5 Myths: Women and Strength Training
For a long time, strength training was a male-dominated area. But women have also taken a liking to it. Nevertheless, a few myths and questions about the topic "strength training and women" still persist.
Do women have to train differently than men, and if so, why? Should women be careful not to get too bulky from strength training, and is it true that we can only achieve our desired beach body with regular cardio training?
We have picked out the five most popular prejudices and want to shed light on them with this article.
The five most popular myths about women and strength training
Myth 1: Women should stay away from creatine!
Creatine is mainly taken to overcome performance plateaus during training, which can promote muscle growth. Many women who do strength training shy away from supplementing creatine because they associate its intake with significant weight gain.
What’s the deal with that? Taking creatine can indeed cause weight to increase. This is because more water is stored in the body. However, it is often mistakenly assumed that this water is stored directly under the skin, making the body look bloated. In fact, the body stores the extra water in the muscle cells, making them appear fuller. This can even make the external appearance look more defined and muscular than without creatine intake.
Additionally, regarding weight gain from creatine, it should be noted that every body reacts very differently to its intake. For example, if you already eat a lot of meat, which naturally contains creatine, the effect of additional creatine supplementation may hardly be noticeable on the scale.
Myth 2: Women become masculine and bulky from strength training
The idea that the free weight area is a men-only zone and women should rather spend their training time on the cross-trainer still persists. After all, most women don’t want a body with huge muscles and broad shoulders. Should women therefore actually avoid the strength area? Absolutely not! Women do not become bulky or unfeminine from strength training. Due to the different hormonal regulation of male and female bodies, this is simply not possible. Rather, women should definitely do strength training and benefit from its positive effects such as a higher basal metabolic rate, better posture, and a firmer silhouette.
Myth 3: To lose weight, women should mainly do cardio training
It is often said that if women want to lose unnecessary pounds, they should do as much cardio training as possible. Of course, it is true that cardio training increases calorie consumption. This makes it possible to achieve a calorie deficit, which is ultimately decisive for successful weight loss. However, this applies to women just as much as to men.
Basically, the focus in a diet should be more on regularly doing strength training to lose as little muscle mass as possible during weight loss. Besides the muscular stimulus from training, sufficient protein intake is also essential and should not be neglected. Cardio training can of course still be used as an additional method to burn a few extra calories.
Myth 4: To get a six-pack, abdominal muscle training must not be missed
“You want a six-pack? – Train your abdominal muscles.” Unfortunately, it’s not that simple in practice. For women to get a flat and defined stomach, crunches and sit-ups in large quantities are not necessarily required. Much more important is a low body fat percentage, which can best be achieved through a protein-rich diet in a calorie deficit, regular strength training, and enough movement.
How visible the abdominal muscles ultimately become also depends heavily on genetic factors. For some women, the coveted abs show much earlier than for others. Nevertheless, the abdominal muscle is, of course, a muscle that needs to be stimulated to grow. Isolated abdominal training is not necessarily required for this, as the abdominal muscles are heavily engaged during many basic exercises when performed correctly. Still, you don’t have to skip your ab training if you don’t want to. It’s best to do it at the end of your workout so that your core stability is not lacking for your other exercises.
Myth 5: Women have to train differently than men
Not really! The same basic rules largely apply to women in strength training as to men: Women should also train regularly and improve over time, meaning progressive training. Besides the training sessions themselves, a protein-rich diet is also important for muscle building and maintenance and should not be neglected. There is one small difference that actually benefits women: women can train with a higher training volume than men. Therefore, women can generally do strength training with a higher number of repetitions and sets. Furthermore, recent scientific approaches suggest that women may need shorter recovery times than men and respond particularly well to muscle building in the range of 6-10 repetitions.
Women power in strength training – our conclusion
As we now know, the women among us don’t have to panic about getting a masculine or bulky figure from strength training.
On the contrary! Strength training helps us shape our bodies as we wish, look firmer, and even become slimmer in the long term. Regular training can support a diet as well as be used for muscle building. In the end, it means the same for women as for men: Get to the weights!