Given the same goal, should men and women exercise the same way? Or are there some fundamental differences between the two that need to be addressed? While some uneducated punks (unfortunately, that also includes probably over 80% of personal trainers) will tell you “there are no differences. Men and women should train the same”, that’s just not true.
There are certain differences between men and women, that smart, savvy personal trainers, and trainees themselves should address in the training.
I wanted to write about both the biomechanical and the biochemical differences between men and women, but the article turned out to be too long, so I split it up into two.
So in this article, you will learn:
- The 3 key biomechanical differences between men and women
- How those differences affect exercise
And in a few weeks, you’ll get the second part: biochemical differences between men and women.
Biomechanical Differences between Men and Women
Difference #1: Pelvis Width
One of the most obvious differences between men and women is that women have a wider pelvis. Of course, the legs originate from the pelvis, but because the pelvis is wider, the thigh bones (femurs) go down at a steeper angle than they do in men (for the geeks, this angle is called the “Q angle” or “quadriceps angle”).
Original source: here.
That puts women at a higher risk of injury to the knee, compared to men. In fact that risk is so much higher that ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) injuries are 700% higher in women, compared to men.
What to do about it:
You obviously can’t change your pelvis width through exercise, but you can correct any muscular imbalances created by the wide pelvis. The biggest muscular imbalance in women compared to men is the relative strength of the quadriceps to the hamstrings.
In most women, the quadriceps (the muscles on the front of the thigh) really overpower the hamstrings (the muscles on the back of the thigh). Here’s a picture of what those muscles look like. So what do you do? Work extra hard on strengthening those hamstrings. Use exercises like deadlifts, good mornings, hamstring curls, glute-ham raises, etc.
And do fewer exercises for your quads. You should have about a 2:1 or even a 3:1 ratio of hamstring-to-quad exercises.
Difference #2: Joint Hypermobility
It also seems that women have more hypermobility compared to men (I wrote a little bit about hypermobility in my article, Stretching Exercises: You’re Doing Them Wrong). That puts women at higher risk for things like dislocations compared to men. But, as the theme is in all my newsletter, don’t assume that just because you’re a female, you’re hypermobile. There is significant person-to-person variation in joint mobility. So rather than guessing, test your joint mobility (in my article, I show you how to do that). After all, if you’re not assessing, you are guessing J
What to do about it:
When doing your strength training, don’t go through a full range of motion. This is the exact opposite of what I tell clients who are not hypermobile. If you’re hypermobile, your ligaments and tendons are not giving you the support needed for joint stability. So you have to make your muscles do the job that your tendons and ligaments don’t do. Stiffen up those muscles, girl!
Difference #3: Muscle Fibre Types
Get ready for a crash-course on muscle physiology. Humans have 3 muscle fibre types:
Type I muscle fibres (AKA “slow twitch fibres”): these are slow to contract, but have a lot of endurance.
Type IIX muscle fibres (AKA “fast twitch fibres”): they contact fast, but don’t have much endurance.
Type IIA muscle fibres: these are the in-between fibres. They don’t have the power of the IIX fibres, but they don’t have the endurance of the type I fibres.
If you’re a physiology geek reading this, yes, this is oversimplified. And yes, there are really more than 3 muscle fibre types. But this will do for the general public.
Anyways, women have more slow-twitch muscle fibres, compared to men. That means that they have more endurance. To put it into practical terms, if a man can do 5 repetitions with a weight that is 90% of his maximum, a woman might be able to do 6-8 repetitions at 90% of her maximum.
The other implication of this is that because of the greater amount of slow-twitch fibres, women don’t lose as much of their strength during a workout as men. For instance, if a man loses 15% of his strength at the end of a workout, compared to the beginning, a woman might lose only 10-12%.
What to do about it:
Not much. All it means is that women have to do more repetitions (but not more sets) than men to get the same effects.
In my next article, on the biochemical differences between men and women, you will learn about:
- How the menstrual cycle affects injury risk, and exercise performance
- The issue of anemia (low iron, B12 and/or folic acid), and its effect on exercise
- How the birth control pill affects exercise
- How PMS affects exercise, and what to do about it
Stay tuned.
