21/09/2026
Strength training became important to me for reasons that had very little to do with fitness or trends.
Living with endometriosis meant dealing with pain, fatigue and days when I felt that my body was working against me.
Strength training didn’t cure my endo or magically “balance” my hormones. But it helped me support my body in ways I hadn’t fully understood before.
When we talk about hormone health, we tend to think only about estrogen and progesterone. But insulin and cortisol are hormones too and strength training can influence how our body responds to both.
Our muscles use a significant amount of glucose. As we build and use them, they become better at taking glucose out of the bloodstream, which can improve insulin sensitivity and reduce how hard the body has to work to manage blood sugar.
Exercise also gives the body a short, controlled dose of stress. Over time, regular movement can help improve how we respond to other stressors, rather than promising to keep cortisol permanently “low”, which isn’t the goal anyway.
Then there’s bone health. Loading the muscles also loads the bones, helping them stay strong. That’s especially relevant because some hormonal treatments used for endometriosis can affect bone density.
None of this means strength training directly fixes the estrogen-driven biology of endometriosis. The evidence isn’t there.
For me, it’s simply another way to support the systems that hormone health depends on.
Not a punishment. Not a cure. Just one tool that has genuinely helped me feel stronger and better supported in my body.