BFS Women's Training

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important gender di erences erences we must understand

BY PAUL

GAGNÉ

STRENGTH COACH AND POSTUROLOGIST

P

erhaps stemming from the belief athleticism in young female athletes I’ve girls tend to avoid sports and strenuous that there should not be any worked with – not just in Canada, but physical activities that use the upper limitations in what women are across the globe. I just came back from body. Whereas you see boys doing able to do, many coaches believe that working in the Czech Republic and saw push-ups and chin-ups and playing on there are no differences between trainthe same problem. the monkey bars, you see fewer girls ing women and training men. After all, Among the best exercises for attracted to these activities. As a result, women can perform the Olympic lifts developing body awareness in the lower many women I work with tend to have and run marathons and can certainly extremities are single-leg squats, lunges extreme discrepancies between their play any sports that men can – although and what BFS calls power calls power balance drills . upper and lower body strength. for some odd reason professional tennis For those athletes who cannot get into a With the female Olympic skiers organizationss still don’t believe that organization full squat to perform the power balI’ve trained, I found that placing extra women can play five sets of tennis. But ance drills, I use several boxes of various emphasis on upper body work when in training women to play their best heights and have them squat to a box I first start working with them makes with minimal risk of injury, coaches height that enables them to perform a dramatic difference in their sports must consider some factors relating to that segment of the movement properly. performance. If you follow through with the differences between the sexes. As they progress, I use a smaller box. I this idea in the BFS program, the majorLet’s start with anatomy. Because should mention that I have a BFS 3-in-1 ity of the auxiliary exercises you do with they have wider hips that are designed box, and this works perfectly, as I can women should be upper body exercises. for childbirth, women have a lower quickly and precisely adjust the height Of special importance would be the center of gravity than men. So it’s not of the box. muscles of the upper back that help staso much stability that coaches need to bilize the shoulder, such as the serratus be concerned about when working with anterior, which pulls the shoulder blades A Question of Muscle women but mobility. In looking at a given muscle’s forward (such as when a boxer throws a To be more specific, a women’s strength curve, the external range is range is punch). If you see a woman performing wider hip structure affects the relationconsidered the range from the fully a push-up and her shoulder blades flare ship between the femurs and the knees stretched position to the point of half out abnormally (i.e., winged scapula), so that the upper thighs are not as paral- contraction. The internal range is range is the this may be a result of weakness in the lel compared to a man’s – the so-called fully contracted position to the point serratus anterior muscle. Q-angle. To address this inherently of half contraction. Performing a Swiss If a woman’s arms are not as strong more mobile albeit weaker structure, ball sit-up in which you bend backward as she desires or as her sport requires, she women need to spend more time on and come partway up would be consid- will benefit from specialized exercises for exercises that teach body awareness. A ered an external-range exercise for the the biceps and triceps – especially the BFS dot drill is an example of a valuable rectus abdominus; lying on your back biceps, as the long head of the biceps exercise to develop body awareness. In and performing a pelvic tilt would be plays an important role in shoulder stapast decades, many girls would spend considered an internal-range exercise bility. This brings a whole new meaning a lot of time skipping rope and playing for the same muscle. Overall, women to the expression “Curls for the girls!” hopscotch; these girls tended to become tend to be more hypermobile than men;





Coach Gagné uses a variety of training methods with his athletes. Shown on left is Chloé, performing overspeed training, and on right is Justine, performing sled work.

baseball bat and try to hit 300 basethat these boot camp workouts focus balls within an hour, you shouldn’t on. Just because a strength coach can perform snatches, clean and jerks and get an athlete to sweat and even puke their related exercises with high reps. doesn’t mean that individual is a good A major selling point of these boot strength coach. camp programs I’ve seen is that they A good strength coach, or “physisuggest that effective workouts can be cal preparator,” as I like to refer to us, completed quickly, such as within 20 focuses on ways to increase performinutes. This means that there is virtu- mance and also minimize the risk of ally no warm-up and no concentration injury during training and during an on special exercises to correct muscle athlete’s sport. BFS has put together imbalances. Also, too often I’ve seen a good model of o f training for young lazy coaching in which the participants athletes with a balance of work for all could get away with poor form. This athletic and physical fitness qualities. is a serious problem, especially for Plus, there is flexibility in the program women. If a woman athlete lacks shoul- to include special auxiliary work, such der stability and performs multiple sets as the special segmental exercises I of high-rep burpies, it’s very easy for her would have girls perform. to dislocate her shoulders. What about stretching? Because My workouts take an hour; and women tend to be more flexible than if I am training a young woman, the men, there is a common, but entirely first 40 minutes might be spent on mistaken, belief that women do not performing segmental exercises for need to stretch. Let me just say that

workouts, consider that girls mature sooner than boys. This means that they should be able to start handling maximal weights at a younger age. As a general rule, about 18 months after a girl has her first period, her growth plates are pretty much closed and there is little risk of causing damage that could affect growth. I should also mention that during the menstrual cycle an athlete may need to back off the volume of their energy system training due to changes the body goes through during this cycle. I’ll conclude by saying that one of the biggest problems I see with the American coaching system is that sport coaches often don’t let strength coaches do their jobs. Just as I don’t tell my hockey players how to modify their technical skills for their sport, a sports coach should not be telling me how to design my workout programs.

BFS Women's Training

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