Yo Lady. Why Are You Training Like a Dude?
- By Anna Brown
If you train, there are some questions that you should be asking yourself regularly.
The first, made famous by Power Athlete (and fundamental to their philosophy) is, ”What are you training for?”* … You need to undertake training that aligns with your goals. For example, If you want to lose weight, your program and training will look different to someone who wants to be maximally strong or someone who wants to compete in elite level sport…(it’s entirely possible that you have had any or all of these goals. Without a doubt, your goals will shift over time - But you should be aware of them at any one point in time).
If you are currently following a program written for more people than just you, an important question you should be asking of your coach and your gym is, “Who are they programming for?”
If you are training at a box, the chances are the general program is designed to defer to the majority. If you are following a program that has been designed to service multiple clients, the chances are that the coach is making it general or specific to a majority. Who’s the majority? I think you can answer this by looking around your training space. Gyms, unfortunately, are not places of massive diversity…In my many years of going to many, many gyms (I be old), I've found they generally cater to a majority which consists of young men between the age of 20- 30 years old.
I would encourage you to ask ….”Are you a young man aged between 20-30 years old?”
If you are following a program that someone has written for you, I want you to think about who your coach is? Are they a young man? Did they learn everything they know from a young man? Have they got much experience training women? What age woman? The other thing you need to seriously consider when talking about any type of strength training is, "have they possibly used performance enhancing substances?”
I’m going to give you an example…When I first started powerlifting, I was kept company in the gym by Bro 20 Something (on many of the ‘roids) and Bro Coach 20 Something, who constantly told me I was robbing myself of gainz by not following Russian Volume training…I was 40, I have a full time job and two kids, not a lot of sleep and I am am not on the ‘roids. While I understand the benefits of high volume training for women...Russian. Volume. Training. Whatever it’s benefits, was not designed for me bruh.
The first, made famous by Power Athlete (and fundamental to their philosophy) is, ”What are you training for?”* … You need to undertake training that aligns with your goals. For example, If you want to lose weight, your program and training will look different to someone who wants to be maximally strong or someone who wants to compete in elite level sport…(it’s entirely possible that you have had any or all of these goals. Without a doubt, your goals will shift over time - But you should be aware of them at any one point in time).
If you are currently following a program written for more people than just you, an important question you should be asking of your coach and your gym is, “Who are they programming for?”
If you are training at a box, the chances are the general program is designed to defer to the majority. If you are following a program that has been designed to service multiple clients, the chances are that the coach is making it general or specific to a majority. Who’s the majority? I think you can answer this by looking around your training space. Gyms, unfortunately, are not places of massive diversity…In my many years of going to many, many gyms (I be old), I've found they generally cater to a majority which consists of young men between the age of 20- 30 years old.
I would encourage you to ask ….”Are you a young man aged between 20-30 years old?”
If you are following a program that someone has written for you, I want you to think about who your coach is? Are they a young man? Did they learn everything they know from a young man? Have they got much experience training women? What age woman? The other thing you need to seriously consider when talking about any type of strength training is, "have they possibly used performance enhancing substances?”
I’m going to give you an example…When I first started powerlifting, I was kept company in the gym by Bro 20 Something (on many of the ‘roids) and Bro Coach 20 Something, who constantly told me I was robbing myself of gainz by not following Russian Volume training…I was 40, I have a full time job and two kids, not a lot of sleep and I am am not on the ‘roids. While I understand the benefits of high volume training for women...Russian. Volume. Training. Whatever it’s benefits, was not designed for me bruh.
There are things that will make a significant difference to the way YOU can train and the way THEY can train. There are variables with women that are fundamentally linked to energy levels, strength and life priorities. Things like your age, your training age, whether you’ve experienced childbirth, what that birth was like, all pelvic floor issues whether pre or post or nil partum, your menstrual cycle…just to name a few. Each of these factors is fundamental to how you can and should train.
Julien Pineau, founder of the StrongFit program, is one of the first coaches to design programming specifically for women as the majority. He’s built them around well tested and thought out philosophies and beliefs.
Julien believes that women and men are naturally dominant in specific muscle groups and that we default to using gender biased torque chains. He also argues that we perform better using different energy systems.
In excerpts from the essay “Women Training Differently to Men”, Julien goes into more detail about his philosophies. I also hope it goes some way to explain why it was so important that we have him on board to teach at our Strength Camp II, where women just like you are the majority!!
Julien Pineau, founder of the StrongFit program, is one of the first coaches to design programming specifically for women as the majority. He’s built them around well tested and thought out philosophies and beliefs.
Julien believes that women and men are naturally dominant in specific muscle groups and that we default to using gender biased torque chains. He also argues that we perform better using different energy systems.
In excerpts from the essay “Women Training Differently to Men”, Julien goes into more detail about his philosophies. I also hope it goes some way to explain why it was so important that we have him on board to teach at our Strength Camp II, where women just like you are the majority!!
“Men and women are literally opposites: women are built for external torque and the sympathetic nervous system and men are built for internal torque and the parasympathetic nervous system. Understanding how this fact plays into ‘the tension of the arch’ changes the approach we must have towards training women.” - Julien Pineau
Women Training Differently to Men
- By Julien Pineau
Women must train differently to men. The fact that women continue to be placed into programming designed for men is why we see their progress eventually stall, injury occur, and overall potential failed to be reached.
The fitness industry must give credit where credit is due and the fact is undeniable that "Functional Fitness" has changed the way women train forever. We see a vast Improvement in women greater than anything we've ever seen before. "Functional Fitness" has literally created an entire generation of women that want to be jacked, that want to be strong, more muscular, and train for performance and not just to look good or “toned”. StrongFit wants to see this continue. We want to see a new generation of lifters, 14-15 year old girls, who understand that muscles are good, being strong is good, and continue to work towards that goal.
The world of strength and conditioning has missed the train on a concept that "Functional Fitness" has at itsfoundation. One of the most important and determining factors towards the success of "Functional Fitness" female athletes is conditioning. First, we must understand that there's "Functional Fitness": the training system and "Functional Fitness": the sport; they're two different things. And to explain our theory behind our point we want to use "Functional Fitness": the sport, as a data provider to explain further.
Five years ago Lindsey Valenzuela was the first female athlete to snatch 200 lbs. at the CrossFit Games. At the time, it was considered absurd, not only for CrossFit, but the weight could also be a qualifying lift on a competitive national weightlifting and powerlifting scale. (Be sure to not forget that this lift is coming from a program specializing in "Functional Fitness", not in Olympic Weightlifting).
The fitness industry must give credit where credit is due and the fact is undeniable that "Functional Fitness" has changed the way women train forever. We see a vast Improvement in women greater than anything we've ever seen before. "Functional Fitness" has literally created an entire generation of women that want to be jacked, that want to be strong, more muscular, and train for performance and not just to look good or “toned”. StrongFit wants to see this continue. We want to see a new generation of lifters, 14-15 year old girls, who understand that muscles are good, being strong is good, and continue to work towards that goal.
The world of strength and conditioning has missed the train on a concept that "Functional Fitness" has at itsfoundation. One of the most important and determining factors towards the success of "Functional Fitness" female athletes is conditioning. First, we must understand that there's "Functional Fitness": the training system and "Functional Fitness": the sport; they're two different things. And to explain our theory behind our point we want to use "Functional Fitness": the sport, as a data provider to explain further.
Five years ago Lindsey Valenzuela was the first female athlete to snatch 200 lbs. at the CrossFit Games. At the time, it was considered absurd, not only for CrossFit, but the weight could also be a qualifying lift on a competitive national weightlifting and powerlifting scale. (Be sure to not forget that this lift is coming from a program specializing in "Functional Fitness", not in Olympic Weightlifting).
“StrongFit wants to see a new generation of lifters, 14-15 year old girls, understand that muscles are good, being strong is good!”
Now, just a few years since, we watched at least 20 women, during the 1 rep max phase a week before the 2017 games, snatch 200 lbs. (Again, do not fail to forget that back in 2009, only 8 years ago, that Miko Salo snatched 200 lbs. to win the CrossFit Games - as a male athlete.
Our friend Brigham Huckabee, who qualified for the 2017 Games, weighs in at 64 kg. She has a 155-160 kg back squat, 175-180 kg deadlift, and a 90 kg bench. These numbers would allow her to be a top-three level Olympic or Powerlifting competitor in just about any country in the world (other than Russia, but that would be for other reasons) and she is not alone.
We see this becoming more and more consistent and the fact is that "Functional Fitness" women rule Olympic Weightlifting in the States. They could rule powerlifting if they decided to compete in it; without training for it! "Functional Fitness" women are putting massive numbers up while training for conditioning, while training to run a 5k under 20 minutes, maintaining about a 5-something minute mile, capable of 40 pull-ups, handstand push-ups. These incredible numbers continue to be reached without a training system that concentrates on strength. In this sense alone,"Functional Fitness" has revolutionized strength and conditioning for women. It has also shown that you don't have to be fat to be strong, which is important, and supports the theory that volume is key to women's training.
We are seeing that women begin to get strong through "Functional Fitness", they decide that they want to get stronger and lift heavy so they go into more Powerlifting and Olympic Weightlifting-centric programming. The main problem we are seeing with this is that these programs are built for men, so their progress starts to stall, they get hurt, and their numbers start to come back down.
Women need the volume of training, which is something that Chinese female athletes have done for years at the Beijing Centre. These athletes train with 30% more volume than their male counterparts. To understand this further, look at how we typically build programming. You take 90% of your one rep max, which men can do about five reps, adding about 10% here or there you work your way down to one rep and the program is created. The problem is that at 90% women can lift about eight to ten reps, so if you calculate your one rep max based on that 8 -10 reps women end up with a very low number in comparison to men, and in that context women are weaker than men from a number perspective. But at 90% women would kill men, so having women work within a program designed for men you're going to end up with higher percentages of weight, lower volume, and progress will stall. This is where "Functional Fitness" has provided us with invaluable data and shows us that women need a greater volume of work, through sets and conditioning.
Another major difference between men and women are the torque chains that are naturally utilized. Women are built for External Torque (if you're not familiar with the concept you'll have to see our videos or come to a seminar because this something that is talked about all the time) and it is through External Torque that women find their ‘flow’ or ‘zone’.
You can look at the muscles responsible for external torque by looking at CrossFit Games athletes. You will see that women are very developed in those areas, but are underdeveloped in the Internal Torque chain, creating another set of problems.
In order to progress women's training and be able to help younger lifters continue the fight that "Functional Fitness" has started towards making women better, there has to be a change between how we train men and how we train women.
We need to train women differently.
Julien will be sharing his female specific training philosophies and training methods in depth & exclusively for the first time at The Barbelle Club Strength Camp II. You should definitely get there! Tickets and more details here.
Our friend Brigham Huckabee, who qualified for the 2017 Games, weighs in at 64 kg. She has a 155-160 kg back squat, 175-180 kg deadlift, and a 90 kg bench. These numbers would allow her to be a top-three level Olympic or Powerlifting competitor in just about any country in the world (other than Russia, but that would be for other reasons) and she is not alone.
We see this becoming more and more consistent and the fact is that "Functional Fitness" women rule Olympic Weightlifting in the States. They could rule powerlifting if they decided to compete in it; without training for it! "Functional Fitness" women are putting massive numbers up while training for conditioning, while training to run a 5k under 20 minutes, maintaining about a 5-something minute mile, capable of 40 pull-ups, handstand push-ups. These incredible numbers continue to be reached without a training system that concentrates on strength. In this sense alone,"Functional Fitness" has revolutionized strength and conditioning for women. It has also shown that you don't have to be fat to be strong, which is important, and supports the theory that volume is key to women's training.
We are seeing that women begin to get strong through "Functional Fitness", they decide that they want to get stronger and lift heavy so they go into more Powerlifting and Olympic Weightlifting-centric programming. The main problem we are seeing with this is that these programs are built for men, so their progress starts to stall, they get hurt, and their numbers start to come back down.
Women need the volume of training, which is something that Chinese female athletes have done for years at the Beijing Centre. These athletes train with 30% more volume than their male counterparts. To understand this further, look at how we typically build programming. You take 90% of your one rep max, which men can do about five reps, adding about 10% here or there you work your way down to one rep and the program is created. The problem is that at 90% women can lift about eight to ten reps, so if you calculate your one rep max based on that 8 -10 reps women end up with a very low number in comparison to men, and in that context women are weaker than men from a number perspective. But at 90% women would kill men, so having women work within a program designed for men you're going to end up with higher percentages of weight, lower volume, and progress will stall. This is where "Functional Fitness" has provided us with invaluable data and shows us that women need a greater volume of work, through sets and conditioning.
Another major difference between men and women are the torque chains that are naturally utilized. Women are built for External Torque (if you're not familiar with the concept you'll have to see our videos or come to a seminar because this something that is talked about all the time) and it is through External Torque that women find their ‘flow’ or ‘zone’.
You can look at the muscles responsible for external torque by looking at CrossFit Games athletes. You will see that women are very developed in those areas, but are underdeveloped in the Internal Torque chain, creating another set of problems.
In order to progress women's training and be able to help younger lifters continue the fight that "Functional Fitness" has started towards making women better, there has to be a change between how we train men and how we train women.
We need to train women differently.
Julien will be sharing his female specific training philosophies and training methods in depth & exclusively for the first time at The Barbelle Club Strength Camp II. You should definitely get there! Tickets and more details here.