How Differences Between Men & Women Impact Strength Training
While men and women have physical differences, it doesn’t mean they can’t benefit from the same type of training. There’s no reason for women to shy away from hitting the weight room and lifting heavy – in fact, they can actually lift more in proportion to their body weight than men.
However, there are certain aspects of training that can be tailored to the female body to produce optimized results.
Women And Men Benefit From The Same Types of Exercises
Muscles are muscles. No matter whose body it’s on, a tricep is a tricep and a quad does what a quad does. There isn’t any reason for women to have resistance training programs that are extremely different from men, as the idea behind workout programming is the same for both sexes.
The same main lifts (deadlift, squat, lunges) and types of exercises benefit both sexes, and weights can be loaded relative to the challenge level of the individual. However, women who want to build specific body parts, such as their posteriors, may want to incorporate more glute-targeting exercises such as Romanian Deadlifts or hip thrusts.
Contrary to popular opinion, you can’t specifically target fat loss (where you lose fat first is primarily genetic), but you CAN target and grow specific muscle groups with intensity and frequency.
Subtle Physiological Differences Between Sexes Can Factor Into How You Should Train
While women and men can benefit from the same types of exercises, there are certain physiological differences between the two sexes that can be factored in to optimize training.
For example, men are physically larger than women. Men are generally bigger, taller, and carry more muscle mass as a percentage of their overall weight (though there are plenty of exceptions, such as when comparing a tall female athlete with a high percentage of muscle mass to a short man who doesn’t exercise, we’re comparing men and women of similar activity levels and average builds for their groups).
As you may have learned during eighth grade science class, a taller person needs to do more work on each repetition because they have to move a weight further during any given exercise.
Due to the fact that men are typically taller, a man will have to do more work on average on a squat than a woman, even if the weight of the barbell is the same. Of course, if they’re the same height and weight, this can be disregarded.
Since men typically have more muscle mass relative to body weight, which means that not only do they do more work (being taller), they also damage more muscle fibers when working out. This is why most men will require a longer recovery period between tough training sessions than a woman of a similar fitness level.
Women and men also have different concentrations of muscle fiber types; women have a higher ratio of type I muscle fibers compared to type II fibers, making them more resistant to fatigue.
Moreover, as women generally have less muscle mass, they require less recovery time between sets for the muscles to recover, and have more endurance during weightlifting sets compared to men.
Posture Differences
The pelvis shape most common in women can result in an exaggerated arch in the lower back, which is known as lumbar lordosis. When your pelvis is tilted too far forward, it can put extra pressure on your spine, which is further exacerbated by weight lifting.
All this means is that when lifting weights, women should be particularly conscious of posture. Of course, while this is more common in women, it can happen to men too.
What This Means For Women’s Strength Workouts
Simply puy, the physiological differences above mean that women can do:
- More sets
- More reps per set
- More overall volume
- Work at a higher relative intensity
Women don’t need to worry as much about overtraining due to their faster recovery periods. For example, it may only require a day for a woman to recover from an intense squat session before hitting the squat rack again, compared to 2-3 days for a man.
Tailoring Training To The Female Body
As we’ve discussed above, women don’t need to shy away from lifting heavy; they’re able to train with heavier weights relative to their one-repetition maximum (1RM) than their male counterparts.
For example, a woman may be able to lift 90% of their one-rep maximum more times than a man at the same percentage. They can also train muscle groups and movements at a higher frequency than men.
Watch your posture though, and if you feel pain, don’t ignore it – go to a chiropractor or get it checked out by another medical provider if it worsens.
