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Men v’s Women – should they train the same?

June 2, 2015 @ 10:35 am

Men v’s Women, should they train the same? Short answer yes they should, 95% of the time.

Take two training plans, one from a men’s magazine and one from a women’s, and try to spot the differences. When it comes to exercise prescription there aren’t any.  The difference lays is in the description.

Men’s magazines use words like

shredded, cut, size, muscle, ripped, bulk, 6 pack.

Women’s magazines,

toning, shape, lean muscle, skinny!!

Breakdown the actual workout and you’re going to see that they amount to the same thing, lifting weights.

Most men are comfortable with training to put on some muscle hence the words used to describe their workouts, but women unfortunately think they’ll get ‘big’ and ‘bulky’ – which is plain silly. Men have far more testosterone than girls which is the main muscle-building hormone, so you girls shouldn’t worry.

When you talk about ‘toning’ or ‘shaping’ certain areas of your body, what that really means is muscle. Muscle creates the shape of your body, so more muscle equals more muscle tone. You can’t build a rounder, sexier, perkier anything without building muscle. So start lifting weights.

But what about the 5% where women should be aware of doing things slightly differently?

1- Girls need to work unilaterally a bit more than men, meaning dumbbell work so each arm or leg has to work independently.

2- More core work than the boys.

Men tend to lift heavier in the big lifts like deadlifts and squats meaning their cores get a great workout so need little if any isolated core work. But for girls a little bit of isolated core work is needed. Also girls are generally more hyper mobile in the lower back than guys, so you need to balance that out.

3- Ditch the machines. If you are hyper mobile in your joints then machines like the leg press are a no no (has anyone seen that horrible video of the girl on the leg press?!!!). Stick to free weight and bodyweight movements.

4- Women are weaker up top…… I mean in upper body strength 😉 So you need to make sure they do a tad more upper body strength work.

Now go lift up some heavy stuff girls..!!!

for more information, contact Fresh Personal Trainer, Matt Philpott

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