Women predominantly have more type 1 muscle fibres, this muscle fibre type has a greater blood supply and can last much longer when under training stimulus. Due to this bias in type 1 fibers, women can handle a lot more volume than guys can. Therefore generally I would not take my female lifters much below 5 reps in a heavy strength training block.
It’s also well hypothesised that because woman have higher levels of estrogen, which is anti-catabolic (stops break down of tissue), women are protected against muscle damage. Now, this isn’t well researched but anecdotally stands up to practice in the gym. When male lifters are taken to their max weight on a lift they struggle to do repeated sets at that weight without huge rest periods. Whereas a woman can do repeated bouts of their maxes with greater ease.
This difference in muscle fibre type and the anti-catabolic effect of oestrogen also means that woman can recover from sets quicker than men. This means women can have shorter rest periods and higher training density (more exercises per session). Practically this means a woman can superset the majority of their workout session and do around 20% more exercises within a 60min session than men.
We are in an interesting period in the fitness industry where the girls are kicking some serious ass within strength training. It’s amazing to watch the achievements of women that have taken to the weights room, which has historically been a male-dominated area. The thing is there are loads of workout programs out there for male weight lifters, but what about women.
Should women follow the same workout programs designed for the guys?
The internet is awash with training plans, all boasting to do various things from get your shredded, build your glutes, get killer abs…the list goes on. Now ultimately as long as you are consistently training, any plan you choose will see some sort of results as long as your diet hasn’t gone awol in the process. However, if you want to cut through the c**p and get the results you want as fast as possible it’s important to know some key differences between men and woman which should affect the way you train.
Woman have lower blood pressure during exercise so they can get more blood and therefore oxygen to muscles during training. This also means less blood lactate, which is what causes your muscles to burn. Interestingly when woman do blood flow restriction/occlusion training, which is a technique where muscles are deprived of oxygen during bouts of exercise using cuffs/bands (this system of training is popular in bodybuilding) these benefit disappears.
Not only do woman recover faster in the sessions but because they don’t get the build-up of the metabolic substrate lactic acid they also experience less metabolic stress and muscle damage. This means women can train the same muscle groups more frequently than men. Practically I take my female weight lifters up to 3-4 sessions on the same body part over a 7-day cycle (if a clients goal dictates this).
While women’s muscles have much better endurance, they are usually not as explosive. This is due to differences in the nervous system. The area in the brain that controls movement (the motor cortex) is larger in men (even after correcting for height).
Since women are less explosive, they can optimise this by choosing to lift with more control and less explosive lifting tempo. Forcing women to use a fast does not take advantage of their higher endurance.
The reality is most women that have been weight training a while are aware of their strengths., but often are told to train differently (by men). Women are naturally much more inclined to do steady-state cardio, lift with control, perform higher reps, take shorter rest periods and do more total work.
References:
Muscle fibre types
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/002215540004800506
https://physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1113/expphysiol.2005.032771
Fatigue
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10606825?access_num=10606825&link_type=MED&dopt=Abstract
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00422739
Explosive training
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00422739
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1001834404611
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2329809/
Slower tempo
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12173960
Rest periods
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10606825?access_num=10606825&link_type=MED&dopt=Abstract
Here’s the thing, I live in a social media bubble where I surround myself with women lifting weights, getting strong and generally being freaking badass human beings. Yet when I walk into most gyms, this isn’t exactly what I’m seeing.
Elevate your conditioning with well-designed circuits. Far too many routines throw together exercises haphazardly, creating unbalanced fatigue and overwhelming recovery demands. It’s about strategic selection and smart planning—ensuring each session builds you up without burning you out.
The big scary carbohydrate is here to ruin your diet and make you gain weight. It’s time to separate the facts from the fiction, such as why you should not cut a whole food group out of your diet and why we need carbs.
It’s a common misconception that exercise must be long to be effective. This usually aligns with the notion that exercise is all about calories burned.
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2 thoughts on “5 reasons why women should strength train differently to men”
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This was a super interesting read, thank you so much for taking the time to write this article!