Female Anatomy and Fitness Training 7 May 2006

By Fitness Expert Nash Jocic

Let’s for a minute remind ourselves about the differences between men’s and women’s anatomy. We all know that men’s physiques are bigger, taller, hips are narrower and the collarbone is wider. Muscle mass in men is more developed due to the higher production of the hormone testosterone and men are generally stronger than women. Due to the higher muscle mass men can store more glycogen than women, therefore men can afford to eat more carbohydrates and calories in total than women with a lower risk of storing them as body fat.

These basics in our anatomy have led many fitness “experts” to come to the conclusion that women need to exercise differently than men in order to achieve good results in fat loss, muscle tone and overall body shaping. The same logic led to so called “aerobic” exercise becoming the preferable choice in female fitness training, rather than higher intensity types of training such as resistance training. Somehow, lower muscle mass in women dictated the type of training that’s apparently more compatible and automatically more productive for women. For years women have been the predominant participants in many different types of aerobic training - jogging, step aerobics, body pump, body combat, etc. So, as long as exercise was low in intensity and promised some amount of fun, it could be regarded as adequate and appreciated by large numbers of women aiming to lose fat and tighten up. Sounds good at first, but let’s look at the results.

After years and years of hype, aerobic types of training have never delivered what was expected.  Fun maybe, but body fat loss and tighter bodies never came out as a result of so-called “aerobic” training. In my 25 years experience of personal training, I have had to deal with case after case of women complaining about the lack of results even after many years of aerobic training. It is always the same frustrations: “I’ve done everything that I’m supposed to with aerobic training 3-4 times per week and after all these months I’ve never lost any weight and I’ve not tightened up!” For me this wasn’t anything new, knowing the laws of human physiology and biochemistry. I would never expect anything more from that type of training.

Let’s go back to the basics of female anatomy and try to understand what type of fitness training would be the most efficient in burning fat and tightening up women’s bodies. Having less muscle mass than men due to the much lower production of testosterone and higher production of oestrogen, women have slower metabolisms and are more inclined to store body fat from macronutrients, especially carbohydrates.

In order to force the body to burn body fat more effectively, the necessary metabolic changes are needed. The metabolism has to be sped up in order to process energy more efficiently, to stop storing it as body fat and to start using its own body fat as energy to sustain vital physiological functions. So, how do we do that?

What we know with certainty is that aerobic, or as I prefer to call it low-intensity, high-duration exercise (LIHD), is not effective enough for long-term fat reduction. LIHD does burn some amount of body fat but it is insignificant regarding visible fat loss. For the average female body weight, 1 hour of LIHD burns around 250-300 calories. Take into consideration that for a single pound of fat to be burned, a deficiency of 3500 calories are needed. So, if a female body burns up to 100 calories per hour anyway in order to maintain metabolic demand, we are left with 150-200 burned calories effectively from 1 hour of aerobic training. That will take us up to 20 hours of continuous aerobic activity in order to lose only 1 pound of body fat! To me this is extremely ineffective and the major cause of the frustration of my new clients that I deal with regularly.

The human body is extremely efficient in preserving energy and thanks to that ability we have managed to survive as a species. “Aerobic” and resistance training are not very efficient in burning calories, but intensity from resistance training causes long term metabolic changes that together with a proper diet, force the body to stop accumulating fat and start burning its own fat reserves.  This is the crucial factor in permanent fat loss and shaping up.

The term aerobic is fairly misunderstood. Just to remind you, the respiratory system is active at all times, even when we sleep. We need oxygen constantly and the aerobic process is something that is happening constantly. Every day-to-day physical activity has to be aerobic, regardless of the intensity level. We can run, swim, lift weights or clean the house; everything we do is aerobic exercise! So, isolating one activity and calling it exclusively aerobic is definitely wrong.   If we now take that aerobic exclusivity from LIHD exercises, what are we left with? We are left with a physiological reality that in one form or another of physical engagement we use different sources of energy: fat, carbohydrates and protein. How much of which source we will use depends ultimately on two factors: intensity of exercise and the type of food that we eat. Funnily enough, high-intensity exercises such are squats, bench press, sprinting, etc., cause higher heart rates than any known “aerobic” exercise and therefore a higher demand for oxygen, being ultimately more aerobic than “aerobic” exercises!   

So, let’s summarise the biggest secret of fat loss.  Permanent fat loss doesn’t depend on temporary calorific expenditure during the training session (low or high-intensity) because it is not significant enough. Instead it depends on the metabolic changes that are only caused by high-intensity types of trainings (sprinting, resistance training…).  Once the basic metabolic rate is increased (metabolism in resting time), the fat loss occurs constantly throughout a 24 day through the increased calorie consumption needed purely for the new metabolic demands. In order to keep the metabolism highly efficient and faster, at least 4 high-intensity resistance-training sessions are needed per week.

Resistance training is far superior to any type of so-called “aerobic” exercises for the purpose of fat loss and overall body tightening for women. This is the only type of training that preserves and develops the metabolically most expensive tissue - muscle tissue. By doing so, resistance training keeps the metabolism fast and allows the body to burn body fat. “Aerobic” training has the tendency to burn and decrease muscle tissue (marathon running) therefore slowing the basic metabolism down. Properly structured resistance training can also add extra lean muscle in women, though not as much as in men due to the much lower natural testosterone production. However, even the small increase in muscle tissue will dramatically increase the basic metabolic rate causing existing body fat to melt. In order to maintain and keep alive a single pound of new muscle tissue the body has to spend an extra 75-100 calories per day! Now add a few new pounds of lean muscle, which will be, by the way, hardly visible on a woman’s body and you have turned your body into a constant fat burning machine.     

So, if you are really serious about fat loss and getting into great shape, change your approach and start resistance training 4 times a week. Choose a well equipped gym with a good free weight section and good gym equipment and spend no more than 45 minutes per session, targeting major muscle groups and exercising correctly.

If you still want to walk and cross train, do it on the days when you don’t exercise with resistance. Keep your “aerobic” training as intense as possible (higher speed, inclination or resistance) and do no more that 30 minutes of it, 2-3 times per week.

Interval training (alternate higher and lower levels of intensity in the same session) would be the best choice if you decide to do your LIHD exercise, but make sure that less productive “aerobic” exercise never compromises your resistance training.

Take a day off whenever you feel you need one, but try to keep at least 4 intense training sessions per week. Listen to your body and take care of it, it’s the only place you have to live in!