Do You Train Like A Woman?

I may be treading on dangerous ground here with some of my tough guy friends.  This post might also mean I’ll get my AARP card before my “Man Card” gets renewed but…

I’ve spent a lot of years training – including the glory days of bodybuilding in the 70′s and 80′s.  I know my way around sweat, grunts, screams and “arm day.”  The squat, deadlift, and bench press are the staples of any man’s program who is trying to increase his strength – and they have been key components during many of my training years.  They are also lifts that most women are discouraged from attempting.

So if I want to train like a woman, does this mean I have to give up the big lifts and the sweat dripping onto my face from my training partner’s gym shorts as he screams “One more rep!  It’s all you!!!” Not exactly…

At Brownstone Fitness, 95% of our clients are women.Several of them are working with the deadlift, pullups, kettlebell cleans, and other challenging exercises.  Many of these women bring as much intensity and purpose to their workouts as any guy I have trained with.  Many of the methods are the same – it’s the mind that’s different.  This doesn’t happen all at once.  Some clients come in with the same hedonistic and vain intentions of any guy who wants to only work the “show” muscles. For those women, that means an obsessive focus on THE CORE! While almost all of us who train want to look good, those who evolve in their training, begin to appreciate other qualities.  This growth, in my experience, is more common in women than in men.  What are these other qualities and how have I applied them to train more like a woman?

• I pay more attention to the process than I do to the outcome.  I now compete to be the best me and not an idealized action figure.  I rely on my intuition more than the latest muscle magazine to guide my training week to week and month to month.  Too many guys don’t know how to even spell “intuition.” They get it confused with “domination.”
• I now look at my training with “beginner’s mind.”  This allows me to ask questions that go deeper than “how can I get my arms bigger?”  I have developed not only more clarity around my goals but more honesty as well.  I can’t do all the things that I used to do but the good news is that I don’t have to or want to.
• I pay more attention to how my physical body impacts my emotional landscape - sentio ergo cogito. 

Men who workout for a significant period of time often undergo the process of hedonic adaptation where even bigger is no longer better.  Women who put in the time training, look at how the work they do at the gym impacts their roles as mothers, daughters, lovers, workers.

I get that I am only working with a limited sample size but these are my observations.  Let me know if you think this is only my hallucination and if there are any other guys man enough to work this way.

P.S. – Speaking of women, check out our new bodyweight exercise video, The Sulaxmi Method. A portion of the proceeds will go to support the girls school we co-founded in Lucknow, India.  Under the leadership of Shashi Mehta, the school will be celebrating 10 years of providing education to underserved girls in Lucknow.

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