Pvolve and the Menopause Hip Strength Study: What the Exeter Trial Means for UK Women

The University of Exeter Pvolve trial showed 19 percent hip strength gains in women aged 40 to 60 across the menopause transition.

What the University of Exeter Pvolve trial actually found

The Exeter trial researchers conducted a fairly simple study design. 72 healthy, active women aged 40 to 60, all of whom were pre-, peri- or postmenopausal and were not taking hormone replacement therapy, were all assigned into one of two study groups at the University of Exeter’s Faculty of Health and Life Sciences.

In group A, the women were told to keep up with the NHS guidelines to conduct 150 minutes of moderate activity each week. In group B, women conducted the Pvolve 12-week, full-body resistance routine with low impact, at their home or at a fitness class location. The study involved bodyweight exercises, resistant bands, ankle weights, gliders, the P. Ball and a P. Ball mat.

All participants were tested for hip/lower body strength, full body flexibility, dynamic balance, lean muscle mass and body composition before and after the 12-week trial. According to the results published in *Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise*, 2025 will feature a release in January, with a printed version available in early 2026.

The women doing resistance training increased their hip and lower body strength by an average of 19 percent and their overall body flexibility by 21 percent. Additionally, they showed improvements in dynamic balance and their muscle mass increased slightly. These advancements held true for all three phases of the menopause transition. Women adhering only to physical activity guidelines failed to see improvements.

Significance at a clinical level here is key: these women demonstrated the effects of low sex hormone levels in addition to age are no hinderance when carrying out a structured resistance exercise regimen, with low impact being utilized.

Menopause physiology and why resistance training matters

Before going into what the University of Exeter Pvolve trial is reporting, it is good to know what goes on inside your body when going through perimenopause to postmenopause. Peri-menopause typically begins in your 30s and usually wraps up in your mid-50s, when the official transition to post-menopause is determined to have started 12 months after your last period. In the UK, average age is 51.

One major factor here is declining oestrogen, which causes a host of bodily shifts, one being sarcopenia, the natural loss of skeletal musclemass beginning age 40 at rate of around 0.5% to 1% per year until it accelerates in postmenopause, affecting the hips and centre of your body. This loss can make routine physical activity like moving up stairs, lifting bags or maintaining your sense of stability difficult.

Bone mineral density also falls, with women diagnosed with either osteopenia or osteoporosis. About one half of all women over 50 in the UK may experience osteoporosis-related fracture in their lifetime. Connective tissue flexibility declines, making you susceptible to soft tissue injuries like tendon or muscle tears. Your body composition shifts, fat deposits begin accumulating around the abdomen instead.

Besides sleep interruption, mood swings and cognitive overload, these changes contribute to a reduction in your overall health and quality of life. Resistance training has emerged as the strongest intervention that does not involve medication to tackle these effects. It signals bones to remain strong, builds up lean musclemass, can improve insulin sensitivity, helps remove visceral fat stores from around your waistline, improve your balance and reduces your risk of falls.

The Exeter trial adds real-life data that even with a 12-week low-impact program, you too can begin experiencing these effects. The objective is not to persuade everyone to adopt the Pvolve plan. It demonstrates the body is capable of adaptation even during mid-life, provided that the appropriate loads are utilized regularly.

A practical 12-week template for UK women aged 40 to 60

The Pvolve programme need not be complex to see some beneficial results. Consistency in programme repetition and execution is paramount. Twice or thrice weekly sessions of full-body resistance workouts can range from 30 to 45 minutes long, taking at least a day and a half between each session to give the body a chance to recover properly.

Your exercise should ideally consist of five main movement types. Firstly, squatting/lunging: you may have chair squats, goblet squats or Bulgarian split squats. Secondly, hip hinge: try dumbbell Roman deadlifts, single-leg deadlifts or glute bridges. Third, push-ups/push-type movement: these may be wall push-ups, on-your-knees pushups, push-ups performed on the floor or overhead dumbbell press/banded press. Fourth, pull-ups/pulling movement: try banded row, dumbbell pull or inverted pull-up bar movements. Finally, fifth, core strength exercise: a basic plank exercise, a dead bug or a bird dog movement or side planks.

A standard recommended protocol includes performing two to three sets per exercise, 8-15 reps each. As you progressively progress over the next one to two weeks, make the resistance stronger, increase the reps by 1-2, broaden the range of motion or choose a unilateral variation of an exercise (such as a single-leg deadlift or a single-arm pull) if one was initially selected.

Pvolve bands and weights offer resistance to allow a person to gradually intensify the exercise without resorting to heavy weightlifting. Weight training sessions can produce the same results, using anything from dumbbells to barbells and kettlebells to machines. To complement the weight training, engage in about 150 minutes of vigorous or brisk activity (such as fast walking, cycling, swimming or anything you prefer that raises heart rate) each week to improve heart health.

If your joints can take the strain, a couple of days a week including controlled high impact loading, like skipping, box step-ups, jumping or jumping jacks can have benefits to bone health. Wrap up each resistance training session with 5-10 minutes devoted to stretching and increasing mobility.

The body must be fed protein properly: 1-1.5g protein for 1kg of bodyweight. Vitamin D supplements of 10mcg a day from October to March is crucial for bone health in the UK. Ensuring adequate sleep and not overdoing your alcohol intake is part of the wellness plan.

How to start, equipment options and UK access

To start, consider three different avenues.

Option 1: work out at home, requiring minimal equipment. Your setup will only need a set of medium dumbbells (5-10kg), one long loop resistance band and one yoga mat. Your total expenditure would be approximately £50. Take advantage of free guides on the NHS Better Health site, additional training elements provided for their strength focus alongside Couch to 5K or follow proven content creators on YouTube.

Option 2: take your workout at home with Pvolve. Subscribe to the Pvolve streaming app at around £14.99 a month or £149 per year (effective May 2026), which offers 30-minute, guided workouts. For their equipment, a bundle costs from £50 to £300. Although the total kit which comes with the P ball, P band, weights around the ankle and sliders is the most helpful package to complete workouts, the basics will work with less sophisticated equipment, too.

Option 3: go to a gym. All major UK gym chains like Pure Gym, The Gym Group, Nuffield Health, David Lloyd and the numerous local government leisure centres provide a well-stocked fitness setup. Workouts covering your entire body three times a week should fit inside a budget of a 15-40 quid monthly membership. If the gym is free through NHS prescription referral schemes, you will have a dozen or so weeks where you benefit from subsidised membership/workout packages.

Speak to your physician if you feel like you should take the referral option or are concerned about injuries or a heightened fall risk. For those dealing with osteoporosis or bone issues, consider the help of a physiotherapist specialized in Royal Osteoporosis Society guidance. Prior to engaging with the fitness routine, it is advised to have a consultation with your primary physician or a specialist if you are pregnant, have recently undergone surgery or suffer from uncontrolled heart disease.

What the wider research says about menopause and exercise

While the Exeter Pvolve study is groundbreaking as the first of its kind in randomization involving women from 40 to 60 years old during menopause, it aligns with a vast and growing amount of research, suggesting the following:

Researcher Stacy Sims (who collaborated on this University of Exeter study and also published her research and wrote the book *Next Level*) stated on numerous occasions that women entering menopause will react and improve to the physical demands of short sessions of intense resistance exercise along with plyometric impact instead of solely engaging in a steady pace of moderate exercise.

The British Menopause Society (BMS) includes not only HRT treatments (where warranted) in their recommended lifestyle adaptations, but also daily resistance workouts coupled with load-bearing aerobic activities. According to studies conducted in the UK, although over three quarters of perimenopausal and postmenopausal women are aware that exercise benefits health, close to 30 percent of these women conduct fewer than one session per week or fail to do any physical activity due to lack of motivation or not enough free time.

For the treatment of osteoporosis, the Royal Osteoporosis Society has designed a program (Strong, Steady and Straight) that advises gradual, increased intensity exercises along with balance tests as primary approaches to ward off falls that could result in fractures.

While a holistic approach is indeed positive and encouraging, resistance exercise offers benefits regardless of the phase of menopause and when low-impact choices are a preference or a necessity, Pvolve can be a useful option, alongside standard weight training options, such as barbells, dumbbells and weight machines. Consistency over long stretches (months or even years) is the most important factor, not the type of program followed.

Symptoms commonly improved by exercise in perimenopause and menopause

Exercise generally helps with an extensive range of menopause-associated symptoms, but the impact of the evidence differs from one symptom to another.

The effects of regular physical exercise on mood swings and depression have a substantial and well-researched positive outcome for mid-life women, with an impact that can rival a prescribed drug when taken to combat a mild to moderate case.

Similarly, the strength of the impact that exercise has on sleep has been proven. By regularly engaging in resistance training and aerobic exercise, you will be able tofall asleep much quicker, your total hours of sleep may increase and you will have better quality sleep overall.

There is disagreement as to what degree exercise affects hot flashes, some studies indicate an improvement due to yoga and strengthening exercises, while others found no change or an insignificant level of benefit.

Resistance training exercises that concentrate on strengthening the muscles surrounding joints like the quadriceps (knees), glutes (hips) and core will reduce the likelihood of osteoarthritis. Reducing harmful abdominal fat can be addressed more effectively with the combined use of resistance exercise and sufficient protein consumption. Aerobic exercise alone does not tackle abdominal fat as well.

Resistance training combined with exercises involving high-impact load will improve bone health noticeably. Improving balance while falling the minimum possible amount will result from a combination of resistance and balance workouts. In older women, such a combination can reduce falls anywhere from 20% to 30%.

Additional emerging research reveals that consistent physical exercise preserves gray brain tissue volume, while also maintaining cognitive abilities associated with decision-making ( executive functions).

A full cure for menopause symptoms does not necessarily come solely from exercise alone, nor is it a common talking point between women in the midst of menopause, but it is one of the most stable and crucial lifestyle changes people can adopt along with HRT, dietary nutrition and necessary medical procedures.

Frequently Asked Questions

What did the University of Exeter Pvolve study find?

In the University of Exeter trial, 72 women were selected, ranging from ages 40-60 and considered to be healthy and premenopausal, perimenopausal or postmenopausal. They were not currently undergoing any form of HRT. The group was random and split in two: 36 went with traditional advice of regular exercise and the other 36 took part in a 12-week exercise regimen led by Pvolve, focusing on low-impact exercises. In result, the women in the Pvolve arm showed an improvement of an average 19 percent for hip and lower body strength, along with a 21 percent boost for flexibility throughout their body. The success of these women occurred regardless of which stage of menopause they were experiencing. The researchers said this was the first study showing evidence of how menopausal hormones in decline are not stopping a person’s ability to improve in strength as per usual resistance training.

Is Pvolve only suitable for women in midlife?

Not all. Pvolve can be used by adults at any age, regardless of life stage. The study conducted in Exeter involved women ages 40 to 60 to show its efficacy on common symptoms of menopause, as evidence specifically for this phase of life in relation to muscle, bones and stability were limited. Pvolve has also shown benefits for people younger than 40, males, as well as the older adults. It is recommended that older adults who are diagnosed with any condition relating to their bone health or joint structure consult their GP, as well as a physiotherapist who has expertise in guidelines published by the Royal Osteoporosis Society.

Do I need the Pvolve subscription and equipment?

Definitely not. If convenience makes sense for you, Pvolve offers subscriptions to their app and several workout tools to use. They are handy to have for a home routine but they are not necessarily required for good results, even though the exercises that are offered on their platform work well. A basic kit of one pair of dumbbells, one resistance band and a yoga mat is a great place to begin, costing about £50. Take advantage of free routines provided by NHS Better Health or an evidence-based YouTube channel, as there are many great options you may want to look at for fitness plans that focus on building a fit physique. Going to a gym will enable you to perform weight training with weights (free weights and machines alike) and you should be able to get identical benefits to home workouts.

How many times a week should I strength train through menopause?

Recommendations by the UK government state that muscle strengthening exercises should occur no fewer than two days each week. For women aged between 40-60 years old, a maximum of three full-body workouts in one week is usually enough for significant positive results. These should typically last 30 to 45 minutes each, leaving two days in between sessions for the muscles to rest and properly repair. Continuing to increase resistance incrementally one to two weeks at a time is vital for continuous progress.

Will resistance training help my hot flushes?

Research results have been inconclusive and it is hard to give a definite answer. While some trials suggest a small improvement in hot flashes when strength exercises and yoga are practiced, others find it to be ineffective. The evidence is more consistently strong that regular exercise consistently improves sleep quality, mood, anxiety symptoms, joint inflammation and balance issues, so even if your hot flashes do not cease, the improvements to overall well-being alone are beneficial. While no specific type of exercise may solve hot flashes directly, HRT is considered the most efficient and successful way to tackle these issues. Please bring this to the notice of your primary care doctor to discuss this issue further.

Can I do resistance training if I have osteoporosis or osteopenia?

Absolutely. The only stipulation is that your physical exercise regimen should be built up gradually. The Royal Osteoporosis Society recommends doing regular exercises to build strength and your balance, along with consistently upping the intensity over weeks/months. During the course of this, make sure to avoid spinal loading positions, for example, weighted crunches or twisting motions. If your primary doctor diagnoses you with bone fragility issues, get in touch with a certified or NHS physio who has an interest in bone wellness. Low-impact exercises such as the ones featured on Pvolve are often safe and effective options for many women, but consult your doctor prior to starting your new fitness plan.

Do I need to take HRT to get the benefits of resistance training?

There is no reason you would *need* to be on HRT to gain a full benefit of resistance training exercises. A 12-week study by the University of Exeter tested women who were not on HRT and the results showed that they still obtained substantial improvements. While HRT offers unique benefits such as building up your bone mass and alleviating a few of the other symptoms of menopause such as hot flashes, resistance exercise strengthens muscles, boosts your metabolism and improves stability along with your bone health. Discussing these potential solutions and options with your doctor is typically the most reliable method of moving forward.

This article is informational only and does not replace personalised advice from your GP, pharmacist, or another qualified healthcare professional.