Women and strength training: part I
Women and strength training are an interesting and, to my mind, deeply captivating combination. There is something special and impressive about women exercising with barbells and dumbbells—something I would even call sexy in its own way.
Although women have long been involved in strength training at the elite level and in related sports, such as Olympic weightlifting, it is fair to say that strength training is a relatively new phenomenon among women who exercise recreationally. The first practical steps came in the 1950s, when American women competing in athletics began using strength training to supplement their training for their main events. These early experiments, however, did not mean that strength training was commonplace among women. It was not until the early seventies, as bodybuilding grew in popularity, that serious discussion resumed about strength training as a form of exercise women could also pursue. Even then, despite that barrier having been crossed, gym training was slow to gain widespread acceptance among women. Strength training really began to gain popularity among women in the early 90s. Today, in 2014, we can say without a doubt that a woman training at the gym is no longer an unusual sight—quite the opposite.
Let me say at the outset that there are no major differences in strength training methods for men and women. The principles behind adjusting the variables that determine training load are essentially the same. Put simply, if we say that men should perform compound exercises for 1-6 repetitions per set to develop maximal strength, the same generally applies for women whose goal is to develop maximal strength. Broadly speaking, women respond to strength training in exactly the same way as men. Women can develop strength and muscle mass. Exactly the same training principles apply to exercise selection, intensity, training volume and all the other variables used to regulate training load.
The main and most significant difference between men and women is their blood testosterone levels. This, in turn, is why women cannot achieve the same absolute strength levels or build muscles as large as men can. Depending on age, a man’s normal testosterone level can range from 200-1200 ng/dl, while women’s levels range from 15-70 ng/dl. The average level in a healthy adult man is approximately 700 ng/dl, compared with 42.5 ng/dl in women. This means that men’s testosterone levels are, on average, 16.47 times as high as women’s. These facts should dispel all the myths surrounding fears that strength training makes women muscular and masculine. Strength training will never make an ordinary woman who trains without performance-enhancing drugs too masculine.
But if men and women should approach strength training with the same training methods, what is there to discuss? Although there really are no major differences, there are still some interesting distinctions between male and female trainees arising from age-related anatomy and physiology, as well as differences identified through decades of practical observation.
To be continued…
Author: Janar Rückenberg
Source:Turg.Fitness.ee
Come and train! ArtGym
