Do Women Get Stronger Faster Than Men? Here's What The Research Says
Welcome to the one day at a time podcast with your host and the future leader of The Republic Of Wales, Sveldfjer. Now this might be the only podcast in the world where you actually have to reduce the speed instead of increasing it. However, what I wanna get over to you is that the past is gone. The future doesn't exist. So if you wanna make the most of your life, you've gotta make the most of these moments every single day.
Speaker 1:And this podcast is gonna help you live a healthier, more fulfilled life, hopefully, giving you some wisdom to take away every single day. So I'm gonna shut up now so you can get on with listening to the next episode. Good morning everyone, we're back today with a voice note covering some research, which I know some of you like so no one's gonna look up his I don't want you to all waste your time looking up his research. Let us do the work for you. We look at the research.
Speaker 1:We'll use people like doctor p and people who got experience looking at stuff to kind of verify it is legit and it's good. And that's what we do. And then we break it down into plain English and then I deliver you all the voice notes. So the one I'm gonna look at today is strength training in men versus women what do the studies tell us? Okay, so when we look at this there's a lot of misconceptions about strength training for women right.
Speaker 1:Women are also less likely to be represented in exercise research and less likely to take part in strength training or compete in strength sports as well so there's still a lot of societal biases against women lifting heavy weights but that's definitely improving and the reason the research is tough is because they need, constants in research and women are more varied than men due to the menstrual cycle due to different pills and stuff taken for, all that stuff. So it's tougher, but that is improving as well luckily. Well, not luckily, it's like definitely should be doing it anyway. But it's going in the right way. So there's been about 70 studies comparing strength gains and muscle growth in men and women over the past forty seven years, and just a few comparisons which we call meta analysis or meta analysis.
Speaker 1:I don't know how to say that word properly. Is it meta or meta? I don't know. And the study's been published. So let's have a look at what these meta or meta analysis are telling us.
Speaker 1:So there's one looking at overall strength gains and there were 63 comparisons of strength gains, encompassing about 3,332 people in the studies right men got 29.41% stronger on average whilst women got 37.42% stronger so the average difference was 8%. It's a decent amount not huge amount decent amount, but in addition to that strength increased about 27% faster in women on average okay. Let's look at strength gains in younger people less than 35 years old there were 32 comparisons of strength gains in young people total seventeen forty five people and in the studies men got 30.87% stronger on average whilst women got 45.71% stronger on average so that's a difference of 14% decent but a medium effect but here's another stat for you on average strength increased about 48% faster in young women. Matt, okay strength gains in older people there were 31 studies in this comparing this one thousand five hundred eight seven people. In the studies men got 27.8% stronger, women got 28.3% stronger so just a 0.5% difference.
Speaker 1:There was no difference there. Upper body strength gains there were 27 studies, again fifteen ninety nine people men got 34.92% stronger women got 47.51% stronger so there's a difference of 12.59%. Okay upper body strength increased about 36% faster than women. God women are killing us. You women are smashing us here no wonder they're not doing the research on this.
Speaker 1:Yeah it will make us look terrible. Okay lower gain lower body strength gains 53 comparisons 02/1980 some people studies show men got 28.4% stronger on average women got 30.64% stronger small difference 2.17, so basically the same. Strength gains in studies last in twenty plus weeks okay so there's 20 of these, nine twenty seven people men got 28.1% stronger on average women got 29.91% stronger literally no difference there. So the conclusion is guys relative rates of muscle growth in men and women are basically identical as a percentage yeah men obviously can have more of a potential muscle growth, you know, bigger muscles, but as a percentage same. Strength gains are at least equal between men and women over so the last that he mentioned over the twenty plus weeks, it shows that strength gains are pretty much the same.
Speaker 1:But it's it seems that women are flying off the mark much faster than men when it comes to strength training. There's a lot of reasons this could be. I don't know all of them, and I'm just guessing here. So I'm sure doctor p and the strength expert will have more of a reason but it could be that maybe men are basically using muscle and training a bit more and they're younger playing sports activating so they're getting a bit stronger doing this and now training And maybe for women men, it's the first time they actually do resistance training. They don't do it in sports.
Speaker 1:It's really, really new to women versus men and that's why the potential of the start is much greater. And that's great news for most of you guys because I guarantee you, most of you probably haven't been doing strength training properly, probably haven't followed the plan to its full potential and haven't really understood why we progress in the ways we do. And imagine now you unlock this with your rate of strength gain being quicker than men much quicker from studies. Five weeks of structured strength training, hitting your protein, okay, learning all about it. Potential is great for all you women listening, all of you.
Speaker 1:So you can gain a decent amount of strength in five weeks as long as we follow a structured plan. That's exactly why we're doing the strength challenge is because the potential is there. We wanna start from the ground up so you all understand where we're going. And then we go into the new year. We've got a new challenge towards the middle to the end of Jan.
Speaker 1:Again, focusing on strength and way more things. And hopefully, you all stay with us whilst we keep programming, keep building these strength workouts for you. We're going into 2022, we're all on the same page, we understand what works and our strength gains keep going up and up and we feel stronger, we feel sexier, we just feel healthier. Okay, so we want to be in that position strong, fit, not so much like overtraining, loads of run, too much running. Like, if it goes running fine, I'm talking about people who cause fat loss, think more cardio is better.
Speaker 1:Low calories, you end up feeling weaker and weaker and weaker. Yeah, you might be losing a bit of fat, but you don't feel good. And sometimes it takes a few days of us eating well and training well for us to feel good, even though we don't look different, we feel strong, we feel better. So there's no visual changes. But sometimes it's all about how we're feeling in terms of our bodies and strength, mind, everything.
Speaker 1:So that's why it's important that we don't try and go too low calories and stuff when we're losing weight, but we want to be having a good balance of a deficit plus strength training and all that type of stuff. But that's it for today. Shorter voice note, I want you to understand the benefits of strength training. It's gonna be a bit quicker for women, especially if you're a beginner. So it's very exciting for people who are brand new to strength training, and that is exactly why this challenge is perfect for you.
Speaker 1:We're not gonna leave anyone behind. We're gonna we've done challenges loads of challenges, guys. We learn from every single one. And even though they're all different and some people prefer one to the other, in terms of the structure and what we know works and what we know people come for and, like, will stay afterwards for, that's definitely improving. So one example is as soon as you come in, we're gonna be putting you all into accountability WhatsApp groups if you opt for it, which means that you'll have a group of about five or six people on the same goal as you, and you'll be able to chat, fire away questions between each other, help each other out, have that chat privately on WhatsApp.
Speaker 1:And then you have all the workouts and the seminars, the knowledge stuff, I think that just works. So you've got the smaller community and you've got the bigger community, you've the experts and you've got kind of this kind of many avenues for communication and you feel like there's a lot of people behind you supporting you. That's one of the main factors of success. Doing a plan on your own is difficult. Go to the gym, follow a plan, nobody cares.
Speaker 1:Nobody's asking how you're doing. You can't ask anyone else. Are you feeling well to ask questions? You can't ask your peers. And it's shown in studies as well, peer to peer learning, peer to peer support is more effective than top down in most cases.
Speaker 1:So me just telling you, go on, do the workout. It might work for some of you. It might give you a kick up the ass, but sometimes you wanna see what other people are doing on the same path as you and you go through it together. That's a lot more powerful as the research does say. So guys, I'm gonna love you and leave you for today.
Speaker 1:I hope you enjoyed this voice note. Wonder they're saying Listen, no wonder they're suppress this research. Women are faster at the gates, see what happens long term. Doesn't needs more studies need to be done, but it's all good. So see you tomorrow, as always, and remember to live one day at a time.
Speaker 1:Live immediately. Live immediately. And that is it for today's episode. So hopefully, you took something away from it. If you didn't, here's what need to take away.
Speaker 1:Stop wasting time on social media. Stop wasting time gossiping. You've only got a day to live. Today's the only day you ever have. So if there's anything to take away from this podcast, even if you can't understand the word I say, even if you didn't resonate with the wisdom I try to deliver, this is a reminder of you daily to live one day at a time.
Speaker 1:Give your moments meaning today and don't be fooled by thinking you've got unlimited amount of days. But if you can make the most of today I'm telling you you'll have a fulfilled life so enjoy your day and hopefully I'll see you back tomorrow. Do daily to live one day at a time. Give your moments meaning today and don't be fooled by thinking you've got unlimited amount of days. But if you can make the most of today, I'm telling you, you'll have a fulfilled life.
Speaker 1:So enjoy your day and hopefully I'll see you back tomorrow.
