6 Features of women's training for mass

Author: Timko Ilya - master of the whole project and fitness trainer.
2014-10-18

According to my calculations, about 1/3 of women go to the gym not to lose weight, but to gain muscle mass. And a fairly large portion of trainers trains them using the same routines as men.

In general, this is not a fatal mistake, and women can be trained for mass similarly to men. However, the female body and psyche have their own characteristics. It is advisable to take this into account, as women want not just to gain "muscle," but also to look aesthetic and beautiful while doing so. Below, I will describe what characteristics should be considered when training women for mass.

1. Women’s lower body grows better

In other words, the glutes and thighs respond much better to mass training than the upper body. Additionally, a woman with a more developed lower body than her upper body looks much more aesthetically pleasing than the other way around.

Conclusion: 40% - 50% of exercises should target the legs and glutes. Approximately 20% should focus on the back. And 10% each for the chest, arms, and shoulders. For example, if you train 3 times a week and do 24 exercises over those 3 sessions, that means 10 exercises for the legs and glutes, 5 for the back, and 3 each for the chest, shoulders, and arms.

2. More repetitions

The standard number of reps for muscle growth in men is 6 – 10. However, for women, it is psychologically and physiologically quite challenging to lift weights they can only manage for 6 – 8 reps.

Therefore, I recommend doing between 8 to 15 repetitions for women to promote muscle growth. This number of repetitions also contributes to muscle gain but allows for slightly lighter weights.

3. Easier variations of pull-ups and push-ups

For developing the upper body, it's very important for women to do pull-ups and push-ups. However, the overwhelming majority of women cannot perform full pull-ups, push-ups from the floor, or from parallel bars.

Therefore, they need to do easier variations of these exercises. For example:

4. With muscle growth, more fat is also gained

This is related to hormones. Women have more estrogen and less testosterone. Therefore, they find it easier to gain fat than men. That is, for every 1 kg of muscle gained, there tends to be more fat gained than in men.

Conclusion: you cannot eat everything indiscriminately, even when training for mass. From sports nutrition, it is better to take protein than gainer.

5. More frequent workouts

Women are generally more resilient than men. And they recover faster. Therefore, while the standard number of workouts for men training for mass is 3 per week, an average girl can easily handle 4 workouts per week.

6. More intense workouts

The standard approach for men's muscle mass training is the split training method. Women, on the other hand, prefer the option with supersets. Firstly, they are generally more enduring. Secondly, supersets contribute to less fat gain compared to the split method.

Conclusions

In general, women can train for mass just like men. But in such case, their workouts will be less convenient and will promote greater fat and upper body muscle gain. In other words, while the muscles will develop, the figure will look less aesthetic.

Therefore, it is advisable to take all the nuances described in this article into account so as not to spoil your figure with excess mass. And I want to emphasize that each of these points is not mandatory. They are more like suggestions of the type "it would be nice if...". Good luck!