Training Smarter After 40 with Jana Barrett: Redefining Fitness for Women Through Hormonal Awareness
In conversation with Jana Barrett , uncover how heart-aligned training and understanding your hormonal cycles can revolutionize women’s fitness over 40, prevent burnout, and help build lasting strength, confidence, and mobility.
In this episode, Mark interviews Jana Barrett, a certified Tacfit instructor, strength coach, and mobility specialist who helps active women over 40 rediscover sustainable fitness. She introduces a revolutionary approach,training women in sync with their hormonal cycle,to achieve optimal results and long-term health.
Jana explains how traditional fitness programs are designed around the male 24-hour hormonal rhythm, leaving women exhausted, injured, or hormonally imbalanced. Her work focuses on realigning exercise with the female 28–34 day hormonal window to reduce fatigue and improve recovery.
She describes the luteal phase, a sensitive post-ovulation period when women should prioritize lighter training and recovery activities like yoga and walking. Pushing through high-intensity workouts during this phase, Jana says, can lead to hormonal chaos, weight gain, and mood swings.
Through heart-centered, hormone-aligned training, Jana empowers women to work with their bodies rather than against them. This shift allows them to maintain strength without sacrificing their mental and physical wellbeing.
The conversation also dives into Tacfit, a tactical fitness system originally created for soldiers and firefighters. Jana adapted it to everyday women, combining mobility, recovery, and functional training tools like the steel mace and club bells.
Her vision is simple yet powerful,help women age with grace, strength, and freedom of movement. Jana believes women over 40 can live vibrant, adventurous lives when they stop fighting their bodies and start training in tune with them.
Key Takeaways
1. Hormone-Aligned Training
Training according to your monthly cycle maximizes performance and minimizes injury. Women’s energy, mood, and recovery vary each month, and syncing workouts with these natural phases is crucial.
Women follow a 28–34 day hormonal rhythm, not a 24-hour one.
Intense workouts are best during the follicular (early) phase.
The luteal (pre-menstrual) phase calls for lighter activity.
Training smart prevents burnout and hormonal imbalance.
Awareness of hormonal cycles boosts energy and longevity.
2. Functional Strength
Jana emphasizes training that builds usable strength,strength that helps you move fluidly in life, not just lift heavier weights.
Functional tools like steel maces improve stability and coordination.
Movements mimic real-life motion, enhancing agility and power.
Builds strength in joints, ligaments, and connective tissue.
Prevents the stiffness caused by repetitive gym routines.
Encourages balance, grace, and control with every move.
3. Mobility Mastery
Mobility is the foundation of long-term health and pain-free living. Jana calls it a “daily deposit into your longevity bank.”
Even 10 minutes of mobility daily can prevent injury.
Improves posture, flexibility, and joint resilience.
Enhances recovery between workouts.
Supports better circulation and faster healing.
Essential for aging well and maintaining independence.
4. Intelligent Recovery
Recovery isn’t rest,it’s strategy. Jana explains that true fitness means knowing when to slow down, breathe, and rebuild.
Overtraining increases cortisol and disrupts hormones.
Use breathwork to recover between intense sessions.
Include low-intensity activities like walking or stretching.
Sleep and nutrition are as vital as the workouts themselves.
Recovery keeps your energy high and your mood stable.
5. Longevity Mindset
Jana’s philosophy is about longevity, not short-term results. She wants women to feel vibrant, strong, and mobile at 70, 80, or even 90.
Consistency beats intensity every time.
Fitness should evolve with age, not fight it.
Focus on healthspan,the quality of years, not just lifespan.
Exercise should support hormones, not sabotage them.
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ABOUT JANA BARRETT :
Jana is all about exercising to feel strong, confident and powerful and to move with freedom, pain free for as long as we possibly can. Jana is a certified TACFIT Instructor, Strength & Conditioning Coach, Qualified Personal Trainer and a Mobility Alchemist. Jana helps athletic women over 40 transition from exercise that leaves them either broken, burnt out or bored into a new way of training that’s more aligned with their stage of life so they can age with strength, confidence and grace for all of life without sacrificing the challenge, thrill and joy. Jana has almost a decade of experience. Her clients get strong and powerful using exercise and movement that is intuitive and suits their bodies, especially as they are transitioning through menopause. Jana has discovered & mastered ancient warrior training with steel mace & clubbells and she now helps other women discover their feminine warrior. She believes that every woman deserves to feel strong, confident and invincible! Jana is a mother of three children and lives in the beautiful New Zealand. She loves all things outdoors and is a keen (but not always very good) surfer.