Both genders can benefit from strength training. Fortunately, more women are working their muscles against resistance to build strength and muscle size these days and reaping the rewards. Strength training builds muscle mass and definition, which can boost metabolism, improve insulin sensitivity, increase bone density, and build greater strength overall — all things that will help keep both genders looking and feeling more youthful. It’s anti-aging medicine because it prevents frailty.
One tenet of strength training is to balance resistance training with an appropriate amount of rest afterward. After working your muscles against force they’re unaccustomed to, they need to rest and repair. After exercising, your muscle fibers sustain tiny microtears from being stretched and overloaded with force during a strength training workout.
Resting between strength training sessions allows your muscles to repair and rebuild, so they become thicker and stronger over time. Your muscles need at least 48 hours of rest between strength training sessions for adequate recovery, and for intense workouts, longer. That’s why it’s important to listen to your body. If you did an intense workout and your muscles still ache after 48 hours, you need more recovery time.
Everyone has a different rate of muscle recovery, and you might wonder which gender recovers from a strength workout faster. Are there gender differences in how quickly muscles recover from force production?
Gender Differences in Muscle Damage
Different hormonal environments may affect the rate of muscle recovery after strength training in men and women. In one study, researchers asked 100 subjects, both men and women, to perform 50 maximal eccentric contractions using the elbow muscles of their nondominant arm. Eccentric exercise is a form of contraction where muscles lengthen against resistance. These contractions cause more muscle damage than concentric contractions, those that involve shortening the muscle.
Immediately after the eccentric exercise, women experienced a more pronounced loss in muscle strength than the men, although the men had a greater increase in creatine kinase, a marker of muscle damage. There were no differences in muscle soreness between the genders in this study.
Another study found that women experienced a greater loss in strength after an eccentric workout than men, but they also recovered more rapidly than men who exercised at a similar intensity. In the study, 132 hours after eccentric strength training, women had better muscle recovery.
Taken together, these studies suggest that women experience a greater loss of strength immediately after exhausting eccentric muscle contractions, but men sustain more lingering inflammation and may not have muscles that bounce back as quickly as women after a strength-training session.
Do Women Have a Muscle Recovery Advantage after Strength Training?
Researchers measure creatine kinase in the bloodstream as a marker of muscle damage because it leaks out of damaged tissue into the bloodstream where it can be measured with a blood test. Higher levels of creatine kinase in your blood mean you have experienced more muscle damage recently.
Studies show that men release more creatine kinase in their bloodstream after a workout than women. The lower levels of creatine kinase in women after exercise suggests that women are less susceptible to muscle damage than men even when doing similar workouts. If women experience less inflammation and muscle damage after a workout, they can recover faster and be ready for strength training again sooner.
Studies also show the muscles of women are more resistant to fatigue relative to men. Plus, some research shows women experience faster resolution of muscle soreness after a workout, although studies are conflicting on this. But it makes sense that women would recover faster since they have fewer markers of muscle damage.
Why Do Women Have Faster Muscle Recovery?
Researchers don’t fully understand why women’s muscles recover faster after a strength-training workout, but women may have certain biological advantages. It’s possible their muscles respond differently to the stress of exercise due to the female sex hormone estrogen. Research shows estrogen reduces inflammation in muscle fibers after strength training and promotes faster recovery.
But since women experience a drop in estrogen after menopause, it’s possible that muscle recovery is slower in post-menopausal women. That’s an area that needs more research. Older individuals, in general, need more recovery time.
Conclusion
In conclusion, women’s muscles experience greater strength loss right after a strength-training session when they lift to fatigue but also experience faster muscle recovery. There’s also some evidence of reduced muscle soreness (DOMS) and faster recovery from post-workout soreness. Still, the same rules apply. Give the muscles you just worked at least 48 hours of rest if you worked them to fatigue. But depending on the intensity of the workout, they may need longer.
References:
- Difference in skeletal muscle function in males vs. females: role of estrogen receptor-β | American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism. American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism. Published 2020. Accessed July 9, 2022. https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/ajpendo.00098.2004#:~:text=Male%20skeletal%20muscles%20are%20generally%20faster%20and%20have,are%20generally%20more%20fatigue%20resistant%20and%20recover%20faster.
- SEWRIGHT KA, HUBAL MJ, KEARNS A, HOLBROOK MT, CLARKSON PM. Sex Differences in Response to Maximal Eccentric Exercise. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. 2008;40(2):242-251. doi:10.1249/mss.0b013e31815aedda
- Sayers SP, Clarkson PM. Force recovery after eccentric exercise in males and females. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2001 Jan-Feb;84(1-2):122-6. doi: 10.1007/s004210000346. PMID: 11394240.
- Shumate JB, Brooke MH, Carroll JE, Davis JE. Increased serum creatine kinase after exercise: a sex-linked phenomenon. Neurology. 1979 Jun;29(6):902-4. doi: 10.1212/wnl.29.6.902. PMID: 572017.
- Flores DF, Gentil P, Brown LE, Pinto RS, Carregaro RL, Bottaro M. Dissociated time course of recovery between genders after resistance exercise. J Strength Cond Res. 2011 Nov;25(11):3039-44. doi: 10.1519/JSC.0b013e318212dea4. PMID: 21804429.
- Critchfield, B. & Kravitz, L. (2008). Fatigue resistance: An intriguing difference in gender. IDEA Fitness Journal 5(6), 19-21.
- Clark, B. C., Collier, S. R., Manini, T. M., & Ploutz-Snyder, L. L. (2005). Sex differences in muscle fatigability and activation patterns of the human quadriceps femoris. European Journal of Applied Physiology, 94(1-2), 196-206.
- Clark, B. C., Manini, T. M., Doldo, N. A., & Ploutz-Snyder, L. L. (2003). Gender differences in skeletal muscle fatigability are related to contraction type and EMG spectral compression. Journal of Applied Physiology, 94(6), 2263-2272.
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