MEN AND WOMEN: STOP TRAINING THE SAME WAY
Men and women are different. In the context of exercise, there are important differences that we need to be aware of. Men and women have different body types, muscle masses and hormone makeup. These translate as different responses to exercise.
Women are perceived as being weaker than men. If you look at the absolute strength and body weight of individuals, you will find that women are only about 5-15% weaker than men. This goes to show that the muscles in both men and women operate the same in their innate qualities.
Women are often weaker in the vastus medialis muscles, hamstrings, erector spinae and in the scapular retractors. An initial structural balance assessment will reveal what a woman needs to address first.
Hormones also affect how women and men respond differently to exercise. The two main hormones are testosterone and estrogen. Higher testosterone levels allow for more hypertrophy for men than for women. During a training session, a man’s testosterone will rise during, and up to an hour after exercise which aids muscle growth. Women have little to no testosterone level increases.
Estrogen plays a huge role for women and is why they tend to have better metabolic characteristics than men. Interestingly, during endurance training, men have 3-5 times more estrogen receptors in their muscles than normal. This increases the uptake of glucose in the cells which allow for better metabolic responses in the body for men and more naturally for women.
Women will gain most of their hypertrophy gains in the first year of training and then plateau dramatically even though strength gains still happen through neural adaptations. Women only have 60% of the number of nuclei per muscle fiber than men, which is why they are less prone to muscular hypertrophy after the first year of training.
Yet another difference between men and women is their required recovery time during workouts. This is important to pay attention to if you want peak results. Trained women tend to need less recovery time than trained men do. The difference in recovery time is perceived by higher inflammatory response in men than women during a bout of exercise. Initially, women need more training frequency than men. Literature shows that they need at least 3 days per week per muscle group in the early stages of training.
Men and women have differences but it is the way we understand and train these differences that positions each person for peak performance.