Question On Exercises For Female Atheletes

Would you perscribe the same routine/regimen and progressions to female athletes that want to start out with bodyweight training? (I would imagine yes) Or would you tune the general focus we use here and adapt to different goals?

Would there be (eventually) as much emphasis on the rings or would you switch that out for a high bar? Rings being a male olympic event there seems to be a lot of presumtions and bias towards them.

Most people I meet that are interested in bodyweight training, are not interested in becoming gymnasts (they are already in their 30s) but for the general strength and improvements it would bring to their health. I would imagine the routines/exercise progressions would not change but wanted to hear your opinions.

hehe.

Yes I know of the impressive feats female athletes can do. My question (probably didn't make that clear enough) was more about the routine/regimen itself. Would you change anything or would it be the same?

For example a lot of very strong female athletes I know have to focus a lot more on upper body / shoulder / pushing since that is the area which poses more challenges.

That kind of stuff...

The only thing I would add is to make sure women learn to front squat properly, and have the do so on a regular basis.

 

Female athletes typically do not do lower body strength training the same way men do, and this leads to a higher injury rate.

 

For a while people thought this was a Q-angle problem, but squat interventions have shown that teaching and practicing proper squats to female basketball players reduced knee injury rates to the exact same level seen in male athletes.

Do not treat them differently. Q-angle yes is different but mechanics are mechanics. We always had our D1 girls squat and do the same work as the men typically. I think the Uconn women's basketball success speaks for itself. For upper body yes many will start weaker then men but they also have a higher potential for increase % wise.

Train them. They are athletes, treat them as such. Only thing to usually keep in mind are dietary in regards to the female athlete triad.

Joshua Naterman said:

Female athletes typically do not do lower body strength training the same way men do

I read this and laughed because I visualized all the pencil legged males at the commercial gyms in my area.

Maybe it was simply the university having decent strength coaches, but all the women teams had proper lower body programming. In fact they were far more likely to have amazing leg strength and definition while the typical male athlete would run uphill for a mile with his linebacker buddy over his shoulder just to avoid squat days.

Though the worst of all was getting a cross country team member to even come within 50 miles of the weight room. :/

Hahaha, you'd think that would get the guys INTO the gym!

Are there any females who can hold a perfect full front lever? I've seen women do full back levers and straddle planche before.

I don't remember her baing able to lower all the way into it but she was close.

I saw one of our 7yo do it once...Head WAG coached wanted her to train for elite but I don't think it was in the cards because of split parentals.

Bloody strong lil midget though.

It's good to hear that there are females who can do full front levers. I've also heard of rumors that some females can do deadhang OAC(s) with decent to full ROM. I guess it can be true since there are some who can hold full FL.

Can any girls do full planches? 

kskh2o said:

Would you perscribe the same routine/regimen and progressions to female athletes that want to start out with bodyweight training? (I would imagine yes) Or would you tune the general focus we use here and adapt to different goals?

Would there be (eventually) as much emphasis on the rings or would you switch that out for a high bar? Rings being a male olympic event there seems to be a lot of presumtions and bias towards them.

Most people I meet that are interested in bodyweight training, are not interested in becoming gymnasts (they are already in their 30s) but for the general strength and improvements it would bring to their health. I would imagine the routines/exercise progressions would not change but wanted to hear your opinions.

 

Interesting question. I don’t think there is a whole lot of expertise (and even experience) here on this forum to come up with the insights the OP is asking for (with the exception probably of Cole Dano with his Yoga background). The answer given so far that women are not not so different that they should follow a different training protocol is a little too easy imo (i.e. it can be interpreted as saying “if you want to become one of us, you better train like us†). 

Now let me try a different approach just to point out that there is a whole lot more to say about  the subject. I will just give it a go and see who else wants to pitch in.

In the first place, the female endocrine system, is significantly different where it concerns hormone production for strength gains. Gaining strength is a lot harder for women. They simply do not produce as much testosterone, the one substance that is so essential to male strength gains. 

Secondly, their lower center of gravity puts most females at a disadvantage when they train to do levers (BL, FL, planche).  They have to be stronger than men to hold a lever.

Thirdly, in general they have to start with significantly less upper body strength then the average male newbie (not in the least because showing how big your biceps, triceps and lats are, is not generally considered to be enhancing a female’s status). 

On the upside, women tend to be much more flexible than men. You can find a lot of youtube clips of women doing really nice HS presses, in contrast with for example no clips of a 5 second full lay FL hold by a woman. 

Just extrapolating from these four differences in (mostly) genetic make up, I would tend to conclude that:

1 Hand balancing and handstand press, v-sit, maybe even manna should be more of a focus in a GB program for women. The boost in morale from being able to progress maybe even quicker with those skills than most men should not be underestimated. 

2 Explicit allowance should be made for the fact that gaining strength (especially upper body strength) will take two to four times (I am just guessing at the number) longer for women. If that is not explicitly allowed for in the GB style programming for women then those women that follow the training protocols for upper body strength gains will too often fall short of general expectations about progress, because those expectations are completely based on the experience of male practitioners. That is not the way it should be. The best situation of course would be if there could be enough female GB practitioners that communicate with each other on this Forum to build an experience-based body of information on how they should go about training GB style (just like what has already happened on this Forum for the male practitioners). Any thoughts?

Excellent post Frits.  I would love to hear form anyone that has had experience in training female athletes.

 

My wife is a Yoga teacher and we usually talk about her students and exchange training/exercise notes.  Her experience is very much in line with your post.  Her female students struggle in certain transitions that require upper body strength while her male students struggle with flexibilty (especially around the hips).  This of course does not mean one cannot do something or another, it just means there usually needs to be more emphasis to develop these areas.

 

 

One of the reasons I was asking is because my children are coming up to an age where I want to have them start sports and development (I have a boy and a girl, twins).  Most gym coaches I spoke to seem to have a classical approach towards training girls.  It seems very much based on tradition, what they were taught.  I'm not a fan of the fact that they want to focus on having my girl twirl ribbons while my boy is good to go on strength work.

 

When reading BtGB or other bodyweight training books, one easily gets a "boys club" feel.  It would be great if some of these books had some strong female athletes demonstrating the muscle up / press to handstand or other exercises to break a lot of built in preconceptions. 

pinoyako said:

Can any girls do full planches? 

Some professional female gymnasts do a straddle planche on the balance beam. Like Shushunova here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDXYTIsmV7w

 

I haven't seen any girl doing a full planche though.

Another thing to consider about training women is that in general they have a less efficient CNS.  This is especially apparent in weightlifting sports where the entire event comes down to one lift.  Basically what this means for their training is that they can train at an intensity that is closer to their "max" intensity.

 

It doesn't matter as much for gymnastics training but just something to keep in mind.