Train With Dave Adds Perimenopause and Menopause Strength Training for Irvine Clients

Fat gain can double and lean mass decline before menopause. Train With Dave’s OC program focuses on preserving muscle through strength training.

ORANGE, CA, UNITED STATES, August 10, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Long-term research on the menopause transition has found that a woman's rate of fat gain roughly doubles, and lean mass begins to decline, about two years before her final menstrual period. Train With Dave, a personal-training company with studios in Orange, Irvine and Laguna Hills, California, said it runs a strength and nutrition program for women in that window and the years after it, built around preserving that lean mass.

The finding comes from the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation (SWAN), the largest long-term study of the menopause transition, which found both changes continue until roughly two years after the final period. As estrogen falls, published research also finds fat storage shifts from the hips and thighs toward the abdomen, where it is more metabolically active.

Resistance training has been tested directly on this population. In the LIFTMOR randomized controlled trial (Watson et al., Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, 2018), postmenopausal women who already had osteopenia and osteoporosis completed twice-weekly, 30-minute supervised high-intensity resistance and impact training for eight months, and saw significantly greater gains in lumbar spine and femoral neck bone mineral density than a low-intensity home-exercise control group. Supervision was a defining feature of the protocol.

Train With Dave said clients in the program train two to four sessions a week on progressive resistance work coached in its studios. The company keeps a nutritionist on staff, said every trainer holds its in-house nutrition certification, and said nutrition is coached by the same person running the training sessions. Protein and calorie targets are set for the client's stage rather than applied as a blanket deficit, which the company said is the most common error it sees at this point in life.

The company said it plays no clinical role. Its coaches do not diagnose or treat medical conditions and do not manage hormone therapy, and the company refers clients to a physician for those decisions. It said it programs resistance training informed by the published research rather than replicating a clinical protocol or treating osteoporosis.

"The physiology changes and the plan that used to work stops working," said David Cozzens, who founded Train With Dave in 2016 and holds a bachelor of science in kinesiology. "The usual response is to eat less, and that costs more muscle at the point in life when muscle is hardest to get back. Lose lean mass through this window and the metabolism follows it down. The lifting is what holds the line."

Every coach at Train With Dave holds a college degree, most in kinesiology and several at the master's level. The company has completed more than 150,000 training sessions in Orange County since 2016, including more than 32,000 in 2025.

Details of the program are posted at https://www.trainwithdaveoc.com/personal-training-for-women-orange-county. Additional company information and media resources are at https://www.trainwithdaveoc.com/press.

About Train With Dave
Founded in 2016 by David Cozzens, Train With Dave provides customized personal training and nutrition coaching at three Orange County studios in Orange, Irvine, and Laguna Hills. Every coach holds a college degree, several at the master's level. The company has completed more than 150,000 training sessions and holds over 1,000 five-star reviews. Learn more at trainwithdaveoc.com or call (714) 904-2036.

Kelsey Kennedy
Train with Dave
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