Gender Differences in Training and Nutrition
Should women train or eat differently than men? Are there gender differences in training and nutrition?
Men and women have mostly similar adaptations to strength and cardio training. Both men and women will make similar relative strength gains in the first several weeks of a strength training program. Women and men will also improve endurance similarly after starting an aerobic training program.
However, women and men have differences in their physiology. This means that women and men might benefit from slightly different training programs and nutritional plans in the long term.
Gender Differences in Training
Men have larger fast twitch muscle fibers than women. This allows men to generally perform a bit better on high tension, high velocity exercises like maximal strength training, maximal power and speed training.
Men and women also have different anabolic hormone levels that affect their training results in the long term.
The primary female sex hormone, estrogen, actually may increase endurance, reduce fatigue and speed recovery both between sets and between training days. This may allow women to perform a greater overall volume of training, and to recover more quickly in between sets. Estrogen might also increase endurance and strength endurance.
Indeed, most women are able to do more reps at a given percentage of their one rep max. This means that standard one rep max calculators might overestimate the weight most women can use for one rep.
Because of this, women interested in maximal strength performance should probably perform a greater percentage of their training with relatively heavy weights and very few reps per set.
However, estrogen and progesterone might also limit total muscle growth potential in the long term. By reducing post-training inflammation, estrogen might actually dampen signaling pathways that allow muscle growth.
On the other hand, men have much more testosterone which can lead to increased potential for more muscle mass in the long term.
These results should not be surprising: men can usually gain much more total muscle mass than women in the long term on a similar training program. However, women have better recovery and can tolerate more work volume. In fact, women may even need more total work volume to maximize their training adaptations.
Gender Differences in Nutrition
Overall, women rely more on aerobic metabolism than men. Both at training and at rest, women rely more on fat metabolism than carbohydrate metabolism. This means that women need fewer total carbohydrates, and can include a lower proportion of carbohydrates in their diet. For most female athletes, carbohydrates should comprise about 45-60 percent of their overall calories.
While female athletes do need some carbohydrates especially before and after training, they can aim to include 30-35 percent of their daily calories from high quality fat sources.
Both men and women can aim for 1.7-2.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight to maximize muscle protein synthesis and muscle repair and to allow positive changes in body composition. Protein prior to and after training can also increase muscle repair.
Women generally need fewer daily calories than men to fuel exercise and recovery. While strength trained males should aim for 44-50 calories per day per kilogram of bodyweight, strength trained females generally require around 39-44 calories per day per kilogram of body weight.
Endurance trained athletes generally require more calories than strength trained individuals. Depending on total training volume and weight, male endurance athletes might need 3,500-6,000 calories per day. Female endurance athletes usually require 2,500-4,000 calories per day depending on training volume and weight.
Sadly, female athletes also have a higher rate of disordered eating than male athletes. Both men and women who participate in sports that emphasize leanness or power to weight ratio experience high rates of disordered eating.
Given the prevalence of eating disorders and body image disorders, male and female athletes should understand that undereating can have serious consequences for health and performance.
Final Thoughts
Women and men might need slightly different training and nutrition programs to maximize their results in the long term.
The good news, however, is that no matter your sex, you can still make significant improvements to your strength, endurance, body composition and recovery.
