Men Who Coach Menopausal Women: Genuine Support or Just a Lucrative Niche?
A personal reflection on early menopause, strength training, and why lived experience still matters in women’s health coaching.
I've been thinking a lot about male PTs who focus on menopause. I'm fascinated by it, conflicted about it, and genuinely curious about what other women think.
To explain why this question matters to me, I need to go back to how I arrived here in the first place.
I retrained as a personal trainer around the same time I went through an early menopause. I started training after becoming sober. Like many people who stop drinking, I became passionate about fitness and wanted to help others build a healthier relationship with alcohol, especially those of us who were teenagers in the 90s and grew up around a culture where drinking was normalised. My first step was to get the qualifications I needed to work as a PT. At the same time, I was going through early menopause. I didn't realise I had already been in perimenopause for a while, but I now wonder whether that was part of why alcohol had become so damaging for me: the soul-destroying anxiety, the lack of sleep, and the utter confusion.
While training to become a PT, I started learning about the physical challenges that disproportionately affect women during and after menopause. I also learned about the huge benefits of strength training: benefits that can improve quality of life, protect long-term health, and, in some cases, help save lives.
My experience of early menopause
When I started going through menopause, I felt so alone. I didn't have anyone I could talk to about what I was experiencing. I was still surrounded by people getting pregnant, and the women I knew who were talking about menopause were around ten years older than me. When I tried to join conversations about menopause at work, I was dismissed. I couldn't possibly be going through menopause, I was told, because I was too young.
When I spoke to people my age, hoping to make sense of the confusion, they had no idea what I was going through. Many had only recently had babies, so menopause felt distant to them: an abstract concept, something for a future version of themselves to worry about.
I don't know whether the conversations were already happening in the mainstream and I simply hadn't noticed because they felt irrelevant to me. But over the last six years, menopause has become a much more familiar topic. I now speak to women my age who recognise themselves as being in perimenopause, and that alone feels like progress.
Why I wanted to help women
As I learned more about the biological disadvantages women can face after the loss of oestrogen, I also learned that the story does not have to end there. Strength training, nutrition, lifestyle changes, and the right support can influence outcomes. That made me want to shout from the mountain tops: our destiny is not fixed. We can make changes that improve our lives, protect our health, and, in some cases, may even help save our lives.
Why strength training can save lives
Is it dramatic to say that strength training can save lives? In short: no.
Like me, you might still think of yourself as the 20-year-old twirling around on the dance floor without a care. But as we get closer to 50 and beyond, a trip or stumble can start to mean something different. It is no longer just laddered tights and a bruised knee. A fall can lead to fractures, loss of confidence, reduced mobility, and complications that have serious consequences for older adults. That is why building strength, balance, and bone density matters.
Strength training can help reduce those risks in several ways, which is why I am so enthusiastic about it and those lovely weights.
If you strength train, you become sturdier. You are less likely to feel wobbly, more confident when walking around, and better able to stay upright in day-to-day life. Deadlifts and squats are especially useful because they train the whole body while placing a strong focus on the lower body.
Strength training can reduce bone loss and may help improve bone density. We reach peak bone density by around 30, and after that our bone density gradually declines. Bones are constantly being broken down and rebuilt through the activity of osteoclasts and osteoblasts, but as we get older the balance becomes less favourable. The less dense our bones are, the more vulnerable they become to fractures and breaks.
Strength training also helps with balance. As you build muscle, your joint stability improves, which can make everyday movement feel more controlled and reduce the chance of losing your footing.
To be fair, men also lose muscle mass and bone mass as they age. Men lose muscle and bone as they age too, but women are disproportionately affected, especially around menopause.
Men coaching menopause
Which brings me back to my initial question: why are some men choosing to specialise in training menopausal women? I know why I came into this work, and money wasn’t it. I have invested significantly in qualifications, extra training, technology, and equipment, and financially I would probably have been better off choosing a different route. But I care deeply about this work because I have lived it, studied it, and seen how much difference the right support can make.
The women who work with me are clear that they came to me because I am a woman. They value my experience and the lengths I have gone to in order to get qualified. Of course, you do not always need first-hand experience to support someone well. I work with disabled clients, and I am not disabled.
What I struggle with is the marketing I have seen around menopause online. I have watched videos of men tell rooms of people to target menopausal women because they are desperate and will pay for anything. That sits badly with me. Men can absolutely be skilled, compassionate coaches, and lived experience is not the only route to doing good work. But when menopause is treated as a lucrative niche rather than a life stage that deserves respect, knowledge, and care, I think it is fair to ask some hard questions.
I find myself wondering what draws some male coaches specifically to menopausal women. Is it genuine interest and respect for the client group? Is it because menopause is currently visible and marketable? Is it because women in this life stage are being seen as an opportunity rather than as people who deserve thoughtful, specialist support? These are uncomfortable questions, but I think they are worth asking.
So, what should you look for?
Whoever you choose, here’s my checklist:
A proper Personal Training qualification, as a minimum.
If you have any health conditions, check they’re qualified and insured to work with them (a Long-Term Conditions qualification is the sort of thing to ask about).
A menopause coaching certificate (good ones to look for are Girls Gone Strong and Burrell Education)
Insurance
A real online presence: a website, a registered address, actual humans you can find.
Be wary of any ad that promises you everything you want. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is (and it’s probably a very shiny ad).
There shouldn’t be any problem with asking for any certificates as evidence
That goes for any coach, whoever they are.
And now I’d love to hear from you. If you’re a man, what draws you specifically to menopausal women as your niche? And if you’re a woman choosing a male menopause PT, what makes that feel like the right fit for you? I’m genuinely interested, and genuinely befuddled.
