The Women are Working Harder than the Men

Bigger Stronger Leaner
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Today I went to my gym outside of my usual time, and the cast of characters there had me nearly laughing to myself.

There was the likely neo-nazi, with the body of an uncooked linguini, wearing a powerlifting belt full-time as he talked into his airpods THE ENTIRE HOUR, occasionally performing a DB isolation movement or causally operating a machine.

There’s the long-sleeved lycra shirt-wearing over-40 gentleman, clean-cut and probably a great dude in real life, whose entire session consists of seated DB curls with <=20lbs. They aren’t working for him. Perhaps he’s losing the pump due to the long phone calls between sets.

Sure, there’s a strong dude in the corner deadlifting over 4 plates.

But he’s quickly overshadowed by a pair of teenage boys teaching each other how to do isolation movements and get “one more!”.

And there’s granny doing combination DB-row-kick-back-curls, sure. But even she is doing more work than most of these dudes.

And the pair of young ladies whose idea of a workout is to sit and stretch together for an hour on the astroturf section.

But when it comes to the female population of my gym, they are the exception, not the rule.

Women are barbell squatting. Deadlifting. Doing weighted BSS - even I’m not badass enough to do those!
Hip thrusting more than you bench press.
They’re bench pressing with no spotter.
They’re wearing giant headphones that say “I don’t dress this way for you to talk to me.”

They’re loading plates onto the leg press and going like the energizer bunny.

An entire class of women - mostly older - doing a group training session WITH BARBELLS. Looked like upright rows when I walked by - take note, teenage boys!

In summary, the women I saw today were working much harder than the men, and looked better too.

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This is nothing new.

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I don’t see this as gender related. I see it more as training for a desired result.

Both are looking to improve their “showy” muscles (or shape).

Men want bigger arms. Though completely misled as the best method, they will be doing numerous arm isolation exercises. (maybe chest and shoulders too) These exercises are just not as systemically challenging as big compound exercises.

Women want nice shaped hips and legs. These require more big compound exercises. We all know that those big demanding lower body exercises require more effort.

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  1. it’s awesome that you have some kick arse women in your gym

  2. if I were to guess, I’d say there’s some selection bias. Women who bother to lift are usually serious whereas any dude who walks into a gym is going to gravitate towards the weight section, even if it’s just to dick around

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Fair points, all!
I was really just trying to be funny and share a laugh at some of the goofballs.
But yeah it makes sense - women want a good butt, men want big arms, so women are doing serious lifts and men are doing curls.

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I always thought that the women I see lifting have better (on average) form than the guys. They focus more on the muscle and doing the exercise correctly as opposed to how men tend to lift with their egos more.

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I do have a beef with both the men and the women that I see doing leg presses. Very few use a full range of motion. Most do little more than lockouts, especially those who like to use more weight. And yes, it seems that the women like to push heavy weight, even if they aren’t getting deep enough to fully engage their glutes.

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I think it is out of necessity. The deadlift is an example. There are a lot more items that a woman will have to position herself correctly in order to lift compared to a man (in general). In the real world there are only a couple of things I need to pick up that are heavy or awkward enough that I actually have to think about it. I think women have more practice at positioning themselves to be in a strong position out of necessity.

I’ve seen the same thing with rock climbing. Guys will often have terrible foot work compared to women starting off. Their sloppy foot work was fine for climbing trees, but women as girls had to use their legs more for the same activity. They have more practice at using their stronger muscles (which is highly important in climbing) than men, because they had to.

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True, but I’ll also notice women on the average don’t progress weight. Year over year I’ll see them following the exact same routine with exact same weights, afraid to add more even though the sets look very easy and there is no strain. And I mean even the “serious” ones who are religious about coming in. Meanwhile, guys like to progress too fast even if it means compromising form.

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