Data source and presentation of results

The data I used was the same data gathered for my Women’s Strengths research – you can read about how I selected the data in that article.

The graphs that I’m using to show the results show the percentage of bodyweight for each of the main powerlifting and Olympic lifting lifts (to make the data comparable).  I then deducted the lower weight class percentage from the higher weight class percentage.  Therefore if the result is positive, the higher weight class has greater relative strength in that lift.

So what did I find out?

The results didn’t show what I expected, especially when you compare the results graphs for men and women.  However they do suggest that for women there is generally no significant difference in relative strength between the weight classes (except in bench press) while men have a definite difference.

As a woman, writing for women, I found this result to be a great importance to me.  It’s really fired me on to push through my previous lifting plateaus.

Does size matter for men?

We all know that size matters to men.  We’ve heard the jokes.  But does size make a difference to their relative lifting prowess?

Immediately we can see a pattern here.  In fact in terms of relative strength, lighter is, apparently, better for men. 

A lot of what goes behind the Olympic lifts is a squat so if heavier men are better at the squat then why are they not better at the Olympic lifts?  I think there is probably something in here about neural efficiency.  However I’m also convinced that some of the difference is to do with the type of squat.

A basic consideration of how we gain weight and its impact on lifting

I’m shortly going to set out on a muscle building phase.  Let’s say I start it weighing 50kg and finish it weighing 55kg (and for this, we are assuming that I only gain weight as muscle and I don’t gain any fat – perhaps a bit of a pipedream). 

That extra 5kg of muscle will hopefully be evenly spread across all the places that need it – quads, glutes, back, arms, traps and so on.

Olympic lifting requires you to get out of an ass-to-grass squat while a powerlifting squat is to parallel.  To get out of the bottom of that ass-to-grass squat your glutes are going to do a lot of the initial work. 

If I’m now 5kg heavier there’s a likelihood that only 1kg of that is extra glute muscle (to be generous).  3kg may have gone onto various parts of my upper body (traps, arms, back etc).  So to get the same percentage bodyweight snatch, I need my glutes to move the extra kilos that have gone on the bar, plus the extra kilos of weight in my body that need moving but I’ve only got an extra kilo of glute muscle to use.  Does that extra kilo have that much extra proportional strength?  Probably not.

Is it the same story for women?

In short, no.

These results are all over the place.  While men of different weight classes had an almost identical bench strength and lighter men had a better relative strength in the deadlift, this result gets reversed for women where relative strength on the deadlift is the same but lighter women excel at the bench press.

Interestingly there is a similar correlation between the squat and the Olympic lifts as we saw for men, but it is much less pronounced.  I’m suspicious that this has a lot to do with neural efficiency. 

The comparison I did between men and women the other week showed that the relative strength difference between men and women was least pronounced on the Olympic lifts.  At the time I concluded that this would suggest women were almost as good as men at building neural efficiency.  I’d like to revise that.  I think we’re actually better at it and therefore the muscular differences which I proposed to explain the difference between men’s Olympic lifts and squats have less impact for women.

So where does that leave us?

If you want to find yourself a man with amazing strength in relation to his weight then find yourself a light-weight man!  However, if you’re a woman then it seems that size doesn’t matter as much (unless you specifically want to excel at bench press).

So no more excuses from me about having a biomechanical disadvantage in some of my lifts.  I’d better just get on with it and work through my sticking points.

Do you think there’s a different explanation for the differences shown by the results?

Related posts:

1. Women’s strengths
2. Impact of menstrual cycle on exercise: recent observations

Finding the right data

I wanted to avoid any risk of under-training skewing the data and I wanted to know about where we are all aiming for in the long-term.  At first I contemplated using powerlifting competition qualifying numbers.  But those weights would be unrealistic for a few key reasons:

1. The number of men who powerlift is much higher than the number of women.  To get a good size competition group there is a possibility that the bar will be set slightly lower for women.  This may not be true but I couldn’t risk it potentially skewing the data.
2. The qualifying weights vary between associations, so I would have to use numbers from a single association.  I wanted a wide range of data to avoid any skew.
3. Qualifying weights are not aimed at those who have reached their full potential.  They are just a minimum benchmark.

So I used:

• Record numbers – to get the best performing people.
• Unequipped/raw numbers – to avoid skew created by any assistance.  I want to know about our true strength as humans.
• Drug-free – again, I’m on a quest to know what I, as a human being, am capable of the way Mother Nature designed me.
• Open class – I want people at the peak of their performance.

The competition record weights I gathered were:

• British Drug Free Powerlifting Association
• World Drug Free Powerlifting Federation
• American Raw Competition (Men and Women)
• Olympic Records (as recorded at Olympic Games)
• World records – Olympic lifting

Data was gathered during September 2009.

Problems with the data

To compare men and women fairly, I couldn’t use the same weight classes for them.  For example, if I used a 75kg weight class for both I would have really big women, but fairly average-sized men.  I did some analysis on how performance varies across the weight classes and yes, there is a difference.  I’ll do a separate article on that.

I ended up using the 75kg weight class for men and the 56kg weight class for women.  Perhaps a little low for men, but it means I’ve got roughly average size men and women with minimal skew from any biomechanical issues caused by extra small or tall people.

So are women just not made to lift heavy things?

1. Taking the lifts as a percentage of bodyweight (to get rid of the weight class difference and make the data comparable), the difference of the lifts between men and women looks upsettingly (but unsurprisingly) like women are always going to be weaker than men.  In fact, there’s nearly an entire bodyweight difference with the powerlifting lifts as you can see from the chart below.  So yes, it’s true.  We are the weaker sex.
   
   
2. Looking at the graph above it seems that we’ve got a better chance against men when it comes to the Olympic lifts which I believe is due to the explosive power element.  If you want a fuller reason, I’m sure someone would tell you to consider evolution and our need to be able to run away from danger (probably carrying the children).  This suggests that we are almost equivalent to men when it comes to building neural efficiency.  It may also suggest that we do better with movements that involve the quads more (see below).
   

   Of course, men need to be able to carry more than us when running
   (Image courtesy of Andrew Dobson)

3. It gets interesting with powerlifting.  If women did have relatively greater strength in their legs than their arms, the squat would have a smaller difference than the bench, not 23% more.  The squat uses the legs.  The deadlift, in my humble opinion, is the world’s greatest total body lift using legs, glutes, core, arms, back, grip – you name it, it’s probably being used.  The bench primarily focuses on arm and upper back strength.This suggests that once you push through the beginner weaknesses, our arms are not our weak point.  Unexpectedly, our legs seem to be our weakness.  But this seems odd when compared with women’s ability in the Olympic lifts.  This result may be the lack of quad involvement in the powerlifting squat and the increase in lower back involvement.
4. Comparing how different lifts make up the total lift I found that the bench press makes up about the same proportion of a woman’s lifting prowess as it does for men.  In fact there isn’t a huge difference in any of the lifts.  A 5% difference on the deadlift is probably not anything to shout about.
   

So women should ignore those who tell us that we will, by the nature of our sex, have weaker arms.  Yes, we are weaker than men, but keep working at that arm strength because it seems to have more potential than we’re led to believe.

Would you agree?

Related posts:

1. Does size matter?
2. Blog-watch: interviews with strong women
3. Female athletic injuries