I've recently been doing some research on how to train as a girl..
as in, do we gain muscle differently? should we train differently?
and I've found some interesting stuff on the topic.
Contrary to the belief that women cannot gain as much muscle as men, recent studies have devalued this claim.
One hundred eighty-one previously inactive healthy Caucasian (N = 117) and African American (N = 54) men (N = 82) and women (N = 99), aged 50–85 yr, underwent about 10 wk of unilateral knee extension ST. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2991130/
They then investigated the muscle growth in both men and women, there was no substantial difference in relative muscle growth, men showed slight hypertrophic (muscle gaining) advantage but the differences were very small. So this is great news for us, we have the potential to get that muscle!
Another study - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7558529 investigating the strength gaining abilities between men and women actually shows that the female increased more in strength!
Women do not produce as much testosterone. In men, a guy with lower testosterone means he's less likely to gain muscle because of it's muscle building effects. However, in women it seems to play a different role.
Estrogen (our muscle building hormone) PS- if your not getting enough fats in your diet, you won't be producing enough of this stuff.
- Estrogen prevents muscle breakdown
- Estrogen increases protein synthesis
- Estrogen helps you recover quickly (even faster than men)
- Reduces the actions of cortisol *cortisol is the body's stress hormone, it induces fat storage and the breakdown of proteins*
As women, we have different hormones, hormones regulate where our fat is distributed, hormones regulate the muscle we gain, the fat we lose etc. Estrogen is the reason why women gain more fat around the hip/thigh area. A female taking testosterone or who has generally lower estrogen levels will have more fat in the abdominal area, like men. This is also observed in menopausal individuals, as Estrogen lower there is generally a shift of fat from the hips to the tummy.
Carrying on from what I mentioned earlier, women have a greater ability to recover quickly. This is due to a mixture of things, including the differences in male/female muscle fibers due to training (but I won't go into that) as well as the effect of Estrogen. Therefore, it could be concluded that women respond better to a different form of training than men!
- Women can handle more volume than men
- We are more resistant to fatigue
- We do not have as a good a nervous system as men, we do not respond to explosive movements as well & do not recover as well.
- Our muscle fibers respond better to higher reps
- We require less rest between sets
So all of this stuff can be taken into account in your training. It seems girls are pretty awesome right?
One hundred eighty-one previously inactive healthy Caucasian (N = 117) and African American (N = 54) men (N = 82) and women (N = 99), aged 50–85 yr, underwent about 10 wk of unilateral knee extension ST. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2991130/
They then investigated the muscle growth in both men and women, there was no substantial difference in relative muscle growth, men showed slight hypertrophic (muscle gaining) advantage but the differences were very small. So this is great news for us, we have the potential to get that muscle!
Another study - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7558529 investigating the strength gaining abilities between men and women actually shows that the female increased more in strength!
Women do not produce as much testosterone. In men, a guy with lower testosterone means he's less likely to gain muscle because of it's muscle building effects. However, in women it seems to play a different role.
Estrogen (our muscle building hormone) PS- if your not getting enough fats in your diet, you won't be producing enough of this stuff.
- Estrogen prevents muscle breakdown
- Estrogen increases protein synthesis
- Estrogen helps you recover quickly (even faster than men)
- Reduces the actions of cortisol *cortisol is the body's stress hormone, it induces fat storage and the breakdown of proteins*
As women, we have different hormones, hormones regulate where our fat is distributed, hormones regulate the muscle we gain, the fat we lose etc. Estrogen is the reason why women gain more fat around the hip/thigh area. A female taking testosterone or who has generally lower estrogen levels will have more fat in the abdominal area, like men. This is also observed in menopausal individuals, as Estrogen lower there is generally a shift of fat from the hips to the tummy.
Carrying on from what I mentioned earlier, women have a greater ability to recover quickly. This is due to a mixture of things, including the differences in male/female muscle fibers due to training (but I won't go into that) as well as the effect of Estrogen. Therefore, it could be concluded that women respond better to a different form of training than men!
- Women can handle more volume than men
- We are more resistant to fatigue
- We do not have as a good a nervous system as men, we do not respond to explosive movements as well & do not recover as well.
- Our muscle fibers respond better to higher reps
- We require less rest between sets
So all of this stuff can be taken into account in your training. It seems girls are pretty awesome right?
Sally, on average how long do your workouts last? I know it'll depend on what you do but a rough estimate would really help me? I'm struggling to think of weight workouts to do - I used to lift every day but lately I've gotten into a habit of 13km runs instead of lifting (not every day though) and I think my metabolism has slowed because I'm not building muscle like before and at my weigh in this week, I gained a lot more than what I normally do :( even though I need to gain the weight I'm stuck.. xx
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