| I realize T-Nation has long stood by its belief that women need not train any differently than their men, but as a T-Vixen who's trained like a man, trained like a woman, and trained like everything sandwiched in between, I think things are a little more complicated than that. Men and women are separate and distinct creatures with different needs and different goals. He wants to sit home, drink Schlitz, scratch his balls and watch football. She wants to snuggle on the couch and watch Friends while he whispers sweet nothings in her ear. He wants to bench press five million pounds and be built like a brick shithouse. She wants to "tone and shape" her glutes, shed unwanted body fat and have more "definition." Clearly we're from different worlds. Men are constantly complaining that they don’t "get" women and vice versa, so with all the obvious differences between genders, how can we be expected to train the same? Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting that we, as women, are training wrong or that training like a man isn't going to produce significant results. I’ve seen it and I’ve done it. I'm merely suggesting there are factors that make us different, factors to take into consideration before putting your girl through your training program. There are subtle variations in anatomy and physiology that cause me to wonder whether or not this is the best and most optimal way to go. These include variations in body shape, the on-going battle of women and fat, hormonal response and change, substrate utilization, as well as the actual machinery we’re built of. Let's break those down. Fruit comes in all shapes and sizes. An apple and a banana are shaped different and so are men and women. However, if you compare a MacIntosh apple to a Macoun apple, you'll find differences, but much subtler than if you were comparing it to the aforementioned banana. This is the same as comparisons within genders. Well, sorta. Just go with me for a second here, okay? Men most certainly come in all shapes and sizes (and I love 'em all), but the bottom line is that they have a common shape regardless of muscular development and size. The same applies to women. So with that in mind, how could you expect to grow both apples and bananas optimally on the same tree? Training programs need to be individualized and tailored to gender. In order to maximize physique development, each sex needs to target different areas more or less extensively. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, but more often than not, women require extensive lower body work, especially in the glute and thigh area in order to get that tight look. It's very common for women to have two-leg training days per week, possibly training glutes/hams on one day and quads on the other. I find training legs with basic compound movements on one day and training with combined movements and plyometrics on the other are effective ways to strengthen and lean out the lower body. (See sample program below.) Another weak training area common for women is the shoulders. In order to get that T-Vixen look, she’s got to hit those delts and hit 'em hard. Nothing works better to balance out those baby-bearing hips than a nicely developed set of shoulders. Many women who compete in fitness competitions work on their shoulders and lats extensively to balance out their upper bodies with their lower, more curvaceous, bottom half.  | The author displays here wares. | Certainly there'll be many similarities in training between men and women. Basic exercises like squats and deadlifts, abdominal training and core strengthening, amongst others, will absolutely apply to either sex. In fact, most exercises will. My point is merely that optimizing the physique can be a gender-specific undertaking due to variations in body shape and should be considered before developing a training program for the opposite sex. Body fat storage can also be likened to fruit. As women, we tend to store our fat in the hip and thigh areas, which gives us pear or gynoid shape. Men commonly store their fat in the upper part of the body, also known as apple or android shape. Women also tend to store more fat ubiquitously throughout the body for child-bearing purposes as well as to protect the reproductive organs. For this reason, the fat around the butt and thighs is always the last to go. Different fat receptors, alpha-2 adrenoreceptors, are responsible for this stubbornness since they possess an anti-lipolytic property. Clearly, women were designed to be softer and rounder. This is why if you decided on any give day to walk into a random gym of your choice, you’d find the majority of women on the cardio machines and in the aerobics and spinning classes. In a nutshell, we have a bitch of a time keeping ourselves lean. On an average, women hold a more significant amount of body fat than men, approximately 10% more. So it makes sense that we also have a harder time staying lean and ripped year round, thus, requiring more time spent doing cardiovascular training, sometimes up to two cardio sessions per day to bring body fat levels down into the single digits. Strategies such as interval training, sprinting or jumping rope need to be an integral component of a woman’s training program to keep a lean physique year-round. And I don’t mean fifteen minutes reading Cosmo on the elliptical trainer with your heart rate barely breaking 120bpm! Diet is also crucial here, but I think that's a given. Depending on the time of the month, women can physiologically be more like T-Men or as different as Vulcans and Klingons. Other hormones besides T play an integral role in ours systems and affect our ability to build or to not build muscle. These hormones run rampant month-to-month, throwing our bodies into an endocrinological tailspin. Menstruation, for the most part, is a 28-day long ordeal. During this process certain hormones are more prevalent than others. Day one begins with the onset of the period and starts the 14-day long follicular phase. We're most like men hormonally during the early follicular phase because levels of estrogen and progesterone are at their lowest. As women approach ovulation and the luteal phase (the remaining 14-day cycle), levels of estrogen and progesterone increase, setting a menstrual cascade of events into action. These hormonal changes in women during menstruation alter substrate utilization. For instance, during the early stages of menstruation when levels of estrogen are low, glucose uptake by skeletal muscle is at its highest since estrogen has an inhibitory effect on glucose uptake. As the menstrual cycle charges on, levels of estrogen and progesterone increase, so glucose uptake decreases and favoritism towards fat metabolism emerges. Research has shown that women have a greater tendency towards fat metabolism over carbohydrate metabolism when exercising at a given percentage of their cardiac capacity as compared to men. (1, 2) This is also altered due to the visit of her monthly "friend." Biochemically speaking, women tend to have lower concentrations of hemoglobin (Hb) and hematocrit (Hct) in the blood. Hb is a protein bound to red blood cells that transports oxygen and carbon dioxide. Hct is a proportional measure of the actual volume of red blood cells in whole blood as compared to the total volume of the blood. (3) A lower Hct indicates there are fewer red blood cells in the blood. Therefore, if women tend to have lower Hb and Hct concentrations, then the ability to transport oxygen systemically decreases. Women also have smaller hearts and a lower filling volume. For this reason, women also tend to have a lower VO2 Max comparatively to men, VO2 Max representing the maximum amount of oxygen a person can use at any given time. What does this mean and how does it apply to training? Well, because of this little fact, women are at a disadvantage to men when it comes to transporting oxygen to skeletal muscle during exercise. This doesn’t mean women are unable to adapt as readily as men to cardiovascular training. It just means that in order for a woman to achieve the same level of cardiovascular fitness as a man, she must increase the pumping capacity (or cardiac output) of her heart in order to compensate for the reduced amount of oxygen travelling the body. (4) Several variables contribute to the physiological differences between men and women, thus the need for different training strategies. Body shape and design, women’s prevalence for hanging onto fat, monthly hormonal changes and substrate utilization all play a role in gender-specific bodily responses to exercise. I’m not suggesting women should design their training around their periods. I am, however, trying to get across a point: women should train like women instead of defending and following their boyfriend’s program like it’s the Holy Grail. Physiology differs between genders, and subtle differences need to be made in order to optimize the physique we’ve been given, regardless of which planet you’re from. Below is a sample training program for women that puts all these ideas together. Note the difference between this program and the standard four-day split programs written with men in mind. Day 1: legs, abs Day 2: back and biceps Day 3: rest Day 4: chest, abs Day 5: shoulders and triceps Day 6: rest Day 7: rest or begin from day 1 Morning — Cardio 20-40 minutes (HIIT, sprinting, jumping rope, jogging or some other boring-ass cardio machine. Choose your poison.) Evening — Legs I — standard movements such as front squats, hack squats, leg presses, etc. Morning — Cardio 20-40 minutes, abs Evening — Chest, Shoulders I, Triceps: Standard exercises including chest presses, flyes, overhead shoulder presses, lateral raises, front raises, upright rows, bent-over laterals, dips, and cable pushdowns. Morning — Cardio: 30-40 minutes Morning — Cardio 20-40 minutes, abs Evening — Legs II: glute/hams with plyometrics Exercise 1: barbell lunges, walking lunges, straight leg deadlifts, one-leg good mornings, Russian hamstring lifts, squats, or cable kickbacks. Exercise 2: squat/burpee, high box jumps, lateral step plyos, jumping rope for one minute intervals etc. * Superset exercise 1 with exercise 2 to increase fat-burning and increase quick-step action and agility. Morning — Cardio 20-40 minutes Evening — Back and biceps: Focus is on wide-grip back exercises to develop the lats and create a V-taper to match the lower half. Morning — Cardio 20-40 minutes, abs Evening — Shoulders II: Same shoulder exercises as Day 2 but balls to the wall — more sets, reps and variations on exercises. Note: For more information on sets, reps and intensity, see Christian Thibaudeau’s Fun With Women. As you can see, the methodologies I suggest for women aren’t all that different from those used by men. Regardless, the subtle variations are what make all the difference. 1. Tarnopolsky LJ, MacDougall JD, Atkinson SA, Tarnopolsky MA and Sutton JR. Gender differences in substrate for endurance exercise. J Appl Physiol. 1990 Jan;68(1):302-8. 2. Ruby BC, Robergs RA. Gender differences in substrate utilization during exercise. Sports Med 17(6):393-410, 1994. 3. Manore M and Thompson J. Sport Nutrition for Health and Performance. Human Kinetics Publishing; 2000. 4. Pellicia A, Maron BJ, Spataro A et al: The upper limit of physiologic cardiac hypertrophy in highly trained elite athletes, N Eng J Med 324(5):295-301, 1991. Kristin Reisinger, MSc. Candidate, is a New York City-based nutritional consultant, fitness trainer, freelance health and fitness writer, musician and cynic. She's currently completing her Master's Degree in Applied Physiology and Nutrition from Columbia University and will be sitting for the Registered Dietitian examination through the American Dietetic Association in the winter of 2004. She's also a National-level NPC Figure athlete, former Galaxy competitor, avid snowboarder and rock climber, and has been competing for over three years. For more information or to contact Kristin, visit www.kristinreisinger.com. | 
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