How to Talk About Lifting to Adult Novice Women

[stef]

by Fran Mason

“This article describes my personal experience with adult women who had never been exposed to barbells before and who didn’t know that they can get stronger and stronger for quite a while. These are people who had never even thought about having strength goals or doing really hard physical work for health and fitness, and this includes about half of my women clients. They came to me looking for a new workout, with no prior exposure to the attitudes, focus, jargon, etiquette, and expectations surrounding barbell training.”

Article

[Dunk]

A very good article, thank you Fran Mason. This is a must read for any kind of trainer.

[boot29342342]

A very good article.

[Fran Mason]

Thanks, I'm glad you liked it.

[patterson]

Great read. My wife is always interested in training. Luckily I have started well and don't force it on her. I let her come to it, a lot of this really helps, thank you

[mdeshaies]

Great article! We train a lot of women at my gym and I frequently hear "this is really heavy" while they are mid squat. I always yell "Can't be that heavy if you are talking to me!"- funny to hear this is common. I find that some of the women need a little extra encouragement to add weight to the bar and when they do they are very surprised that they are able to complete the set. 5 sets of 3 reps vs 3 sets of 5 reps has also been helpful for sticking points in the bench and press.

[morbidlyfat]

I'm always, still, surprised by how much work a coach does that isn't coaching.

[silachoo]

I'm always, still, surprised by how much work a coach does that isn't coaching.

please explain.

[Lakshmi Meadows]

You nailed it on the head! Great article Fran

[morbidlyfat]

please explain.

Yikes, missed this one. Sorry. Belatedly, I mean this:

"This “concept teaching” is conversational – completely separate from coaching cues"

So we all agree it's not coaching. And I think we might all agree that it's quite a bit of work.