Personal Training 13d: Female clients

This post is part of an ongoing series about my learning process as I train to become a personal trainer.  In this post, I’m considering what specific issues I might take into account when training female clients.

There isn’t much in my course notes addressing the specific needs of female trainees but I do think there are specific needs to be met.

I cover the specific needs of elderly females in my consideration of elderly clients, particularly the need to fend off osteoporosis, osteopenia and sarcopenia.  However, I do think there are two significant and specific needs that need to be addressed when training females of all ages and those are:

1. The desire to create achieve a particular figure, and;
2. The desire to play sport and stay injury free.

I do not believe that either of these two needs will be met by training females exactly like males, although there will be similarities, no doubt.  Here are the results of my research into this area, focussing on who I see writing authoritatively about training this population.

***

#1: Bret Contreras

Bret has discussed training female clients in a number of places but in this article he spells out what he sees as the key issues, which I have summarised into the following categories:

• Strength levels – women are usually weaker than men and therefore tend to benefit more from total body training and a higher training frequency.
• Psychological issues – while women enjoy training variety and athletic activities, they are often intimidated by weight training and need encouragement.  Similarly, as a trainer, you will need to actively request feedback on how they feel as this may not be volunteered.  However, they are very self-motivated and will often try to beat their own records.
• Anatomical issues – women have different anatomy, including a different q-angle, which is the angle from the vertical midline of the body to the outer edge of the pelvis, and this means that the posterior chain is in even more need of strengthening.  However, women are often more mobile than men and often can replace much of their mobility work with stability work.
• Figure – while wide shoulders and a narrow waist make the male figure, the glutes make the female figure worth writing home about.  In this article, Bret gives two sample glute workouts, a beginner glute workout and an advanced glute workout.

Bret, summarised: get strong and get big glutes.

***

#2: Chad Waterbury

In this article, Chad Waterbury gives us the benefit of his thoughts on sexy female training:

• Muscle fibre types – Chad dispels the myth that women and men have different muscle fibre types and must therefore train in different ways.  In other words, to strengthen a muscle and make it bigger, you have to train with heavy weights, whether you are male or female.  To achieve nothing but sore muscles and sore joints, you can perform high repetition work.
• Building muscle – Chad dispels the myth that men and women build muscle and strength at different rates.
• Pick your exercises carefully – Chad makes the great point that you need to be very careful what you are doing.  Unless you want big quads, don’t do front squats.  Unless you want a thick midsection, don’t do direct ab work.  Unless you want to lose the hourglass figure, don’t do side bends for the obliques.  Chad goes into more detail on which exercises are good in this follow-up article and talks about how to decide which exercises to do in this short article.

Chad, summarised: don’t train it if you don’t want it to grow.

***

#3: Elite FTS

In doing my research, I found a number of articles on Elite FTS that relate to injury-proofing female clients and female athletes and getting them stronger for sport:

• Top ten reasons why heavy weights won’t bulk up female athletes - I am sure that every personal trainer has heard some variant on the phrase “I don’t want to get big and bulky” from a number of their clients.  This article lists ten reasons why this won’t happen.  Whether a reasoned argument is the right way to address an emotional concern, I am not certain, but I guess it might help…
• The risk of anterior cruciate ligament injuries for female athletes - the literature seems to suggest that female athletes are prone to ACL injuries.  This article looks at the key reasons why that is the case and what we can do about it.
• What I wish I knew as a female athlete - Callie Durbrow looks back and considers what she should have done differently, including eating better foods for fuel and running less distance.
• Functional training for high school female basketball players - this very interesting article gives a list of the common injuries suffered by female basketball players and then the programme that the coaches devised to limit them.

***

#4: Figure Athlete

The research I did on Figure Athlete focussed more on the development of the female appearance rather than injury-proofing female athletes.

• Chad Waterbury interviews Valerie Waters about the Red Carpet Look - Chad already has his own section above but in this article he plays more of an interviewing role.  Valerie Waters talks about the protocols she uses to train some of the big Hollywood stars and supermodels.  Interestingly, there is a distinct suspicion of heavy squats, which are thought to make the quadriceps too large.  I guess that after a point, squats cease to become helpful, although I can’t help thinking they are a quick way to get someone to the level of strength they need to be at in order to make changes to their body composition.
• John Berardi advises Val Waugaman on contest preparation - in this article, John Berardi sets out the exact pre-contest routine used by Val Waugaman in her preparation for the Arnold Classic.
• Clay Hyght talks about sprinting for lower body improvements - the ever knowledgeable Clay Hyght talks about the benefits of short, sharp sprints to improve the appearance of the lower body.
• Jen Heath advises on building the ultimate posterior – and Jen discusses her favourite exercises for getting better glutes.

***

My plan of action

Having done my research, and based on the template I discuss in my article on planning training sessions, I have the following key points that I will consider in training female clients:

• Mobility and stability warm-up – taking on board Bret’s comments about stability over mobility, and thinking about the likelihood of ACL injuries in female athletes, I would focus on these issues.
• Resistance training – taking on board everyone’s views that glute training should be emphasised, I would focus on a large compound posterior chain exercise for strength followed by a glute-specific exercise for hypertrophy.  Taking on board Chad’s comments, I might stop doing squats after a time and concentrate on exercises that avoided the quadriceps, such as glute-ham raises, deadlifts and reverse lunges.
• Cardiovascular exercise – I can see kettlebell swings being useful for doing cardiovascular exercise for female clients as a way to groove more hip extension and do more glute work.  Also, given the various positive comments made about sprinting, I can see short, sharp runs being something I would want to slowly integrate safely into a routine.
• Post workout rolling and stretches – taking on board Bret’s comments about stability over mobility, I might do a little rolling but then a bit more stability work, such as clams and band walks rather than stretches.

***

Can you help?

Do you already train a number of female clients or athletes?  Or perhaps you’re a knowledgeable female lifter yourself?  What are your recommendations?