TRAINING THE FEMALE ATHLETE PART 4/4

BODY COMPOSITION

We all have different body shapes, which leads to different body fat storage patterns but females take this to a different level than men.


Body Composition is critical to elite performance but is too often overlooked at the local/amateur level but you’ll see the players with better body composition will generally be the fittest and most injury resilient players.


Here some points on getting that elite body for sport, specific to women:

• Blood sugar imbalances can increase testosterone which can make it impossible to lose fat

• Adrenal and gut dysfunction will affect blood sugar levels

• The rate of fat or weight loss for females will be slower than men simply because women have less overall mass so it’s easier to lose 10kgs off 100kgs then 5kgs of 50kgs.

• Females tend to lose body fat from top to bottom

• Women have less vascularisation in the lower body as less blood vessels + lower fat stores = harder to mobilize fatty acids

• Females need more training volume and thus energy expenditure because of higher relative body fat levels to lose fat

• Women can’t restrict calories as much as men as they still need a minimum amount of calories so again women need to look at energy expenditure for the most part.

• Respond better to low carb nutritional strategies then men which is great for keeping insulin and blood sugar levels down, but women can also be more sensitive to low carb as their body's are programmed to maintain body fat for reproduction.

These aren’t knocks but rather points to consider when developing a training program for the female athlete.