Q.Should women workout differently than men?
A: Yes. Men and women should train/workout differently because (however unfashionable) men and women are different.
Women can often start doing the same training program as a man, but she will quickly grow disappointed for several reasons.
Here are 3 reasons women should workout differently than men:
1. Women have less muscle mass and faster recovery between exercises.
· If a woman limits herself to what works for her male counterpart she will be bored (too much idle time) and disappointed (limited muscle change and low calorie burn)…
· To oversimplify, if my wife and I were working out together and I did 3 sets, she should do 4 sets to get similar benefit.
2. Women have better strength endurance.
· Meaning if a man and a woman use a weight that is 80% of what they could lift once the man will fail at about 8, whereas the woman can (and should) do 10-11 reps.
· Again, if a woman limits herself to what would be effective for her male counterpart she’s going to be bored and disappointed.
3. Men have more upper body strength, larger wrists, etc than women.
· Women’s upper body strength is about half of what a man of similar fitness level would be (trained or untrained)
· Since “functional training” has taken over fitness the new dogmas are:
o Each workout needs to include push ups and crawling
o All exercises are better if they can include a plank
o All core training has to be some kind of plank (crunches are politically incorrect)
· This is minimally effective for men, and it sucks for most women.
· After women have exhausted their hands, wrists and shoulders crawling around like adult sized toddlers those boring a** planks usually just hurt her hands, wrists, shoulders and neck with minimal (if any) fatigue in her stomach muscles.
4. Women get done faster, and have more variety in body shape than men.
· A man might be exhausted, and out of time, after doing just 4 or 5 exercises with effort. This is rarely the case for women past the beginner stage.
· Instead of limiting her to short workout, we should use that valuable time to work on weak links and aesthetic priorities (“trouble spots”) such as wrist or low back strength, extra arm or booty work, etc.
Bottom Line
Yes, women workout differently than men. Women need more volume (reps, sets and exercises) than men do. This is more true with age – meaning that post-menopause women need more volume than they did pre-menopause.
Plank variations can be useful, and loading your wrists and shoulders does help them get stronger, but there’s also too much of a good thing. Half the workout can’t be planks, plank-type-things, crawling… it’s neglects the rest of the body, is boring, and not very effective.
We offer custom fit personal training for women. All of our sessions are about an hour long and will be a full body strength training session every time. The first step is to set up a quick Intro Call to see if we are what you are looking for and we will be happy to discuss the importance of how and why women workout differently than men.
The author, Josef Brandenburg, is the co-owner and a coach at True 180 Personal Training, Charlotte’s most effective personal training studio for women. We are changing the way fitness is done to get the results you deserve, even in a heat wave!
We currently offer a 10 Day Trial to see if we are going to be the right fit for you. Come experience our training sessions and how women workout differently than men. Check it out!
What is the 10 Day Trial? There are no gimmicks and this is not a diet. This is a systematic combination of the 4 most important ingredients of your success:
- PROACTIVE ACCOUNTABILITY: We’ll help nudge and remind you to do your part.
- SUSTAINABLE NUTRITION: If you can’t keep it up, you can’t keep it off.
- INDIVIDUALIZED FITNESS PROGRAM: After your Initial Assessment we’ll design a program to meet you where you are today.
- SUPPORTIVE COMMUNITY: We are products of our social environment. Nobody succeeds or fails alone.