What physical feats should a *woman* be able to do?

Just interested, what do you think the female version would be?

 

Alright, I'm going to be a pain and be serious.

Women generally have weaker upper bodies but reasonably strong lower bodies. Being able to do a full press up, dip or chin up is a good standard, even for singles.

 

Come on people, please give this thread a chance before it turns into a "Carry On" film.

 

The problem is 95% of them wouldn't even attempt a proper press-up. Then you have the other 5% like Map's Frodo that can lift 1 1/2 times her own weight. There's seldom a happy medium.

 

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC_iiqtai-g"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC_iiqtai-g[/ame]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ire6PrifDvY&feature=related"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ire6PrifDvY&feature=related[/ame]

and most impressive:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XiD2qJI0mY"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XiD2qJI0mY[/ame]

 

Fair enough, but the OP seems motivated and serious and many other female martial artists will be too.

So... what should a woman who's serious about her fitness be able to do as a baseline?

 

Thank you!

I can do all of those. Yay

 

Don't get cocky, that's like the basic entry level for women fitness

 

Women may generally be less strong, but they also tend to weigh less, so I would consider a woman's performance in bodyweight exercises to be somewhat comparable with a mans.

And the "I don't want to get butch" excuse holds no water; there are some seriously strong, feminine women out there, for example:
Neghar Fonooni
Nia Shanks
Cassandra Forsythe - Co-author of [ame=http://www.amazon.com/New-Rules-Lifting-Women-Goddess/dp/1583333398/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1283724038&sr=1-1]The New Rules of Lifting for Women: Lift Like a Man, Look Like a Goddess[/ame]

 

Lol, I don't care about avoiding weight gain. I've always wanted muscles like Cyborg's.

 

Pretty much the same as a man if your going to use bodyweight exercises. I don't see the difference in men & women so much as a physical one as much as a mental one. Most have other/better things to do. The few that get serious absolutely fly

 

1.I think woman is capable to workout with weights and body build and develop well
2.they can become excellent swimmers and competitive even at a later age
3.a woman can be a really good runner and participate in any of the distances.
4.they make superior gymnasts and skaters
Just a few thoughts off the top of my head. I really don't know what would be the average individual womans ability. Or have an intellegent opinion to give on the subject.

 

Beep, incorrect.

While women to tend to weigh less, this is not comparable to a man. What is more important here is muscle and fat percentage. Women tend to weigh less because they don't have the muscle mass men do. In comparison women, when healthy have a higher percentage of fat. So when you think about body weight exercises in particular will have to move around more unmuscular mass (fat) and have less muscles to do it with.

If you compare a healthy man and a healthy woman, with the same amount of training behind them of equal weight and height, the man on average will still be stronger.

Not to mention another reason women weigh less is because on average we are simply shorter.

One of the biggest set backs I find for women is when they start a training program. Even something simple as going to a gym and getting a start up training program, very few trainers will take them seriously.

As far physical feats, I think it depends on how much training you need to have behind you. I think most women should be able to do most of the feats listed in the mens thread, but will require more training to achieve them. It also of course depends on body type as was also mentioned in the mens thread.

 

Female rowers, the ENTIRE college club at uni can do full press-ups to multiple reps. They can all bench over 40kgs I reckon.

And that's picking 25-30 girls out of a pool of around 200, not pushing the extremes of physical performance. Some of those girls are bloody waif-like too, so if they can do it without difficulty....

 

same as i'd ask from a man with identical lean weight, i guess.

rep numbers will end up being arbitrary since they will depend a lot of build, but what i think everyone should have (male or female), is full shoulder range of motion (vital if you don't want to turn into quasimodo's stunt double by the time you're 50), the ability to do a full ass-to-grass squat with good spinal posture (proves you have core stability, full leg ROM, good posture), a reasonable amount of flexibility on the hip joints and surrounding muscles (not necessarily full ROM or a side split, but being able to move your knee in a respectably wide circle in the air without turning your pelvis is something i've found a lot of people can't do), and good form on the squat, push-up and pull-up (if you have good form on the exercises, you'll have a non-trivial amount of strength, from there to becoming a really strong person is just a matter of personal inclination).

in any case, joint health and muscular should come WAY before strength, IMO

 

My use of the word 'somewhat' was not accidental.

And it's not like women are carrying around an extra 50-60lbs of fat. Physiologically, women are perfectly capable of knocking out 50 push ups or 20 dead hang pull ups, it's just that they are often too busy getting frisky with pink dumbells and the latest Gyneth Paltrow DVD to work at it.

 

For what it's worth, I recall reading some time ago that the average woman has ~50% of the upper body strength of the average man, and that the figure was ~75% for lower body strength. IIRC, this was a study published on Pubmed. If anyone is really interested I'll do my best to try to dig it out again. But Pubmed being what it is - it's insanely hard to search sometimes.

If this is accurate, then it would seem to bear out the belief that women are better able to compete with men in areas where the lower body is used more than the upper.

 

Is that average without exercise?

 

I'll have to get back to you on that. I might be some time . . .

 

I suspect it may have been this one: http://jap.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/89/1/81

Here's the pertinent bit about arm and thigh muscles in men and women and a nice distribution graph: http://jap.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/89/1/81/F5


Just an interesting aside, but the ratio only works for flexion when making a comparison based on lean body weight but interestingly extension is about the same, Jeffrey E. Falkel et al. 1985