Strength.. different for men and women?

Here I add an article I was pretendig to add some time ago jeje I'll post it both in English and in Spanish


During all the time I’ve been training I’ve had the opportunity to train along with men, and after some time more women arrived to the team. These girls such as other that have started to train in other teams and in other states start with a constant: at the beginning, they tend to mark the anatomic differences and the one regarding the strength between genders. In multiple occasions they come to me or I read in the forums that they are asking things such as: “What can I do to increase my strength? Are thing easier for men because they have more strength? Can I reach the same strength level than men?” so the main purpose of this article is to give a general perspective of this topic, in men and women.
During pre-puberty and childhood the differences between strength and potency are very closed in genders, but during puberty, which is the better phase to develop strength, is when men tend to focus and women don’t because of the accelerated physical and hormonal changes.
The hormones play a very important role in strength development, that’s why the menstrual period has comsequences in the physical development, when a woman includes strength disciplines she present less problems of irregular cycles than those women that practise long lasting disciplines and the maximum values of strength are not affected or altered during the cycle in sedentary women, but they tend to in women that develop a physic activity.
As long as the training is similar in relative intensity, volume and frequency, women present similar adaptation to strength training to men’s adaptation, including a similar earning in hypertrophy, but in shorter periods and based on exercises which purpose is earning strength not volume they can lower the hypertrophy symptoms, this is important because most of the women want to be strong but without acquiring much muscle volume and/or a “man” body. However, as men present higher initial levels of maximum strength and muscle size, the earning with the different factors of strength development is bigger, in absolute values, in men than in women. A reason for this is that men have a very high percentage of testosterone in their blood. In general terms women require more sessions and approximately twice more time to earn the same relative value of strength than a man.
In terms of strength compared to body weight the difference between men and women becomes lower or is even nullified regarding lower muscles, but in the upper muscles the difference is still considerable. Regarding potency in anatomic and morphologic terms women have a lower range than men. The differences in strength are as we’ve seen to hormonal matters, the bigger size and bigger body weight as well as a bigger size of muscle fiber in men, even though the muscle fibers distribution are very similar in men and women.
Something very useful for Parkour is that women can use more elastic energy that is kept in the muscles in activities in which the muscle has to be stretched before (such as the contracting movement before jumping).

Advantages of strength training
Some of the advantages that strength training can provide us are:
 Better bones constitution: women need to obtain minimal essential tensions in order to develop an appropriate bone modeling and reduce osteoporosis risk. The total bone mass is gotten around the age of 30 and if the physical work is done before that age the prevention will be more efficient. On the other hand if physical work is done after this age or even immediately after menopause the speed with which bone is lost as a consequence of lack of estrogens can be reduced considerably. However if we excessively increase the intensity of the exercise some menstrual irregularities may appear that will lead to the opposite effect, this means osteoporosis.
 Stronger connective issues: cartilage, tendons and ligaments also need effort. Strength development requires intensities and repetitions that increase the tension step by step. Having strong tendons and ligaments is necessary for stability and prevention of joint injuries.
 Better capacity and functional strength: develop functional strength and improving physical performance. As years pass by, it is seen as a less diminishing of strength and muscles at bigger ages.
 Better lean body mass and metabolic rate: it is a consequence of increasing the muscular mass and diminishing in body fat.
 Better mental health and self-esteem: some researches indicate that women that follow strength training are benefited with a better self-esteem. The strength training seems to provide women with a feeling of personal potency. A research based on ansiolisis produced by exercise indicates that there is a decrease in anxiety after exercise because it offers some time off from daily worries.
Apart from practicing Parkour and just add a strength training in order to obtain better results and improve with safer steps, strength training provides both, men and women, with big benefits at a short, medium and long term.
I personally recommend a wide knowledge of your body, especially of somato types and having this as a base, we will be able to know and accept our body just as it is and even adapting exercises, intensity and even the way of training in order to obtain better results.
Finally I want to say that the training for men and women in Parkour is the same talking about technique. Even though in terms of strength some exercises can be adapted as I mentioned before and include some that could be, in a certain way, more useful regarding the anatomy and imply less attrition. Training must not only be functional but well composed, well designed and it must add exercises that strengthen every part of our body, and that in terms of gender (anatomically only) help and impulse each person, as there are some exercises that can work really well for men but for some women and some body types they produce a bigger attrition apart from strength improvement.

Trainings

Summer has arrived and I finally have much more time to train!!! by muself, with my family and with the girls that have become part of my family too!!


here I'll be publishing the info related to the girls trainings and things like that...

hehe I have loooots of things to write down but have to go training in a couple of minutes... anyway I add the flyer for the next girls meeting here =)


The info:

Date: July 18-19
Place: Metro universidad
Time: 10 o´clock
Cost: none =) it's free
People in charge: Daer, Frodo, Ixek
More info: ixek@urbanrunners.net

Time

"Time heals everything" ... or at least that's what many people might say, for me time is much more complicated than that you all know what I do for a living and you all know which my other passion is so time is so variable and so strange for me.

At parkour lots of people talk about time a lot.. they ask me how much time I've been training for, how much time do I train per week, how much time did it take me to do muscle ups or how much time I plan to keep on training, for most of this questions I have no answers... or at least I have no clear idea of time... I try to train as much as possible, yes as long as my knees cooperate and college allows me enough free time!

Time is not a thing that you can keep in your purse, wallet or backpack, sometimes time can be as good and short as a smile or it can be so heavily set on your arms like a 1000Kg rock I'm not sure if I am "prepared" to have a serious chat about time or even understant it completely.

My best "time measure" is feedback, the change of things and my own development, those are the only ways to measure time for me (eventhoug I have watches and some schedules) but I mean those are the true ones! Everything changes! That's what time does and every time we are feeling reluctant to accept it we suffer; we are not able to stop time, we are not able to live without it so what are we able for?

At this moment I only know we are able to use our "given" time, I can still remember I realised it takes you the same time to see the bad side of things than it takes to see the good side of them. So I've decided to stop wasting time and just focus on the positive side of them.

This is a complicated part of my life and I now think I need extra time for everything last week I hit my knee and considering they are not good (you know my permanent problem with them) it was soooo bad! It still hurts so I have to take some rest time and work on low impact techniques.

On the other hand we all need some time to change some aspects of our lives and mine has given a 180° turn in just a couple of weeks and I definitely need time to absorb all the changes I need time to adjust my person to them..

So parkour is taking a change too maybe it's just a time in which I have to focus on myself and see deep inside me.

I'll keep on writing and tell how it goes... everything shall be better soon...

home is...

As you all know I have few time to write down everything and sometimes I have lack of inspiration but these last days have had such a great impact in my person...

I always thought I was going to be happy whenever I had some free days at school and I've been but I always feel this strange thing of me wanting to be outside and not here at home.... It's so complicated (eventhough I have not been at home all time long) I've started to develop a better indoor training, I had never given me the chance to really train at home, well I mean seriously and hard, I had always thought about conditioning and strenght at home... but Parkour??? well that was a big deal when I started discovering new things at home...and I am happy to discover improvements in techniques and strenght increase (in general) you all know how hard it's been for me getting stronger this is something I have to really focus on.

I hope to finish translating a new article I wrote this week and post it here as soon as possible... it is about strenght and some anatomy stuff (which made me investigate a lot!!)

Home is...home has been a new world to explore and now I feel somehow motivated it is really nice to know that home is where the people you love are but it is better knowing that home is where you can build a new world whenever you need to... so this is something I am not forgetting anymore... and now all my horizons have broadened (both physical and mentaly) at this moment I can only take what I can carry but I can carry all that can make me happy.. certainly the most important things I am carrying are not heavy but worthy otherwise I wouldn't be here... I wouldn't be the person I am now

News

Just some update for now... the girls training was sooo nice there were less girls than expected but it was absolutely great!

We visited two nice spots unfortunately the first one was kind of wet but we had a very nice time doing some wallruns and vaults, then we moved to the second spot and we were training on our own... it was nice when Frodo made us jump on a metal area and we had to make the less noise as possible...

Well I have not much inspiration to write more about it for now...

Regarding my training, things are going quite well my climb ups have improved a lot, training at home, well working on strenght at home (big back remember???) and practising my muscle ups more frequently definitely are making the difference...

As I am working I just want to add a photo and say good bye... well see you all next time..

Plans

here I add some plans:

1: The next traceuses gathering... on April 9 at 10 o'clock.... Metro Universidad
2: more dymanic movements
3: big back... well you know what I mean... don't you?? lol in general improve strenght
4: improve handstands
5: earn money... hope to travel to different places this year so this implies that I need money (unfortunately)
6: get a good semester at school.... this is extremely hard as I have tons of work at school (parkour related??? jaja for sure)

that's all for today

Back here

I've had lots of funny things during the last weeks.
Let me explain some things. Last week I travelled to Acapulco, I went to an "event" there, at the beginning I was feeling quite anxious and excited, I only knew Silex (from Canada) and didn't know how things were going to happen as the rest of the people were from different countries and I didn't know who they were.

There was so much fun during the next days.. I don't think I might be able to write down everything, but now I feel much more confident with lots of things and I met some great people (I was even Canadian for a week lol) all the guys over there are really nice and I found great friends (I was extremely happy to meet Silex) the only "bad" thing was that I hurt my ankle but it healed soon...

I was there... and I was so fortunate! Now everyhitng looks different here. I found motivation and learned lots from me and the people over there. I have even started training more and better, this was the best part. I learned and I'm quite motivated so I think things will go on much better and smoothly...

I want to say thank you to all of these guys who were so nice and trusted me... it was nice to know that they took me into account for this awesome event.

All of them (Silex, Dimmonk, Danno, Brayden, Lonnie, Ace, Cliff, Rene & Boris) are so cool... and I definitely want to see them again.. so Canada will be my next destination for a long trip.

now, I have to study (as always jaja) and train even more :)