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Q: Hi Joe, I stumbled across your site today and read the article on female strength training. Nice articles by the way.
I am a female Olympic weightlifter and have been competing/training for 16yrs. Your female strength training article is short and to the point. One difference I've noticed between training males and females (this is just anecdotal evidence) is that women seem to be able to handle more volume and require less recovery time between training sessions than males. I was wondering if you've noticed this difference and what you think the reason is behind it?
Veronica
A: Veronica, Yes, I’ve definitely noticed this difference. I feel that, generally speaking, women can handle a greater volume, as well as recover quicker than males, because of their muscle fiber make-up.
In general, females don’t possess as many of the Type IIB, higher threshold motor units, compared to their male counter-parts. The Type IIB fibers are mainly responsible for strength & explosive power. They contract fast & powerfully, but they take longer to recover between sets, as well as workouts. This is one of the reasons that females gravitate towards more endurance-based activities and don’t require as much rest between weightlifting sets, and weightlifting workouts, for that matter. Females possess more of the endurance-based fibers than men do. This is also why most women can complete many more reps with a higher percentage of their 1RM on most strength exercises, compared to men.
Hopefully this clears things up a bit.
Joe D.
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Q: Joe, I have 2 questions about your Skinny Bastard program.
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If someone wanted to perform an overhead press (military, push press, etc.), would it be okay to do that on the max effort day?
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If someone wanted to do an Olympic lift or one of the variations (power clean, power snatch), where would you place it in the workout template?
Thanks,
Ryan
A: Ryan, If you really feel that you need to perform an overhead press, you can do it on your max-effort upper body day. Simply choose an overhead pressing exercise and make it your max-effort exercise. This would replace the bench press or chin-up variations I recommend in my articles. I would stick with 3-5 rep maxes on all overhead lifts. The rest of the workout can remain the same.
As far as Olympic lifts are concerned, you have 2 choices. Your first choice would be to perform an Olympic lift as your max-effort lower body exercise and just do lower body once a week. Your second option is to perform 2 lower body strength days. On max-effort day, use the exact format that I describe in my articles. Then, perform a dynamic lower body day 3-4 days after your max-effort lower body day. For your dynamic day, perform 6-10 sets of 2-3 reps of an Olympic lift variation and then do some accessory work and abs. Keep the total volume low on this day.
Hope this helps.
Joe D.
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