Dem glutes

Female strength training is different than a males. Is it because of gender roles or emotion? No, it’s because of the reality of physiology. You see, women have less than one tenth (1/10) of the testosterone as a male. Ehh, maybe it depends on what kind of male we’re talking about…at least guys that lift.

We understand this means women won’t get “bulky” or grow muscle like a gorilla, yet it changes how they react to training. Let’s not worry about what hormone does what — I’m not an endocrinologist and the hormone function of women is more complicated than quantum theory. Let’s just look at the resultant effects.

To Grow — Muslcesize!

Females develop muscular structure with higher repetition programs. This is an observation across many different types of training. Figure/fitness competitors typically approach training like “bodybuilding”, our quick summation of higher repetition training in both compound and isolation exercises and lifts. Many are quick to say, “Yeah, and they’re on steroids/PEDs,” but look at their training modality. It typically hits a lot of reps in a compound movement, then moves to more isolation work on the same muscles in the same session. It puts a lot of work and volume on that area.

Now look at something like CrossFit. It’s an amusing stereotype to say, “CrossFit turns the men into women and the women into men.” It’s a bit unfair, but it sort of holds true. Go to bigger, higher performing facilities and you’ll see beautifully muscled women (which makes them look shapely and womenly as opposed to bulky or extremely muscular) who might be working along side shredded guys who weigh only 20 or 30 pounds more than that girl. Again, this isn’t entirely fair since the higher performing male athletes are anywhere from 190 to 220 pounds, but this isn’t about the guys. The women develop good musculature in CrossFit because a) they’re performing effecitve compound movements and b) they are doing them with high repetitions.

If you want musculature to grow, or become shapely, then perform higher reps. This is easily done in a strength program by doing a some back off sets with higher repetitions after the initial work sets are done (or by adding in appropriately structured conditioning work).

Higher Percentages?

It’s noticeable that females can not only do more work than their male counterparts, but can lift more reps at a higher percentage of their max. These two concepts exist because of the hormonal differences which make a female’s neuromuscular efficiency lower than a male’s. This is a term that indicates how efficiently motor units function. A motor unit consists of a group of muscle fibers that are innervated by the same motor neuron. How many muscle fibers that a motor neuron is connected to is dependent on the type of muscle. For example, the gastrocnemius (hoof-looking portion of the calf) has around 2,000 muscle fibers while some optic muscles (in the eye) only have a few. The fewer the muscle fibers, the more precise and deft the movement (think of the delicate movements of the fingers compared to the knee).

When a motor neuron reaches its action potential, all of the fibers associated with it will innervate (this is the “all-or-none law”). However, given a movement, not all motor units will be activated. Neuromuscular efficiency depends on the number of motor units, the rate of activation, and how the innervation functions with other muscle groupings (including antagonistic muscles).

The hell does all of that mean? A greater neuromuscular efficiency means that the body is more efficient at applying force and executing movement. It’s the same reason why a new trainee might awkwardly execute a herky-jerky squat, but then after getting plenty of repetitions (i.e. practice), their technique will smooth into efficient mechanics.

In the case of a woman, it means that she is never truly applying as much force as her muscles can because her motor neurons can’t innervate everything properly to do so. When a girl hits 90% of her max for 5 or 6 reps (something that a guy might hit for a set of 3), it’s because what we are calling 90% is actually lower than what her true 90% is. Women can lift more reps with higher percentages than men because they aren’t as neuromuscularly efficient as men. 

A women’s training will need to be modified beyond the “novice stages” to account for this difference in efficiency. In the Texas Method, for example, a women can (and will need to) use a greater intensity on her Volume Day in order to get enough of a stress. If you’ve read my books, you know that the average intensity of the Volume Day shouldn’t exceed about 85% of the Intensity Day’s (i.e. if the Intensity day is 500×3, then the average of the Volume Day work sets shouldn’t be much higher than 425). But a female can handle 85% but eventually will need a greater percentage to get an adaptive stress. For example, if a female is squatting 225×3, her Volume Day sets could approach 90%, which is around 200x5x3.

Gorillas, who made the first 70’s Big face, get irritated when you interpret things wrong

Note: These percentages are not calculating total volume and they are relative to the weight that is done on the Intensity Day. They are just a gauge for controlling the programming. If you’re confused or want to know more, then purchase the books.

This same concept will apply in other programs, but as coaches we need to take note, especially in maximal lifting scenarios. If a girl looks good on a heavy set of 5, we may think in “male terms” and think she has a lot of weight left on the bar for a 1RM. Yet her 1RM is going to be closer to her 5RM and 3RM than a guy’s. This is important to know in preparing attempts for a meet, but also choosing third attempts based on difficulty. If a second attempt looks regular, that female may not be able to make as large of a jump as you (and she) think she can. You women have probably noticed this; you’ll do a rep at a heavy weight and it feels fine. Then you go up ten pounds and you get stapled. It all has to do with neuromuscular efficiency. Women will vary in how much this effects them, but as a general rule the efficiency is lower than in their male counterparts. Experience will be the ultimate deciding factor, but in the mean time, be a bit conservative.

Since a woman is typically using a lower percentage of her max, she can handle more work than a guy would. This is noticeable when a gal isn’t necessarily fatigued after sets, or doesn’t seem fatigued throughout the session (sometimes this is the case because she’s limited on what she can do with correct technique). It’s not a big deal for women to tack on additional assistance exercises or high intensity conditioning; she’ll be able to recover and the higher repetitions will probably augment her strength gains.

Take note of these various important points: 1) women grow with reps, 2) women can complete more reps with high percentages of 1RM, 3) a woman’s 1RM ceiling doesn’t extend much beyond her rep maxes, and 4) a woman can handle more work in the programming. I hate the fact that I have to say this, but you guys leave me no choice: this doesn’t apply to everyone in every situation. However, on average it will be the case and knowing about these issues can help program strength or aesthetic improvements.

The Olympics do not occur every year, so I wanted to highlight some of the stories about women in the Olympics for today’s female post.

Women In Numbers

The biggest story prior to the start of the Olympics was that there were more American females competing than males. However, this is also the case for all of the Olympians in this year’s games.

The United States is represented by more women than men for the first time ever. Russia also has more women competing. One hundred and twelve years after women were first allowed to compete, and 108 years after they were first awarded medals, more women will compete in these games than ever before, whether you count by percentage (45 percent) or total (4,860).

Its 2 bad we cant have commentators who better represents the team&knows more about the game @brandichastain! #fb

Lay off commentating about defending and gking until you get more educated @brandichastain the game has changed from a decade ago. #fb

Its important 2 our fans 2 enjoy the spirit of the olympics. Its not possible when sum1 on air is saying that a player is the worst defender!

I feel bad 4 our fans that have 2 push mute, especially bc @arlowhite is fantastic.@brandichastain should be helping 2 grow the sport #fb

Jesus Christ, Hope, you’re 30 years old. Maybe one tweet would have sufficed to defend your teammate, but this is the part where we say, “Yeah u mad bro.”

For an actual break down of the U.S. victory over Columbia, instead of these silly issues, read this post.

16 year old Chinese swimmer shocks world

Ye Shiwen wins gold, breaks a record, faster than men, and is only 16

Despite the fact that American Ryan Lochte edged Michael Phelps for the gold medal in the 400-meter individual medley, China’s Ye Shiwen is receiving heaps of press. It’s not because she won a gold medal, but how she won the gold medal.

After 300m of fly, back and breaststroke, Ye was eight-tenths of a second behind USA’s world champion, Elizabeth Beisel. And then, with 100m to go, something extraordinary happened. She swam her first 50m of freestyle in 29.25sec, and her second in 28.93. Those are just numbers, and mean little to those who do not study the sport. To put them in context, consider this: Ye was faster in the final 50m of her own 400m IM than Lochte was in his.

 

Dude. She was faster at the end of the race than the best guy in the world. And she’s 12 years younger than Lochte. To top it off, she was the first swimmer to break a world record in this Olympics by more than a second. She broke Steph Rice’s time that earned her a gold medal, and Rice was wearing the polyurethane suit that has since been banned. Impressive stuff from the young Chinese swimmer.

There are plenty of stories that have and will occur, and they all won’t be represented here. Feel free to post them on the Facebook page or tweet them at 70’s Big (I’ll retweet Olympics results). Here’s a few quick hitters:

Kim Rhode
The female athlete, 33, won the gold in women’s skeet shooting Sunday, making her the first U.S. contender to take an individual-sport medal in five back-to-back Olympics, according to the AP. She also tied the world record and set an Olympic record: she shot 99 out of 100 targets. (Editor’s Note: This was her fifth straight Olympics that she medaled in, setting an American record.)

Dana Vollmer
The 24-year-old swimmer and defending world champion set a world record in the 100 M butterfly with a time of 55.98 seconds Sunday – good enough to earn her the gold medal, according to the AP.

Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh
The beach volleyball contenders are trying for a third consecutive gold medal – and they’re already well on their way to securing that win. On Saturday, the duo beat out Australians Tasmin Hinchley and Natalie Cook in a tense match that went way past 11 p.m. local time. The final score: 21-18 and 21-19. “I was worried,” Walsh said of playing so late. “At home, it hits 11 and I’m a zombie. But we could play at 4 in the morning, we don’t care.”

For complete “Day 2 of the Olympics” coverage, see this post (there’s an American bias, feel free to post more coverage in the comments). The first two paragraphs focus on an interesting turn of events in gymnastics:

Nobody saw this coming: Defending all-around champion Jordyn Wieber, the face of this year’s U.S. women’s gymnastics squad, failed to qualify for the finals in her signature event. She lost to teammate and friend Aly Raisman, who turned in quite possibly the performance of her young life.

The emotional chaos that ensued after the scores were flashed said it all: Wieber stood crying in the background, head down, while Raisman tried to field a reporter’s questions even though she was crying herself, clearly torn by mixed emotions. Was this a blip on the radar for Raisman or is she about to step from the shadows to create her own legend? And will this blow rattle Wieber’s psyche or will she still be able to bring her best performance to the team competition? We’ll find out soon.

More gymnastics coverage.

HarveyMushman AKA Kyle has been reading 70’s Big for a while. His wife, Julie (hi Julie!), competes in roller derby and also had an ACL replacement in March of 2011. When she started her linear progression, they focused on using the leg press to help strengthen her knee through a full range of motion.

One day when Julie was using the leg press at the gym, a woman approached them and said (according to Kyle, who shits you not), “Women shouldn’t use this leg press with plates because they’ll get big. You should be over there [gestures to the selectorized side of the room] using the machines with light weight and high reps to tone instead of get big.”

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what we’re up against. This is The Enemy.

This is a persistent myth that women hold onto, but it ends up being an excuse that keeps them from doing anything that is hard. I want to review why this is such an absurd assumption — aside from how it isn’t based on any factual evidence.

1. Women have 1/10th the testosterone of men. 

Hormones regulate our body and our life, yet women lack significant amounts of this very important hormone that creates a domino effect in a complicated neuroendocrine system to “get bigger”. In fact, you can’t even truthfully say that “lifting heavy weights makes men bigger” because there are thousands of goobers who prove this wrong every day. “Hard gainers”, skinny guys, and the misinformed prove to us that lifting weights hardly results in getting bigger, even when it’s the goal.

So why would we assume this would be the case for a female? And even if it was the case for men, women have a small fraction of the testosterone that a man does making it incredibly difficult to “get bigger”.

2. Muscle is metabolically active tissue. 

When you have more lean body mass (AKA muscle), your metabolism is higher. That means you use more energy when you have more muscle. That also means your body is more efficient at using fat as energy, thereby reducing body fat. Lower body fat also results in a higher metabolic rate. All of this means your body is efficient at being lean and strong, which is what “being toned” really means.

Erin Stern is my stock example of a fit woman. She competes in figure competitions, but implements a variety of training methods

3. Lifting weights to get stronger with compound movements significantly raises metabolism too. 

Crayola style:
When you lift weights, you damage muscle fibers. When you lift weights with compound movements, you damage muscle fibers all over the body. When you recover from lifting weights, the body will repair this damaged muscle. When you recover from heavier, compound movements, your body will repair lots of muscle all over your body. It requires energy to repair things, and a greater energy demand is a higher metabolism. Of all the women I’ve trained, I’ve never had anyone gain body fat; they’ve always lost body fat while increasing muscle (by a little bit). 

4. Why would a woman suddenly become bulky anyway?

I know, I know, I’m trying to apply more logic to a person that holds onto a belief without any factual evidence. But if you’re a female, especially a skinny one, why would you suddenly become bulky if you’ve been skinny your whole life? If you’re a heavier female, you definitely are carrying more body fat. If you accept # 2 and 3, then you know your metabolism will be higher and you will burn more fat by a) lifting and recovering from lifting  lifting weights with compound movements, b) having a greater lean body mass (even if it is only several pounds).

In order to be truly bulky with muscle mass, a women usually needs chemical help (AKA steroids). The women who are naturally muscular are genetically gifted and comprise a very low percentage of the population. If you were one of these women, you would already know (and you’d probably be proud of your physique anyway). 

5. Higher reps with lower weights seems to be the thing that actually increases muscle mass the most in women. 

Perhaps a literature review is in order for this topic, but those of us that are actually practitioners in the fitness or strength and conditioning field see that women seem to develop muscle very well with higher reps. I’ve heard of various people (including Robb Wolf) talk about how this seems to stimulate growth hormone. It’s an observation I’ve had for a while, because when you look at fitness/figure competitors and CrossFitters, they carry more muscle than average. The commonality in training is doing higher amounts of volume for sets of higher reps.

I’ve pointed out in the past (can’t find the post) that a good program for a girl who wants definition in her musculature is to strength train, then do some back-off work like walking lunges and leg curls to accumulate reps and volume. That’s what the gals do who get paid to do it. The point is that the method of training that women typically use (lower weights, higher reps) to avoid “getting bulky” is actually what helps stimulate lean body mass gain anyway. It’s just that they are doing it with three pound dumbbells instead of 50 pound dumbbells. Getting stronger is the key to metabolic activity, lower body fat, and being a kick ass woman.

The truth is that none of this really matters. I could keep going with a list of bullets 50 items long. Facts or statements are just a hodge podge of information that won’t sway an emotional belief. Some of you can print posts out like this and show it to your clients, spouses, or friends and they may take action. I don’t expect that to work in non-gym environments (i.e. It’s easier to convince a woman who is doing CrossFit than someone who lives and dies on the elliptical). Instead I’ll take the Robb Wolf approach and say, “Just try it for a month.” There are plenty of examples in the “Getting Girls to Train” series to get women training, but the hardest part is convincing them that the big scary physique that they think they’ll grow is just a silly myth.