Training Difference Considerations for Males and Females
This isn’t an overly controversial topic anymore. However, there is still confusion as to whether males and females should be training differently.
Now for any athlete, regardless of gender, you always must determine their need’s analysis. Where one’s goals may differ from another. And it’s the difference between these sets of goals that will of course require differences in one’s training program and strategies.
So, let’s assume the athlete’s goals are to build muscle, where resistance training is going to be the primary training modality for both genders to accomplish this goal.
With this objective in mind, it begs the question: are there physiological differences in female muscles compared to male muscles when it comes to building muscle, and if so, should training programs be built differently?
This question is relating to muscle growth between males and females, which is why the answer to this question is no, training programs do not need to differ.
Let’s expand on why this is.
The research shows that men and women have the same relative growth potential.
There was a study done called “Response to resistance training in young women and men.” The study consisted of 6 women and 6 men who trained the elbow flexors 3 days per week for 20 weeks. The researchers concluded that the muscle size increases similarly in women and men, but women make greater relative increases in strength.
There are several other studies that show similar conclusions. Overall, women’s propensity to build muscle is very similar to men.
Now, that’s not to say there aren’t some important considerations we still want to take when it comes to the differences in a training program between genders. I imagine hormonal differences comes to mind and the fact that men have more testosterone than women. But before we get into that, I think it’s important to understand how muscle growth works.
The main driver for muscle growth is mechanical tension. Mechanical tension is created by using a heavy load through a full range of motion. The time the muscle spends under tension provided by the external load (so the dumbbells for example) creates mechanical tension in the muscle. To achieve this, we want to see involuntary slowing of the working muscle during a set. Therefore, taking your sets close to failure, and I would argue your last set until complete failure, is going to allow you to still achieve mechanical tension.
Not to go too off topic, but to ensure you are achieving the main driver to muscle growth, chasing progressive overload is considered necessary.
This is the process of lifting more overtime. We need to increase the demands being placed on our bodies by gradually getting stronger over time. This can be accomplished in many ways, such as lifting more weight, doing more sets or reps, increasing your time under tension, or even simply improving your form & technique by increasing your range of motion for instance. And the best way to do this is to track your workouts. Bust out a training journal and keep track of your progress so you can ensure you are overloading as best as you can week after week.
And one final note regarding progressive overload, for us to get better and achieve progressive overload with our workouts, we need to practice and maintain consistency with performing the same movement patterns, so we get better and better over time.
For example, if we want to improve our squat technique or our squat strength, how can we do that when we squat one week and then swap them out for a different exercise the following week and we don’t squat again for another month? Practice makes progress.
Now that we have a full understanding of what drivers’ muscle growth, it should be logical to conclude that there’s not much of a difference here between genders, right? The physiological process of this doesn’t differ between males and females and therefore, the same training strategy not only can be applied, but it also needs to be applied to promote muscle growth.
However, there are still some physiological differences that we might want to take into consideration.
1. Hormonal differences
2. Upper to lower body strength differences
3. Risk of injury
Let’s start off talking about hormonal differences.
Like I previously mentioned, testosterone is worth discussing.
Testosterone increases neurotransmitters, which encourage tissue growth. It also interacts with nuclear receptors in DNA, which causes protein synthesis. Testosterone increases levels of growth hormone. That makes exercise more likely to build muscle.
Men do have roughly 15x more testosterone than women, which is a contributor to muscle growth. Therefore, some may use logic from this and assume that men can therefore build more muscle than women. However, we want to dig a little bit deeper here before making this assumption. While testosterone contributes to muscle growth, a lower amount that women genetically have doesn’t IMPAIR muscle growth.
Like I previously mentioned, research shows that men and women do have the same relative growth potential. There are several studies showing that during a 6-month period, both men and women gained the same amount of muscle during this period.
The difference however and the reason why people may rely on the testosterone assumption so much is that women start out smaller than men. We genetically have less muscle and more body fat than men.
In addition, a lot of women are focused more on dieting and cardio, especially at a younger age, where muscle growth typically isn’t the goal until later. Whereas a lot of men focus on muscle growth at a young age. Therefore, males tend to get a jump start on their muscle building journey and that’s why it can be assumed that men build more muscle than women versus it being due to the testosterone levels. In reality, if women started taking lifting more seriously and focused less on dieting at a young age, their natural muscular growth potential could be very impressive.
Now that’s not to say that if women started lifting more seriously at a younger age and focused less on cardio and dieting that woman would look manly. The reduced amount of testosterone is the biggest reason why women can still maintain their feminine features.
So, ladies don’t think you shouldn’t be lifting weights. Lifting weights should be included into your routine like flossing is included into your oral routine. Everyone wants to scope because it feels good, but nobody wants to do what’s more important for their oral care, which is to floss.
I’m not saying you must stop doing the type of exercise you enjoy. If you enjoy running for relaxation purposes, keep running. If you enjoy cycling because you feel accomplished after, keep cycling.
I’m not asking you to give up those things.
But I am asking you to include resistance training into your routine.
Too often I hear women say they don’t train their shoulders because they don’t want to be “jacked” or “manly.” But did you know that training your shoulders aids in increased stability, posture, injury prevention and is transferable to daily life tasks like picking up the kids?
Too often I hear women say they don’t squat because it’s too hard or they don’t want big legs. But did you know that squatting will help you go off the toilet easier when you are 90?
Seems like a no brainer.
Overall, don’t let what you are capable of in the weight room hold you back from thinking you are going to develop masculine features. Unless the use of steroids is implemented, you will maintain your feminine qualities.
Next, we want to look at the hormone estrogen.
Estrogen is a hormone that plays various roles in the body. It contributes to cognitive health, bone health, function of the cardiovascular system, and other essential bodily processes.
Women do have more estrogen than men, which, from a training standpoint, helps with:
1. Metabolic health
2. Glucose handling
3. Muscular repair
4. Preventing catabolism
Let’s expand on what which of things mean.
Metabolic health means having ideal levels of blood sugar, triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, blood pressure, and waist circumference, without using medications.
Glucose handling is the balance of insulin and glucagon to maintain blood glucose.
Muscular repair is the recovery timeline from the damage that occurs from exercise. During recovery, these fibers heal stronger than they were before, which in turn, make your muscles stronger.
Lastly, catabolism is what happens when you digest food, and the molecules break down in the body for use as energy.
So why do these things matter? Well, from a training perspective, this indicates that women may be able to do more reps and sets than men because they recover quicker. Therefore, varying rep ranges and increasing volume may be a viable training consideration for women.
Next let’s look at the upper to lower body strength differences between genders.
Research shows that women typically have a stronger lower body than men and men have a stronger upper body than women. This may be a reason why women tend to enjoy training legs more than men. Not me, but some.
But a lot of women do! Therefore, it may be strategic for women to prioritize more upper body training to help balance out these strength differences and vice versa for men.
Lastly, we want to look at the risk of injury differences between genders.
Research shows that women are more prone to ACL tears compared to men. Therefore, strengthening the muscles that cross the knee joint may be beneficial and necessary, especially for women playing recreational sports. Such exercises that may be helpful are squat variations, hip hinging variations and lunge variations.
Overall, the process of building muscle is the same regardless of gender. There are some characteristics that allow females to perform more optimally, as there are some characteristics that allow males to perform more optimally. Taking these strength and weaknesses into consideration can be helpful for optimizing your program so you can maximize your muscle growth related goals and prevent injury.
Hope this was helpful!
Coach Krysten