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Programming for Women

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MuscleHead
Dec 28, 2011
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After reading @schultz1 thread concerning his teenage daughter and her training, I took some of the gems in there and shared them with my wife, who has been strength training for months now.

Saturday we both experienced something amazing, and extremely confusing, while she benched.

She has a bench max of 135 (June 2015) and last Saturday where she was to hit 15 doubles at 60% (85lbs)... She decided to try for as many sets of 8, at 60%, without hitting failure. I was skeptical and told her to try not to hit an RPE of 10 if possible because it was only Week 2 of her program. She's running the same DUP setup I ended a month ago.

I watched as she did 5 sets of 8, then, with the same weight, 10 sets of five, at around an RPE of 8-9 for the last set. She felt great and went on to do accessory work.

Since reading this thread we had discussed upping her volume, especially warm ups... So I'm wondering if her 1RM day from a few months back was set up completely wrong. I had her do something like the bar for 8 x 2, then next jump for 5, then the next for 3 followed by singles until she gassed out. Obviously taking this progression from what men usually look for as max effort warm up, theoretically saving their strength for the top set...

Her 1RM seems way off now! I'm wondering if it's because, in my infinite wisdom, I had her do a typical max effort progression of a few light warm up sets for 8-12, then make jumps with a 5 rep set, then 3, then singles until she was gassed out.

Is the max effort attempt progression different for women?
How voluminous should their warm ups be on a daily basis?
Would they thrive more on a Sheiko-type training program because it hammers reps and the main lifts with less emphasis on isolation work?

I noticed a focus on hip strengthening and upper body work in Schultzy's thread... Anything else that's important to emphasize?

I'm trying to get her to sign up and start a log... It's a slow boil

It would be nice to let this be a thread where people that have experience training as women, with women, and/or people training women can discuss theory, failures and success.
 
PillarofBalance

PillarofBalance

Strength Pimp
Feb 27, 2011
17,066
4,640
After reading @schultz1 thread concerning his teenage daughter and her training, I took some of the gems in there and shared them with my wife, who has been strength training for months now.

Saturday we both experienced something amazing, and extremely confusing, while she benched.

She has a bench max of 135 (June 2015) and last Saturday where she was to hit 15 doubles at 60% (85lbs)... She decided to try for as many sets of 8, at 60%, without hitting failure. I was skeptical and told her to try not to hit an RPE of 10 if possible because it was only Week 2 of her program. She's running the same DUP setup I ended a month ago.

I watched as she did 5 sets of 8, then, with the same weight, 10 sets of five, at around an RPE of 8-9 for the last set. She felt great and went on to do accessory work.

Since reading this thread we had discussed upping her volume, especially warm ups... So I'm wondering if her 1RM day from a few months back was set up completely wrong. I had her do something like the bar for 8 x 2, then next jump for 5, then the next for 3 followed by singles until she gassed out. Obviously taking this progression from what men usually look for as max effort warm up, theoretically saving their strength for the top set...

Her 1RM seems way off now! I'm wondering if it's because, in my infinite wisdom, I had her do a typical max effort progression of a few light warm up sets for 8-12, then make jumps with a 5 rep set, then 3, then singles until she was gassed out.

Is the max effort attempt progression different for women?
How voluminous should their warm ups be on a daily basis?
Would they thrive more on a Sheiko-type training program because it hammers reps and the main lifts with less emphasis on isolation work?

I noticed a focus on hip strengthening and upper body work in Schultzy's thread... Anything else that's important to emphasize?

I'm trying to get her to sign up and start a log... It's a slow boil

It would be nice to let this be a thread where people that have experience training as women, with women, and/or people training women can discuss theory, failures and success.

Well on top of building volume thru warm ups I can say that 2 women I have worked with confused me in the same way. Until I figured out it is typical that some can hit more reps at sub max weights than you would expect. Like 80% for 10 sometimes.

RPE can be useful in working this way in that they can hit whatever weights they need to in order to reach a higher intensity level.
 
FLEXjs

FLEXjs

MuscleHead
Apr 23, 2012
4,421
1,573
On the big 3 I usually have Mrs Flex pyramid up to a few singles then back the weight off and do 3-5 sets of 6 reps.

Everything else I will let her do her own thing and she will do 8-10 sets of 10 reps. I don't think I could do a 10 x 10 on anything.

She recently started doing OHP and we work up to triples, not singles.

Her current best gym lifts are 240/135/235 and her best comp lifts are 230/130/240 (She did 2 comps this year with me).

She's 50 yrs old and has been training off and on for 6 years, but consistent to some degree for over a year now.
 
ChrisLindsay9

ChrisLindsay9

MuscleHead
Jun 17, 2013
2,773
1,144
Earlier this year, my wife went from lifting 3x and 4x week, to 5x a week and that seemed to jump-start her 1RM progression (especially on squats and bench). If she only lifts 3x week, her heavy lifting seems to regress (the lower weight/high rep stuff still progresses a bit). I got a sense of how she liked to lift and how she was recovering and then sort of structured into a program of sorts: http://postimg.org/image/3sbn5g0lj/.

It was before I knew about RPE, but I always gave her a starting point for her first set (a fixed number of reps at a certain percentage of her 1RM) and then she would either go up, stay the same, or go down based on how she was feeling. And I always told her to leave a couple of reps in the tank on her accessories).
 
BrotherIron

BrotherIron

VIP Member
Mar 6, 2011
10,717
2,808
I will say this.... I'm using RPE on SS and it's working.
 
S

schultz1

Bangs Raiden's mom VIP
Jan 3, 2011
3,701
1,061
I will say, my daughter loves squatting and pulling this she does considerly more volums on these than her bench. As such her bench is lagging. Now true to what has been stated she can hammer sets of 5 the struggle with percentage equivalent sets of 2. She has also embraced the term gym rat.
 
Enasni

Enasni

TID Lady Member
Feb 10, 2014
306
72
I find that after I've exhausted myself I can still do upteen reps of negatives with the same weight. Especially on bench. Like I might bench and get 5 @ 80kg but I can still do 13 more reps of controlled negatives. Weird but has helped grow my bench a ton without seemingly smashing myself.
 
TenaciousA

TenaciousA

TID Lady Member
Mar 31, 2013
1,240
432
Well shit, now I have to break out my inner Percy Johnson+Rheta West.

Keep yinz posted.
 
Rottenrogue

Rottenrogue

Strongwoman
Jan 26, 2011
6,596
1,883
I'm currently on two days a week. Three was working great but when I got injured we went down to two. Two is my magic number for strength gains.
 
porky little keg

porky little keg

MuscleHead
May 21, 2011
1,225
647
Higher volume definitely works well for women.... I've seen it myself, I've seen it in Laura Phelps' programming, and I've seen it in the Lilliebridge programming.

As a side note here, Laura Phelps does a WOD Follow for female powerlifters that will give you exactly the sets and reps that her and her team are using. Whole workouts programmed for you every week for $40 a month.... my wife is doing VERY well on it.

Ernie Lilliebridge Sr gets all the credit for telling me this piece of advice, but it holds true for you here too.... Women's strength is a lot more fragile than men's. What that means is that if a guy is a little off he'll still manhandle pretty high percentages.... hell, I did a good morning with 940 ( for 3 white lights) when I lost my balance on an opening attempt a few years ago. That was about 90% for me at the time...... when a female lifter is a little off it takes a lot more off of her top end. This goes for nutrition, rest, and technique. This is why a guy can open at a heavier percentage than most females can usually. Just something to think about when calculating a 1RM based off of reps ( which is always total bullshittery)... like I've said before. I've seen a teammate pull 725 for 8 reps and then miss 740 in the next meet a few weeks later. This wasn't a new lifter either, he's been a WPC worlds competitor and winner for a decade.
 
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