Do Men And Women Need To Exercise Differently?

By Author: Mike Geary
Total Articles: 7
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Did you ever notice that most women think they need to exercise differently than men? And most men think they need to train differently than most women. I'm going to explain below why I feel everyone would get much better results if they stopped thinking about mens vs womens workouts, and started thinking about how to actually get results.

One example of this exercise insanity that we see at every gym... Many women think they need to do 20, 30, or even 40 reps per set of most exercises with little 3-lb barbie dumbbells, because if they actually lifted heavier dumbbells, they falsely believe they will "bulk up".

Another example... Many guys think they need to do 1-rep max lifts regularly to build muscle. This is simply not true... overall training volume (reps x sets x weight lifted x intensity level) and a caloric surplus is what building muscle is all about... not necessarily 1-rep max lifting... although I am certainly not saying there isn't a time and place for 1-rep maxing.

Now here's one of my biggest frustrations over the years... Typically when I was training lots of women and I would show them ...
... the workout that I wanted to take them through... they would say something such as... "I don't want to do those exercises. That looks like a man's workout!"

And they would go back to their little tiny 3-lb dumbbells and boring monotonous cardio workouts and keep getting NO RESULTS at all for months or even years.

However, the females I trained that were open-minded enough to trust me that if they used heavier weights they would not "bulk up" (as long as their caloric intake was in the correct range), always got excellent results.

As a matter of fact, some of the leanest females I have trained over the years were the ones that actually trained with the heaviest weights. I had a few female athletes that could deadlift 175 lbs and they were VERY lean, and NOT overly-muscular. In fact, they had very feminine, but lean sexy bodies.

They lifted very HEAVY weights in relation to their body size and yet they NEVER bulked up.

Another example is that almost every female I ever trained thought they couldn't use more than 5 or 8 lb dumbbells for an overhead dumbbell press or a dumbbell chest press. However, when they were open-minded enough to actually try to train their body under heavier resistance (and thereby create a REAL stimulis for change), most women were almost always able to press 20 or 30-lb dumbbells instead of the 5 or 8 pounders they were used to using.

My point I'd like to make in this article is for us all to please stop with the insanity of thinking that we all need to train so radically different from the opposite sex, but rather realize that we are all HUMAN BEINGS. I don't care if you're a man or a woman... the laws of exercise physiology will always show that variations of squats, lunges, deadlifts, presses, and rows are some of the best exercises for human beings, regardless of gender.

And this applies whether your goal is fat loss or muscle building!

Yes, even if your goal is just fat loss and not muscle building, you still need to train your body under progressively heavier resistance (relative to your current strength) to stimulate your body to actually want to change over time.

*Note - when I say "train heavy", I mean heavy resistance in relation to your individual strength level. For example, a heavy resistance in a particular exercise such as a deadlift or squat may be 300 lbs for one person, and only 70 lbs for another person. All that matters is if the weight that you use is challenging for you.

Now I will concede that I use slightly different styles of training whether the goal is fat loss or muscle building (notice I said different styles, not different exercises), but the bigger factor is actually your caloric balance...

Creating a caloric deficit for fat loss or creating a caloric surplus for muscle gain, while still training intensely for either goal.

So I say let's all stop training like men or training like women, and let's all start training like human beings in order to get RESULTS! See below for some of the most effective training routines known to man for fat loss and muscle building.