So I've been interested in the biological differences and the differences in the biological response to muscular stress between the sexes since my girlfriend started weight training. To begin with, it seems to me from my experience with starting strength and having read a lot on strong lifts and greyskull, that the general consensus amongst beginner trainers is to maintain the same programming between male and female lifters. However, I've come across other sources, from online blogs to textbooks with lots of citations (Science and Practice of Strength Training by Zatsiorsky and Kraemer), that seem to contradict this. Namely they say that trained women typically demonstrate less neurological efficiency than trained men. The implications being that women can't actually hit their true 1 RM due to only being able to recruit around 90% of the amount of muscle fibers as compared to men. So whereas men at 85% of their tested 1 RM would hit 5 reps abouts, women at 85% of their tested 1 RM (not true 1 RM) would hit 8-10 reps area. Also, many of these sources seem to agree that women respond better to hitting the same muscle group from multiple angles, such as performing DB curls as well as hammer curls.
I really have no clue what the implications of this information here is, but I just notice that researchers have documented these differences while people still advocate the same beginner programs for men and women. I can't help but to think that women might benefit from more volume as compared with men to get the same strength gains. Or perhaps that the standard rep ranges most people are aware of for strength and hypertrophy (generally 1-5 for strength, 8-12 for hypertrophy, 15+ for endurance) might be slightly skewed for women. Further evidence of this would be many blogs citing better hypertrophy success for women being obtained when they program their lifts in at 12-15 reps per set, as compared with 8-12 per set for men).
What is going on here or is this just less significant than I am making it out to be? There is no doubt from all the anecdotal evidence that women respond to 3x5, same as men. I just am curious if all this research might add up one day to saying women get better strength gains working at 3x8.
Anyway, these are just some thoughts that have been bouncing around my head since helping my girlfriend get started on lifting. Any thoughts on this?