Fat loss training differences between men and women
Generally fat loss training for both sexes is going to be a combination of a solid, consistent diet, paired with smart and regular training sessions.
There should be however slight changes in strategies whether you’re male or female.
Considerations for men for fat loss training
-Avoid too much energy system work (especially longer intervals) in your strength sessions. Separate your conditioning and strength training days, being mindful not to try and take on too much volume during either. Diet should make up the difference when it comes to managing your calories, not excessive training.
- Men tend to store more fat around their stomachs, however trying to counter this with solely ab training will add very little, to no benefit. Your aim should be to still be to focus on big compound movements that heighten the metabolic ‘cost’ of exercise.
- When on a calorie restricted diet glycogen supply is going to be often limited. Prioritising too many single joint movements (bicep and tricep isolation exercise) isn’t going to be productive use of your time. Stick to the big movements, but vary the sets and reps in each sessions (undulating periodisation)
Considerations for training women
- Women generally have less vascularisation in their lower bodies than men. This means they’ll tend to store more fat around the glutes and upper thighs (estrogen also plays a part in this). To counter this the volume of lower body training they should be doing – irrespective if fat loss is their goal – should be greater than men to elicit a similar effect.
- Exercises that produce a lactic acid (yes, a misused term, but needed to best explain) effect like sled pushing, or high resistance intervals on a bike, are highly effective as a fat loss tool as the body draws blood towards the lower body to clear the by-products (the heightened release of hydrogens ions that lower your blood Ph)More blood to an area is going to mean more chance of fat oxidisation (fat loss).
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- Recovery is typically faster for women as they tend to be smaller. This means that rest periods need to be carefully managed, but will tend to be less than the same type of workout session undertaken by a man.
Considerations for both men and women
- Walking is still important. Low impact, low intensity exercise is still beneficial for a few different reasons. 1) Calories burned during this type of training create far less nervous system stress than hard training. This means you can save yourself to train hard when you really need it. 2) Low intensity exercises like walking strengthen your heart in a different way to all out high intensity intervals. Keeping your heart rate at steady (around 120-145 BPM pace) is going to improve eccentric cardiac hypertrophy. This is going to improve your resting heart and working heart rate if done correctly.
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