Why Strength Training Needs a Rethink for Women
The Fitness-Gender Gap
It’s a man’s world.
It’s a man’s world — especially in fitness.
Most strength programs were built for men, based on research done on men, for men.
It’s time we did better. And that starts with understanding the body, not forcing it into outdated molds.
Note: I’m not a women’s physiology expert. But after coaching hundreds of women and digging deeper, it is time we did better.
The Origins of the Problem
There’s a research bias toward elite male athletes.
Because they make simplified study subjects. There’s less noise to worry about i.e. menstruation or which phase of the cycle a female athlete could be in might be different from the others and thus the data might not fit.
To reduce complication, women were simply excluded.
Our patriarchal structures prioritise men even in science, thinking things can't be that different for women.
Plus, men are genetically stronger and thus will produce higher values of output in the performance studies.
And of course, there’s simply a lot more money in men-dominant events.
As a coach, I used to think it was all about the same rules: progressive overload, recover, repeat. But slowly, patterns started to emerge. While my knowledge about women was totally inadequate, slowly I started to learn as I saw the differences in recovery and adaptation. And (I think) women are used to having to figure out a lot of thinking for themselves. While unfortunate, as it is my job as their coach, it was certainly helpful.
The Hidden Costs
Female athletes are pushed into frameworks that didn’t fit. The same questions were asked of both genders. Which meant extremely important questions about women’s physiology were ignored.
For example, and I am forgetting where I read this, asking the athlete about their period and hearing a response “It has been 6 years.” and noting it down, and moving on as if that was normal - WTF?!?!
Not understanding how women’s growth occurs, what overuse injuries happen, how recovery is affected led to women just coping silently. And assuming that everyone else were doing fine and they were at fault.
There were a lot of women athletes who were affected by the terrible triad of low energy availability, menstrual dysfunction, and low bone mineral density.
The triad is under diagnosed, especially in women who appear fit and healthy.
And in women who don't "look fit", they are simply told to lose weight. Without a deeper understanding of what’s actually going on. For a lot of people, it is not that simple to lose weight. The reasons will be psychological and physiological. And not simplistic as “you are eating too much and not exercising.”
Long-term consequences include infertility, irreversible bone damage, hormonal dysfunction, and mental health challenges. There’s no real count of how many women have had their health wrecked and their careers in tatters because of this.
In my personal experience from coaching, I’ve seen women blame themselves for slow recovery, for fatigue, for not being able to show up because they needed to sleep more, for not being able to do as much as last week.
It wasn’t their discipline that was lacking. It was our understanding that was flawed.
It wasn’t just me.
Even the students/athletes often didn’t realize:
It was absolutely normal to need more recovery. To feel different week to week.
Their bodies weren’t betraying them.
The system was.
As a coach, my job shifted from enforcing templates to teaching frameworks so that each student could adapt based on their real, lived experience.
This has (thankfully) always been my approach. As many of my students have lives that have too many variables to fit into a clean progression at the gym. So, how to approach each session, how to approach their recovery - all of this was part of my coaching.
Shifting from a prescription to an exploration, and seeing my (female) students get back to me, and progressively taking each step forward has been amazing. But I have no doubt that a significant part of their questions/concerns were not addressed. Either because of the societal norms, or because of the fact that I am male, or a bunch of stuff.
Rethink, Respect, Rebuild
Those of us in the business of fitness, we need to respect and understand women’s physiology. And we need to do way better.
The female body is not a problem to be solved.
It’s a system to be understood.
— Dr. Emma Ross
We need better frameworks.
We need better conversations.
We need each other.
Tell me:
Who do you follow that’s reshaping this narrative?
What resources should every coach be studying?
How can we, as an organisation, do this better together?
Wellness is an industry. Lot of misinformation floats around & in the current environment it's hard to separate the genuine from the hype. The individual needs to be on top of his game.
Recent research tells that women don't need to train differently based on where they are on their menstrual cycles. I have been following the work of scientists, Stuart Phillips & Dr Lauren Colenso & finding it insightful. Check them out if you are curious.
End of the day it's about keeping things simple & staying consistent. But who wants simple?
Thanks, AA. Couldn't have come at a better time in my journey :)