Dr. Mike on male/female training differences

[adelgal]

@jessephilz I went to my doc kind of desperate with a long list of symptoms that would’ve taken a handful of pills a day to treat. I thought it was just part of getting older and life was just going to be shittier from now on. The biggest issues were that I couldn’t sleep, had terrible brain fog, and no energy, but there were a bunch of other symptoms as well. It happened so gradually that I didn’t notice it was happening. Bloodwork came back and everything looked great except I had almost no testosterone. Doc was like, “of course you feel terrible all the time” presented me with options and I went with pellets and started to feel better within a few weeks.

The only downside for me is that you can’t workout for 3 days afterwards so it can be kind of a pain to schedule within my training program.

 

[nathan2018]

@ikonixx I think both you and @787 are kinda illustrating the point I made in my comment, which is that you can have different averages for a population while most of the distribution is still overlapping.

 

[787]

@ikonixx Opposite experience to you. I can do muscles to failure and then go again the next day, and possibly increase load too. I have tried doing more sets, because it felt weird that I didn't need a rest day for anything other than triceps on a couple of occasions, but it doesn't really ache past the evening. It was only when I was trying to find out if I was doing something wrong that I came across this video about women needing 4 hours vs men's 48 hours rest and a lot of things made sense then.

Before you say I'm not lifting heavy enough to begin with, I am, because if I go any further before ready it hurts my wrists a ton.

Been lifting almost daily for 4 months now, so I guess still a newbie, but I've not found my fatigue has got any worse as I've gone along in terms of this.

 

[patsy_cline_fan]

@787 Obviously there are a lot of factors going into recovery (age, other activity, number of hard sets, how well trained you are, etc.). Another thought is that there is a genetic component to fast and slow twitch muscle fibers. I know from genetic testing that I have one copy of a marker on the ACTN3 gene that produces more fast twitch muscle fibers, and when I lift, I lift heavy and hard and am gassed afterward. It's possible that people who don't have this marker recover faster, even if their RPE is the same.

 

[ikonixx]

@787 Fair enough, your recovery capacity may truly be in a different league than me, but I will say that I used to recover much quicker than I do now. As I got stronger, not only were movements more taxing on me, from both a muscular and a nervous system perspective but, likely my fiber types changed over time. I really started to notice it when my working weight on the Life Fitness leg extension machine hit 200lbs on the stack, it had likely been creeping up for some time but, I hadn't really noticed it before that milestone.

On the next leg day I wasn't sore anymore, but when I contracted my muscle I couldn't command it contract as tight as I normally could which tells me my central nervous system just wasn't recovered. Which is part of why I went from 2 sets to absolute failure on legs, to just one set too failure with some post failure myo-reps then some partials, still brutal, but I always recover on time now.

I suspect by default my legs had a much higher proportion of slow twitch fibers, but the nature of HIT training (sets to failure in the 6-12 rep range with some post failure training) is all about producing huge amounts of force for short periods of time, so almost certainly I converted a bunch of those muscle fibers to fast twitch fibers.

I also suspect if I were to do a bunch of longer runs rather than HIIT for cardio, and some 30 rep to failure training I could train my work capacity up and also my recovery speed, which is why Crossfit people can do so much stuff that I can't, because the way they train isn't really discarding all of their work capacity.

 

[787]

@dannleavitt Oh and I use these Bear Grip open glove type of things. I tried multiple kinds and these were the best for me. Instantly took the wrist issues down several notches. Couldn't get on with traditional grips, but I found something that definitely made it easier.

 

[dannleavitt]

@787 Glad that helped. Some of the gloves come with wrist wraps which give extra support. Which is really nice for lifting heavy. I'd still practice without them on the warmup sets so that I don't become reliant on it.

The wrist warmups for calisthenics are quite good if you'd like to try them out. They're all about gently rolling your bodyweight over them in a controlled way. It's not specific to lifting but it's a good way to strengthen them.

 

[787]

@dannleavitt Thanks for the concern but the ache I mention isn't an ache so much but as in, I'll pick up a case of soda tins and feel in my biceps I've lifted that day. That's what I mean, like I can feel they've not recovered, but the next day it hardly ever feels like I've had a work out the day before. If anything I'm more energised providing I got OK sleep. Possibly due to the weight loss too, but still. It's not knackering me like I thought it would.

The wrist pain is something that is in every woman on my maternal side of the family. It has got progressively better as I know my tendons are behind the rest of my muscles in terms of the progress, and I've always been cautious with practicing good form and careful but still progressive overload to account for this. I am very sure this is working as before I started, simply lifting that case of soda would give me a sharp pain in my wrist. Now it doesn't, it takes a lot more to trigger it.

 

[jaz2001]

@787 Same with me and I’ve been lifting off/on for over 20yrs. I never get totally gassed and I don’t use caffeine or preworkout. I was an athlete from childhood to college and I’m sure my stamina helped that career. I lift basically as heavy as I can but never get sore unless I’m hitting a muscle that I’ve neglected for months, like when I took a break from squats for years and started doing them again.

 

[ilovegodsword]

@patsy_cline_fan Following. Dr Mike usually knows what's what.

 

[patsy_cline_fan]

@ilovegodsword I've heard the guys at Starting Strength say some of this, too: e.g. women can handle higher intensities with less recovery.