Slowly but surely we’re tearing down many traditional barriers that existed between men and women. However, I’m afraid there are still some areas where differences will always exist and exercise is one of them.
Although some women achieve the upper body strength of fit men, the majority of males still have a natural physical advantage in this area. This advantage is also reinforced by male aesthetic values, with most men favouring their upper body when it comes to performing exercise routines, because it is the most easily revealed for display purposes, such as rolling the sleeves up or opening the shirt!
Women, on the other hand, will focus their attention more on their stomach, legs and buttocks. When it comes to legs, it is women who have the exercise advantage here, because a woman's pelvis is tilted at a slightly different angle from that of a man. In Exercise Biomechanics terms, this equates to the fact that women can gain fitness benefits from exercises such as squats, by tilting their feet more outward with legs further apart, but simply do not need to squat as low as the men to get the very same level of benefit. They are also less prone to knee problems because of this ‘ladies only’ physiological factor.
Although women have extra layers of muscle around their abdominal area, generally, most women have less muscle mass than men and greater percentages of body fat. These higher levels of fat are naturally easier to increase as a woman gets older, because of hormonal changes that take place. So an intelligently designed female exercise routine devotes a small percentage of effort to muscular ‘build up’ and concentrates on tone, flexibility and weight management.
Men are generally less flexible than women because of natural differences in their joint articulations and also because of a difference in their attitude. This unfortunate attitude difference, regularly results in men skipping warm-up routines, and many essential stretching exercises that are significantly effective in helping to prevent injuries in the joints and muscles.
To some extent these ‘differences’ are a matter of degree but some convergence is possible, with both men and women gaining very positive benefits through adopting aspects of the exercise practices of their opposite sex.
Women are more openly receptive to trying out something new or different, such as Pilates or Tai Chi, which focus on promoting physical awareness in different parts of the body, in order to increase flexibility and elevate overall fitness/wellbeing. Such disciplines focus little on pure strength increase, although strength levels can actually be improved to a limited degree, from a good Pilates or Yoga routine, depending on your levels of it at the outset.
For example, some yoga routines focus very much on balance and such balance is at its greatest when all the body's muscles are strongly supporting the joints and skeletal structure, correctly and efficiently. This is both the cause and the consequence of improved strength in the muscles that help to achieve that balance.
Pilates is just one of a number of fitness systems, which seek to improve strength, posture and breathing by using one to assist and develop the others. Again, it concentrates more on controlling muscle groups rather than building them up, but nevertheless a measurable increase in physical strength is often one of the results.
Men will continue to focus their efforts on upper body strength and visible muscularity, whilst women will continue to concentrate on developing flexibility and tone in their, stomach, legs and bottoms, but both genders can undoubtedly benefit from taking a good long look over the fence and seeing how the other half lives.
