The Benefits of Female Strength Training

Training For Performance

When it comes to women training for sport, it’s a common trait that strength training tends to get minimal attention, executed with sub-optimal loading or left out completely. Although this is not always the case, many female athletes are massively limiting their potential performance capabilities along with missing out on multiple health benefits. Strength training is often considered necessary only for strength and power sports, most of which are male dominate, with a sigma and misconceptions towards implementation within a female’s training programme. Here we explain some of the many benefits strength training can bring and how it can improve your sporting performance.

Sports Performance

With the rapid expansion of female sport among an array of disciplines and with more women partaking in regular exercise, the importance of strength training for female athletes has never been more important. When we talk about strength training, we are focusing on the neuromuscular system; your nerves and your muscles, and how to enhance this system in order to perform movement better. If your neuromuscular capabilities are improved then so will your ability to move under load, your speed of movement, your endurance towards a particular movement(s) and your ability to produce more force. These neuromuscular capabilities can be improved from training the following characteristics:

· Maximal Strength Development

· Maximal Power Development

· Local Muscular Endurance

· Lean Tissue Mass Development

Many female athletes are starting to implement strength training into their training programmes even if their sport traditionally hasn’t been considered a strength or power sport. With the growth of women in sport, competition has grown to a much higher level where development of the neuromuscular system is now vital in order to keep up with the current level of sport and the demands it places on the body.

Maximal Strength Development

Greater physical demands placed upon the body increase the risk of injury, especially for those who to do not have the capacity to withstand the force, speed, frequency and/or duration of strenuous exertion. The best way to counter this weakness is to increase your tolerance to external load via strength training. From taxing your neuromuscular system with near maximal loading on a regular basis, your maximal strength will improve, enhancing your level of athletic preparation.

For females it is particularly important to improve upper body strength. With the meaning of strength relating to the amount of force that can be produced, we can use Newton’s Second Law to explain the effects of strength training. The equation of Newton’s Second Law is F=ma; where F stands for Force, m is mass (kg) and a is acceleration (m/s2). Increasing strength and thus the force you can produce (F) and if the mass (kg) of the object or yourself is constant, we will see an increase in acceleration. This will not only increase your velocity and rate of force production for the trained movement pattern but also improve your ability to deaccelerate useful for rapid changes in movement or even sustaining good posture whilst the body moves. An increase in strength with acceleration remaining constant means a greater mass can be moved, an example of this is being able to lift more above your head.

Compared to male athletes, females don’t have the size nor the same level of effectiveness of adaptation of muscle growth in the upper body. With the upper body strength being a key component for many sport performance outcomes women are at a predetermined disadvantage when it comes to physical abilities. Upper body strength of a female athlete is a key element in both upper body dominant tasks, such as force production in sports like volleyball and tennis, as well as contributing towards total body power output in tasks such as sprinting and jumping. As upper body strength is the limiting factor in a female’s athletic development is vital this is the focus in their strength training.

Female athletes also have smaller and fewer muscle fibers, making it necessary to train at high intensities; closer to their 1 rep max (1RM), in order to stimulate a greater amount of motor units (where the nerve meets the muscle fibers and makes them contract). Moreover, to further enhance motor unit recruitment, muscle groups will need to be trained at various different angles to better stimulate development of all available muscle fibers.

Maximal Power Development

For all athletes power development is important but especially for females. It’s not enough just to be strong, women need to have the capacity to produce high amounts of force at rapid speeds for various sports and sport performance outcomes. The base equation for power is P=Fd/t. P is power, F is force, d is distance and t is time.

It’s vital female athletes perform a well-structured strength programme; where heavy resistance training improves force production and high speed, light weight exercises improves the rate of velocity. It’s important females use high percentages (>85% 1RM) for maximal strength as well as low percentages for power (30-45% 1RM). When training for power, the percentage of 1RM needs to be reduced as your abilities to produce maximal levels of power increases as load decreases.

Power is becoming more and more vital in women’s sport with examples of big power serves in tennis and volleyball and more rapid direction changes in football and netball. When it comes to power female athletes actually have greater potential then male athletes. The use of closed kinetic chain exercises or CKC (where the hand or foot is contently in contact with the object the force is placed upon) has been shown to be more efficient in power development for the female athlete. Examples of such exercises include, Olympic weightlifting, kettlebell swings and overhead push press.

Local Muscular Endurance

Development of local muscular endurance is needed to prolong fatigue and increase your tolerance to continuous or high volume bouts of strenuous exercise. Local muscular endurance is the ability to produce numerous muscular contractions without fatigue at various percentages of maximal contraction. Compared to maximal strength and power development which will improve performance outcomes in the vast majority of sports, when it comes to local muscular endurance, training will need to be more specific as there are two different forms:

· High Intensity Muscular Endurance

· Low Intensity Muscular Endurance

Depending on the sport you will focus on a particular form of muscular endurance. To train high intensity muscular endurance, also known as strength endurance, loads of 60-80% of 1RM will be used along with short rest periods and multiple sets. This form of muscular endurance training has great crossover to your maximal strength and power capabilities and is very relatable to many sports with its high intensity bouts of exercise, making it vastly suitable and beneficial to many female athletes.

Where light intensity muscular endurance is trained using 40-60% of 1RM or 20RM (a load you can lift 20 times). This form of muscular endurance training has less crossover to your maximal strength and power training but it useful for long duration sports such as long distance running, triathlons, etc. This light intensity muscular endurance tends to be cycled within a periodised (athletic structured) training programme, as other forms of loading are seen to be more optimal. However, this very high rep low loading is great for deload phases in your training; a small period of slightly less strenuous training is performed to allow for physiological adaption.

Lean Tissue Mass Development

One reason for many females staying away from weight or strength training is the fear of “getting too big”, in reality women don’t have the optimal hormone levels required to grow large muscle mass. As mentioned previously women are already at a predisposing disadvantage when it comes to increasing cross sectional area of a muscle compared to men but lean mass development it a vital element to being able to perform optimally.

A common misconception is lifting of heavy weights makes you big and therefore many women “strength train” with low intensity, isolated exercises. Unfortunately, this is a very productive way of training with minimal benefits to the body. The low intensity loads used over single joint movements is very time consuming and doesn’t stimulate the muscles enough to cause a positive adaption. Through the use of high loading, a greater amount of motor units are stimulated which in turn recruit more muscle fibers, leading to a greater potential in development. Along with better motor unit and muscle fiber stimulation the heavier loads will help develop tendon, ligament and bone density reducing chances of injury during life, training or during sport.

With females there are sometimes concerns about how much they weigh, causing them to avoid larger weights to prevent additional weight gain . Once again this is false, strength training will add some muscle size but due to the high intensity and effort needed to perform just training is a great way to burn calories and increase the metabolic rate. Those who partake in regular strength training burn more calories all throughout the day compared to those just partaking in cardiovascular exercise due to the muscles that have been developed require more energy even at rest. It also has been shown that strength training alone only slightly increases upper body girth and mostly leads to no increase and sometimes even decrease of girth of the lower body in female athletes.

To Sum Up

Maximal is key for optimal performance.
Heavy loading (>85% 1RM) is the most optimal way to develop maximal strength.
Exercises should be performed at many different angles to stimulate many motor unit.
For women more attention should be spent on the upper body.
Women need to train power to further enhance their strength training benefits.
Power training should use loads of 30-45% 1RM,
Women have a greater potential at developing power compared to men.
There are two forms of muscular endurance; high and low intensity.
High intensity muscular endurance is more beneficial in improving maximal strength.
High intensity muscular endurance should use loads of 60-80% of 1RM.
High intensity loading for multiple sets is most optimal.
Low intensity muscular endurance should use loads of 40-60% of 1RM.
If low intensity muscular endurance is required for your sport be sure to cycle it within your strength training,
You won’t get big from strength training.
Muscle development is important for upper body strength.
Tendons, ligaments and bones will be a reduced chance of injury.
Muscle mass will increase slightly but girth will not due to fat loss.
Those with more developed musculature burn more calories a day even at rest.