I also think that a huge factor in the difference between men and women in running (and athletics in general) is due to the fact that men got a headstart on running competitively. It wasn't until about 50 years ago that women finally got to compete and take advantage of serious training. While men could go out and run marathons and the like during the 1940s and 1950s, for example, thanks to gender roles most women were in the kitchen and taking care of the kids.
No, they are physiologically different and should train according to those differences and estrogen does not have the same recovery/muscle properties as testosterone.
For the most part, I train my high school male and female athletes the same from a physiological standpoint. I look at them as one big group and sort them by their performance level. If I divide them up by ability level into four groups, my fastest training group will be mostly male but will likely have my top one or two females included. The next two groups will be very much mixed, and the fourth group will be predominately female with a smattering of males.
In other words, our training is almost exclusively gender blind. This process has produced several league titles and state contenders. Interestingly, we've seen more high level teams from our ladies than our men.
One area (other than psychologically) where the training differs is the length of their lifting season. The females lift deeper into the season to help maintain elevated testosterone levels.
That might work for high school, but not really a good plan past that.
livestrong84 wrote:
I also think that a huge factor in the difference between men and women in running (and athletics in general) is due to the fact that men got a headstart on running competitively. .
Except the problem with that concept is: since the point in time(fairly recently) when women have finally been given equal(or nearly) opportunities in athletics , the relationships between men's and women's WR have stagnated. There were many serious coaches/scientists who actually thought that women would be as fast as men at this point in time, but it is still not close.
So the "headstart" argument, while valid for many decades, is losing its value as an explanation now. Women are NOT getting faster compared to men anymore. If anything, men have bumped down WR's by bigger %'s than women have bumped down their WR's recently (see the AFrican men in the 3k/5k/10k).
Women will never be able to beat or come close to men in any event from 800-5k. The percentage difference in WR's between the genders is largest in those events because they are highly VO2 max dependent. As I said before, men have larger hearts and lungs and there is no drug that can help with that, unlike with sprinting and other distances.
I started out running on a guy's high school team and was a midpack JV in a good program. there was no girl's team, I was expected to train just like the guys if I wanted to participate. Only 35 years ago opportunities to compete were minimal at best.
In the very small program I coach now, some girls run with all guy groups, some guys run with some of the girls. I have found it tends to bring up the performance level of my lower - mid ability guys. They are less content to sit back and cruise if there are some girls that are kicking their butts. I am interesttd in the link between women lifting and testosterone. Please expound. is it the increased muscle mass? or is it more in the ratio of muscle to fat, with estrogen production more influenced by a higher body fat percentage? I went sub five for a mile within 18 months of serious training as a teen(after having never participated in sports) yet my body fat percentage always tested fairly high, even though I had all the problems of female athlete triad at the time. us chicks are complicated, I guess.
jaguar1 wrote:
So it boils down to-- should women run equal time or equal mileage as men? What's wrong with women spending more time on their feet?
Well, you could argue physics, where work = force X distance, and thus it should be equal mileage, not equal time. And I do think that nearer to the elite level, mileage is fairly comprable. Off the top of my head I recall Deanna Kastor having run upwards of 120 mpw at times, although I must admit that I am ignorant as to what the training load of an elite male marathoner is.
oldcoach wrote:
I sorta hijacked another thread--Daniels vs. Lydiard--a while back, by observing that if I were female I'd probably prefer to be coached by the former; if male, the latter.
I was honestly surprised by the responses. Some suggested that there's no difference between women runners and men; others averred that there likely *is* a difference, but mainly in psychology. At least one person said there's no "typical" runner, so discussing workouts for the typical female and typical male was pointless. (Of course, if there's no typical runner it's hard to see a need for training books--or "formulas"--at all!)
I agreed that some women seem to respond wonderfully to "manly" training schedules, while some men seem to benefit maximally from the training that brought the Cortland women to national attention--but that, *in general*, there are differences between the sexes and there are/should be differences in how they're trained.
May I suggest a thought experiment? Suppose a girl runs seriously for four years of HS and breaks 5:00 for 1600m as a senior. What happens? She's one of the top middle-distance runners in her region, maybe in the State; she is vigorously recruited by many colleges, including some Div. I's; she's (rightly) considered to be pretty talented.
What about a boy who does precisely the same? He gets to run in the fifth heat at local invitationals--maybe; if he's recruited by colleges for his 1600, it's only if he got that score on his SAT verbal + math; and he's considered a pretty hopeless non-talent.
How could such a contrast occur unless MEN AND WOMEN ARE DIFFERENT? Come on, gang, a little reality here: something about male/female *physiology* results in these different time standards. Why is it unreasonable that the *physiological* emphases/effects of a training schedule for the typical woman could differ from those for the typical man?
Those who suggest that "formulas" for males and females should be identical--because "men and women are equal!"--are ignoring the simple fact that men and women, though equal in *rights*, are not equal in performance. To posit training schedules without considering the differences that exist (on average) between women and men is anti-scientific.
Just my two cents, after 20+ years of coaching men and women at the college level (Div. I and DIII) and founding women's programs in track/x-c at multiple schools. At least this time I'm not taking over someone else's thread...
Yah, I was there too eh, old coach?
The Lydiard Daniels thread. Someone started the debate with a post full of sexist attitudes.
Yep, men have penises, women run slower, etc etc etc...but that debate was different from these obvious differences entirely.
I coach men and women, boys and girls. Have done for decades. And if I was to treat athletes in a
certain way based ONLY on sex, then I would be a bad coach.
You don't go out of your way to praise what a
woman is wearing because "that is what women want". You
don't say that this coach is best for women and
that coach is best for men, just because you
perceive "how the sexes are". Myths, social conditioning,
bad tv - it shouldnt apply in coaching situations. Individualisation yes, sexism no.
legally blond wrote:
That might work for high school, but not really a good plan past that.
Why not? If you are trying to gear your training to the individualized needs of your athletes, you are going to have males and females mixed in some training groups. What difference does it make if they are high school, collegiate, or p-c?
runamook wrote:
I am interesttd in the link between women lifting and testosterone. Please expound. is it the increased muscle mass? or is it more in the ratio of muscle to fat, with estrogen production more influenced by a higher body fat percentage?
It's all about recovery. Lifting stimulates an increase in the body's testosterone levels, thereby improving its ability to repair and improve.
As we approach our peaking phase, I'll back off, and ultimately shut down, the lifting program for my guys because they are awash in testosterone. I'll keep the ladies lifting a little longer before shutting them down, too. That helps keep their testosterone levels a little higher which aids their recovery heading into the big race.
Dr. Bong wrote:
legally blond wrote:That might work for high school, but not really a good plan past that.
Why not? If you are trying to gear your training to the individualized needs of your athletes, you are going to have males and females mixed in some training groups. What difference does it make if they are high school, collegiate, or p-c?
Are you asking me to explain the difference between growth levels of high school males and females and growth levels of males ages 18-23? You couldn't seriously be asking that could you? HUGE DIFFERENCE!
"In other words, our training is almost exclusively gender blind. This process has produced several league titles and state contenders. Interestingly, we've seen more high level teams from our ladies than our men."
Thanks for supporting my thesis--you're saying that you train boys and girls similarly, and the girls do better! I might suggest that the greater success for your women resulted from the training scheme being more nearly optimal for the average female than for the average male. Maybe the boys need something different--not just more/longer/faster/harder, but *different*. If the relative differences in success occur among distance runners, I'd suspect that your distance-training program is closer to Daniels than to Lydiard.
[Yes, I realize that this assessment is confounded by the fact that the average girls' team is probably less-competently coached than the average boys'--just in the reality of HS coaching assignments--so competitive success may be relatively easier to achieve with the girls...]
Look, I'm not suggesting that there are/should be night-and-day differences between the coaching of females and of males. I *am* saying that women and men are different physiologically and optimal training should, on average, be different for the two sexes, probably with different scheduling and with different training emphases at a given point in the season.
Example: The Soviets did a study (early 1970's?) that concluded that the factor most responsible for differing performances between males and females--in all events, including distance--was *strength*. As someone observed above, that could mean an emphasis on strength training for females, at a time in the season when the males no longer emphasized it.
Example: In top-level sprinting the men's and women's times are not as widely separated as they are at some longer distances. Yet the East Germans, whose female sprinters were about as "manly" as any in history, nevertheless gave the women a somewhat different training pattern than their males. (Granted, their men were not as consistently successful at an international level, but I think most of us understand why.)
I know some wiseacre tried to be "funny" by observing that females and males have different genitalia. But you know, those different genitalia--or, more accurately, the muscular/neural/skeletal/endocrine systems *associated* with them--do influence the body's response to exercise and training in different ways. It is simply un-scientific to suggest that those differences can be ignored when trying to design optimal training routines.
And I'm not in a position to prescribe exactly what the optimal kinds of training should be; I only have a master's in coaching, not a doctorate in physiology. All I'm saying is that men and women are (somewhat) different; that we should determine which kind of training seems to work especially well for most women, and which for men; and that a useful starting point to work from could be a Daniels schedule for women, and Lydiard training for men.
This is an enlightening thread.
You could also argue that not only should training be different for each gender, but also different for each individual, irregardless of gender. I don't think we should knock women and say they should run less mileage than men, or do less intervals, etc.. Some women might respond better to 'more' mileage than men! Or more intervals!
Someone brought up women training equally as men. I'd suggest checking out
. You can look at the daily training of the Hanson's, both men and women, as well as other runners. I've been keeping an eye on this for the past 6 weeks, and none of the women are running near as many miles as the men. Granted, most of the Hanson women are behind the training curve of the men (the men have been with the program for longer). Here's a clip at the moment of everyone's mileage (I think this is mileage for this month and then the average since inputting training.... some of the Hanson runners took time off in July, so they're lower than a few weeks ago):
Mileage Board
Men
Anton Krupicka 192 - 224.0
Jacob Frey 123 - 143.5
Bernard Muller 119 - 138.8
alan tobin 116 - 135.3
Jimmy Grabow 105 - 122.5
Brian Smell 100 - 116.7
Mark Banks 98 - 114.3
Chance Kelch 97 - 113.2
Ben Hovis 96 - 111.4
Terrance Shea 95 - 110.8
Women
Jackie Rzepecki 80 - 93.3
Jessica Bliss 80 - 92.8
Yolanda Flamino 74 - 86.0
Dot McMahan 68 - 78.8
Susan Barth 67 - 78.2
Meredith Kramon 62 - 72.2
nicole blalock 59 - 69.0
jennifer derego 59 - 68.8
Teri Wilson 58 - 67.1
Melissa White 58 - 67.1
jaguar1 wrote:
This is an enlightening thread.
Someone brought up women training equally as men. I'd suggest checking out
http://www.athleticore.com. You can look at the daily training of the Hanson's, both men and women, as well as other runners.
???
Can you explain how the website you have listed brings scientific light to the discussion of the physiological differences between men and women. I'm curious as to why anyone would look at the Hanson's schedule of mileage to determine, well, anything.
women have vagina and men have penis.
one would think that women would be more faster since she doesn't have this dangling thing between her legs.
Another poster mentioned that at the elite level mileage is comparable between genders. I was only illustrating how I've noticed on this site that women are consistently running 'less' than the men. But as I pointed out, it may merely be because most of the women from this group are on a different training curve. It's an interesting site as well, just to see what others are doing (whether it's legit or not!).
There are lots of different measures of training load, but the most accurate ones are usually a function of duration of time spent at a certain effort level. Mileage itself isn't a very good indicator of the kind of work you're doing. So a woman spending 90 minutes at 70% MHR gets the same workout as a man spending 90 minutes at 70%MHR even though he went 2 miles farther than she did.
One has a pole and one has hole
3000m douche wrote:
There are lots of different measures of training load, but the most accurate ones are usually a function of duration of time spent at a certain effort level. Mileage itself isn't a very good indicator of the kind of work you're doing. So a woman spending 90 minutes at 70% MHR gets the same workout as a man spending 90 minutes at 70%MHR even though he went 2 miles farther than she did.
YES!