Routines for female beginners

[Luca2]

Hey all, do you find that the same routine recommendations given to male novices (Fierce 5, Starting Strength, Greyskull LP etc.) are equally good choices for female trainees even taking into account gender differences in response to training? (e.g. faster recovery and higher optimal frequency for upper body muscle in girls)

Thanks!

[Partyrocking]

Assuming their goal is strength (or at least one of their goals), sure. I started off with Starting Strength and it suited me just fine.

Could their have been a better novice program for women, probably, but it got me started and kept me consistent which are the two biggest hurdles.

[Luca2]

Assuming their goal is strength (or at least one of their goals), sure. I started off with Starting Strength and it suited me just fine.

Thanks! Anything else you'd recommend looking into if the goal is purely hypertrophy? (aside from the often-mentioned Strong Curves)

I must say I'm a little surprised that there's no good free novice strength template geared specifically to women in spite of raw powerlifting's recent growth. Perhaps the gender differences are not worth taking into account at novice level then.

[Luca2]

Yes

Absolutely the same for the same goals

There is no need for a gender difference

If goals are different then there a myriad of female oriented programmes out there, most of which are bollox

Thanks!

For clarity, this is the sort of stuff I had in mind when I mentioned gender differences.

[KyleAaron]

I must say I'm a little surprised that there's no good free novice strength template geared specifically to women in spite of raw powerlifting's recent growth. Perhaps the gender differences are not worth taking into account at novice level then.

It's not a big difference. Novice women seem to need and benefit from higher volume on upper body stuff, and also from dropping to lower reps but keeping the overall volume the same. And while men need to microload on the upper body lifts, the women can benefit from doing so on lower body lifts, too, and right from the start

For vanilla Starting Strength, this might look like,

Workout A
Back squat start 20kg add 1.5kg a session, 5 reps x 3 sets, by week 6 this becomes 3 reps x 5 sets
Press 15+0.5kg 5x5 --> 3x8
Deadlift 40+2kg 5x3 ---> 3x3

Workout B
Back squat, progress from workout A.
Bench 20+1kg 5x5 ---> 3x5
Powercleans using press weight, 3x5

This assumes a small to medium-sized woman under 50yo with not much training history but no injuries. Larger women with a background in training of some kind can start higher and progress slightly faster, if there are injuries or the woman's over 50 then things are more individual.

If reps are missed on squat, or if you see bar speed slow so much that it's plain you'll miss reps in the next session or two, go away, eat a whole roast chicken. Seriously. If the reps are made next time, change to having a light day on squats, 15% less on the deadlift day, alternate light/heavy squats but continue progressing both, eg 50/60, 51.5/61.5, etc. If reps are missed the second time you overshot your current recovery ability, drop back 10% and build up again.

If reps are missed on press or bench, typically this is technique rather than raw strength. Just make up the missed reps in an extra set at the end, and repeat the weight next time. Likewise deadlifts or cleans.

With no missed reps, in 3 months this gets a novice woman squatting in the 60s, cleaning and pressing in the high 20s, benching in the 30s, and deadlifting in the 80s. There's some variation from proportions, the long-legged women will have deadlifts closer to their squats, for example. The most I've seen women back squat in their first 3 months was 100-110kg for work sets, in both cases those women were close to 100kg themselves in bodyweight; the least I've seen a woman do is 52.5kg for work sets, she was 45kg. But the 60-75kg range is most common.

As with the men, food and rest will be key. Women are a bit better than men at listening to a trainer's dietary advice, they're more compliant overall, men are forever coming back to their trainer and saying, "but I was watching this YouTube vid and Louie Simmons says -" and then they go and eat some KFC and wonder why they're not getting stronger.

Rest is quite individual as the normal stresses and ups and downs of life affect a person's sleep a lot. Community is important for both men and women lifters, but women get into a community more quickly, so having a good gym environment will show up in their results earlier on than for men. The community helps people show up regularly, and grind through heavy lifts, encourage them to eat well and all that.

Anyway that's an example of how a novice woman could run more-or-less vanilla SS for 3 months. After that it gets trickier. Nowadays in my gym we're doing some different programming. But that's another story.

[WolfRose7]

Thanks! Anything else you'd recommend looking into if the goal is purely hypertrophy? (aside from the often-mentioned Strong Curves)

I must say I'm a little surprised that there's no good free novice strength template geared specifically to women in spite of raw powerlifting's recent growth. Perhaps the gender differences are not worth taking into account at novice level then.

Candito linear isn't bad for beginners.
Particularly ones specifically wanting 4 days, and the optional accessories give a bit of control over their goals feeling while not actually affecting the main lifts negatively

Also would have to concur with Kyle about more upper body volume (-hard sets), and generally favouring lower reps.
Cluster sets of low reps was the main thing that drove my better halfs OHP up