Training for Women: When to Train to Maximize Your Results?
It's rare to see women engaging in regular strength training, and when we talk about strength training, our first thought often goes to men. Even in scientific research, most participants are men.
Fortunately, with the widespread dissemination of fitness knowledge over the years, more and more women have learned about the benefits of strength training.
Strength training won't make women 'big', it will only make your body look better and stronger. Besides improving physique, strength training can increase bone density in pre-menopausal women and improve quality of life after menopause. Of course, there are many other advantages that we won't go into detail about.
However, women are not 'small men', and they cannot simply follow men's training methods. Most women experience fluctuations in their training status at different stages of their menstrual cycle: sometimes they feel they are in good shape and easily break their squat records; however, at other times, they feel out of shape and have a lower desire for training.
All of this is related to women's special physiological cycles, as hormones fluctuate in different stages of their menstrual cycle. Therefore, by understanding the basic principles of training status fluctuations and referring to some scientific research results, we can solve the problem of training status fluctuations. If used correctly, it can help women enhance strength and muscle faster.
In summary, women have multiple hormone stages, and their hormone environment is constantly changing, which is why some research shows that scheduling women's strength training according to the characteristics of different stages has certain benefits.
However, there is one point to note, this is for women with normal physiological cycles, for women taking certain medications, due to the interference of drugs on hormones, they may have other problems, which is not within the scope of our discussion today.
Next, let's take a look at the different performance in different stages.
What stage has the highest strength level?
If you are a woman with regular strength training experience, you may or may not have experienced this situation: even with many conditions remaining the same, you still feel your strength level fluctuates. However, if you have a training plan and then compare it with the corresponding physiological stages, it will be more obvious.
Many studies have shown that women's strength peaks during ovulation and then gradually decreases, on average, the strength fluctuation per month is about 10%.
Researchers are not sure of the mechanism behind strength level fluctuations, but the peak of estrogen before ovulation may be related to it.
In addition, there is some evidence that testosterone can enhance the contractile function of female muscle, considering that testosterone reaches its peak level before and after ovulation, this may also be a possible reason for the fluctuation of strength.
Therefore, I suggest you record your training content and see if your strength level fluctuates. If it does, you need to arrange your training content according to your physiological cycle.
Seeing here, many people want to ask, when is the best time to train? In general, during the follicular phase can help you increase more muscle and strength, sometimes the training effect is better than a regular monthly training.
So, for most women, putting training in the follicular phase is a good choice, because during this period, estrogen can help you increase the number of myonuclei in muscle, which has a metabolic effect, thereby increasing your ability to gain muscle.
