LP to volume-based; w.r.t. activity type experience

[Mark Rippetoe]

The main differences as I understand them with women are, broadly:

• Hormonal milieu, which alters how recovery/adaptation works
• Differences in neuromuscular efficiency/recruitment that alter how stress can be applied

Am I missing anything?

Aggression/psychological approach to the task.

[Chris Lippke]

Aggression/psychological approach to the task.

Example:
I misremembered Rip's advice on Few brand whiskey and bought the bourbon instead of the rye. I (aggressively) ripped up the receipt before revisiting the AskRip episode and realizing my mistake. My wife's psychological approach to the error was to berate my decision to purchase things because some guy on the internet suggested it.

I think her aggression would be put to good use in a deadlift ("my back gets sore from [English] riding lessons"), but she doesn't want to be "pressured" into working out. I have yet to find the right carrot. Things that don't work: impulse buying the wrong whiskey [check].

[Tiedemies]

Everybody is different. There are countless variables. Sex is among the most important, and we are still learning how women adapt in this LP model.

I have now made some observations in my social surroundings, amongst those who have in some way done a linear progression or another. It is surprisingly rare that people stick to a (let alone the) program long enough for LP to run out. Those that do, seem to run out because they fail to rest or eat enough. I ran out probably due to lack of eating, even though I tried eating way more than I felt comfortable with. A friend of mine ran out due to stress-related stuff that caused insomnia. Another ran out because they had a baby born in the family and this caused a lack of sleep. Unsurprisingly, his lifts stalled shortly after the newborn arrived.

This is a very small sample, hence my hesitant tone. But I recall you guys did some research on this and I would not be surprised if it indeed would be rather rare for someone to diligently do the program until LP runs out.

[tertius]

Aggression/psychological approach to the task.

Interesting.

Did Dr. Racculia ever try breaking down the program compliance data by sex?

[Mark Rippetoe]

Excellent question.

[Nicholas Racculia]

Tersh,

From the set of self-reported data found on the Starting Strength novice logs, we found that males (n=324) logged results an average of 14.2 weeks and females (n=31) logged results an average of 21.1 weeks.

One other thing some of the data collectors noticed-- female logs seemed to have more feedback and posts from other trainees than male counterparts (I don't have any stats for this; it just seemed to be a recurring phenomenon). Perhaps the additional feedback created an incentive to continue to log?

Either way we can't conclude there's a difference in compliance since people may still train without reporting, but the results are suggestive.