The episode closes on 2026, where the guidelines say lift and the menopause market often says don’t.

What we cover

• Why the “ancient Greeks” origin story for the no-hard-exercise rule doesn’t hold up.

• How a Victorian energy-budget idea became a medical case against women lifting and studying.

• The real story of the 1928 Olympic women’s 800m and the 32-year ban.

• The strong women who were relabeled as freaks or exceptions instead of counted.

• What Fiatarone’s nonagenarians and LIFTMOR actually showed about lifting heavy later in life.

• The cortisol panic, the fasting scare, and cycle syncing, examined against the data.

• Why the cautious messaging now comes from the market, not the medical guidelines.

Timestamps

• 00:00 The 1928 Olympic “massacre” that never happened
• 03:37 Antiquity: what the Greeks actually said
• 06:50 The Victorians and “vital force”
• 10:02 Mary Putnam Jacobi tests the claim, and is ignored
• 11:53 1928 in full: who killed the women’s 800m
• 13:53 The double standard, and Alice Milliat
• 15:39 The strong women history relabeled
• 20:26 The correction: what the evidence shows
• 22:27 LIFTMOR: lifting heavy with low bone mass
• 24:35 2026: guidelines, the market, and cortisol
• 28:34 Cycle syncing, and naming the pattern
• 30:40 What to take away

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References

Cahn S. Coming on Strong: Gender and Sexuality in Twentieth-Century Women's Sport. Harvard University Press; 1994.

Clarke EH. Sex in Education; or, A Fair Chance for the Girls. Boston: James R. Osgood and Company; 1873.

Colenso-Semple LM, McKendry J, Lim C, et al. Menstrual cycle phase does not influence muscle protein synthesis or whole-body myofibrillar proteolysis in response to resistance exercise. J Physiol. 2025. PMID: 39630025.

Daly W, Hackney AC. Is exercise cortisol response of endurance athletes similar to levels of Cushing's syndrome? J Sports Med Phys Fitness. 2019. PMID: 31371847.

Eastell R, Rosen CJ, Black DM, Cheung AM, Murad MH, Shoback D. Pharmacological management of osteoporosis in postmenopausal women: an Endocrine Society clinical practice guideline. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2019;104(5):1595-1622. PMID: 30907953.

Fiatarone MA, Marks EC, Ryan ND, Meredith CN, Lipsitz LA, Evans WJ. High-intensity strength training in nonagenarians: effects on skeletal muscle. JAMA. 1990;263(22):3029-3034. PMID: 2342214.

Fiatarone MA, O'Neill EF, Ryan ND, et al. Exercise training and nutritional supplementation for physical frailty in very elderly people. N Engl J Med. 1994;330(25):1769-1775.

Galen. On the Preservation of Health (De Sanitate Tuenda). 2nd century CE. Various translations.

Jacobi MP. The Question of Rest for Women During Menstruation. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons; 1877. (Awarded the Harvard Boylston Prize.)

Latella C, Teo WP, Spathis J, et al. Using powerlifting athletes to determine strength adaptations across ages in males and females: a longitudinal growth modelling approach. Sports Med. 2024;54(3):753-774.

Maudsley H. Sex in mind and in education. Fortnightly Review. 1874;15:466-483.

Plutarch. Life of Lycurgus. Approx. 75 CE. Various translations.

Schultz J. Qualifying Times: Points of Change in U.S. Women's Sport. Urbana: University of Illinois Press; 2014.

Sinaki M, Mikkelsen BA. Postmenopausal spinal osteoporosis: flexion versus extension exercises. Arch Phys Med Rehabil. 1984;65(10):593-596. PMID: 6487063.

Soranus of Ephesus. Gynecology. Approx. 2nd century CE. Translated by Temkin O. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press; 1991.

Switzer K. Marathon Woman: Running the Race to Revolutionize Women's Sports. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press; 2007.

Todd J. Various publications. Iron Game History. Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports, University of Texas at Austin.

Tunis JR. Women and the Olympic Games. Harper's Magazine. July 1929. (And contemporaneous press coverage.)

Watson SL, Weeks BK, Weis LJ, Harding AT, Horan SA, Beck BR. High-intensity resistance and impact training improves bone mineral density and physical function in postmenopausal women with osteopenia and osteoporosis: the LIFTMOR randomized controlled trial. J Bone Miner Res. 2018;33(2):211-220. PMID: 30861219.

Xenophon. Constitution of the Lacedaemonians. Approx. 4th century BCE. Various translations.

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