There is no secret, that I am really big on getting girls/women into the gym and get them strong. Some of you who might read this article have seen the benefits first hand of doing this!
There is a fantastic article by Joe DeFranco, one of the world’s best Strength and Conditioning Coaches which you can read here:
Should females train differently to males?
So, my take on this, is similar to this article.
I have seen various girls and women come into Vector Health over the years and the one thing that is obvious is the maturation rate. So, if you are a girl, or a parent of a girl who is 10 years of age, sometimes they can hold the maturity of a 12-14 year old boy, mentally and physically! So, it would make sense to get girls to train in the gym early. WHY?
- Girls have more chance of injuring their knee specifically ACL. The average coaching membership to a supervised group training program for a young athlete would be $30-40 per week. If your daughter did this 40 weeks of a year, this might be roughly $1200-1600 per year. One knee operation, you will probably be lucky to escape with out of pocket expenses of $3000-5000 even if you are privately insured.
- Girls have less testosterone, meaning it is harder for them to “naturally” grow strong like boys.
- Being stronger is linked to better self-confidence and better sport performance.
- Strength will increase aerobic fitness, power and speed, all critical parts of doing sport.
These are 4 reasons I see critical to getting girls and women in the gym. A coaching program should be focused on the basics first, no matter the gender. We should work on active mobility, good movement patterns, including core stability first, and basic movement patterns. When an athlete can master all of the basics, they can challenge themselves with different exercises.
A case study in point is a swimmer that I have coached in the gym for a few years. At the start of her programming, we worked really hard on her movement patterns. She did what some would call boring, and what I would call essential work on moving her own body weight and moving well. The results of this, in a recent off-season cycle of work is obvious. She is doing winter swim training and doing regular training PB’s, especially holding volume well in her swimming program. Her strength has doubled across about 20 weeks. Her ability to hold her volume in the gym has improved. She can do nearly 30 push ups in 30 seconds, with really sound technique, which is a great indication of good muscular endurance, something that is very important for swimming. She has grown and gotten more lean in the past 12 weeks. We have performed some really specific power endurance work on dry land as part of this program, and the self-reporting from the athlete tells me that this has made a big difference to how she can swim and recover in the pool. She is probably one of the better examples of the importance of doing the basics first, and seeing the benefits of working hard on the little things to improve in her sport.
If you have a daughter who you think would benefit from this sort of training, please call us on 4927 8190 and I will arrange to meet with you to discuss how we can help.
For Women, getting in the gym is non-age specific. If you are 40 and never been in the gym before, there is no better time! Unfortunately, women have a higher chance of developing lower bone density as you get older and load-bearing exercise is known to help with this.
Strength is the key, NOT muscle size. Some of the studies I have read talk about men adapting muscle size at twice the rate of women. This is largely attributed to testosterone differences.
So, increased loading on your bones will help the bones be motivated to remodel, which means you can maintain your bone density and especially your lean muscle mass! Please do not wait until you get told you have low bone density. Start now, do something to improve this.
A case study of someone who needed to get into the gym was a runner I worked with. She was a passionate runner, had ongoing hamstring problems that were chronic in nature. We worked on some basic movement strategies, increased core stability, and worked really hard, which is one of Joe’s recommendations on Gluteal strength especially and more posterior chain strength. I told her to give me 8 weeks of modified activity with strength work to decrease her hamstring tendon pain. 8 weeks, (roughly) later she ran 5km without pain for the first time in nearly 2 years. She has since ran a half marathon without pain, and continues onwards and upwards. There was nothing complicated about what we did. She did a lot of hard work initially on some basic movement patterns and progressed as she demonstrated that she was competent. To be perfectly honest, there was nothing too different about her progress from our younger athlete. Focus on movement, improve movement quality using the basics of mobility and stability training and build strength once you have a good movement pattern.
Another example is that my own Mum. My mum would probably have no problems telling you that gym was never on her radar when we were all growing up. She started very late in her life. But, to her credit she has done really well, and goes 3-5 times a week still about 15 years later. Mum has low bone density, so we have to be really careful about what she does in the gym. She is under the care of a really good exercise physiologist who sets her programs and gives her advice on what to do. The things that she focuses on is maintaining her strength and balance especially to avoid falls and to try to maintain or increase bone density through sensible loading patterns in the gym. The gym has been successful, especially from me seeing her self-confidence and especially self-efficacy in performing physical tasks around the house. I really believe that it is one of the best anti-ageing medicines going around. She looks a lot younger than her biological age and still has more energy than most people of her age. These are some of the subjective benefits that people probably find it hard to quantify, but are definitely there with persistence and patience.
If you want to learn how to “do gym” then call us on 4927 8190. We have professional, qualified people to help you. We have our own exclusive and private fully equipped gymnasium. We do not care about how strong or not strong you are when you start, only in 8 weeks, 8 months and 8 years! You can email your details to reception@vectorhealth.stagingarea.net if you like and we can call you.
Yours in Health
Glenn Hansen
Director Coaching