Workouts “For Women”
The fitness industry has a lot to answer for. There’s a lot of rubbish touted as fact, and one of the biggest red flags when you’re buying a workout program is if it has been designed for women!
These programs involve lighter weights and higher reps.
Apparently they make your body sculpt without ‘getting big’.
The first thing to know is that it really is HARD to gain enough muscle to make you look bulky, especially as a woman.
The next thing is the exercises generally contained in these workouts. They’re not usually the great exercises which work your body as a whole, they’re exercises focussing on just one muscle.
If they do include something great like a squat, they’re rarely weighted or programmed in sets of fewer than 10 reps!
It’s generally true that women are less strong than men. It’s also generally true that there are exercises that men and women each prefer, but this is because of the goals each often has.
There is NO SUCH THING as exercises for women or men!
Choose exercises based on your goals and your own body, not your gender.
The same goes for the reps you do and the weights you choose as well.
Take a look at any strength type sport. Programming is not different for men and women – it varies on an individual basis and not a gender one.
Men and women ARE, of course, different in more ways than I could list – but please don’t let this confuse you into thinking you should train differently based only on your gender.