Are you man enough? Typical women’s exercises that men should do
Jason Weslosky
| 2 min read
I’ve sat through enough physiology and anatomy classes in college to know there are many differences between men and women. The most popular one to joke about is the lack of intelligence of men compared to women. Research has actually found that the average male brain is 10% larger than the average female brain. In addition, men have about 4% more brain cells than women.
However, the female brain contains more nerve cells and connections allowing their brains to work more efficiently at that smaller size. For this reason, females and professors love to knock on us guys for not being able to use what we’ve got (in reality, brain mass or size has no bearing on intelligence). But we should also look at it a different way.
Given that a woman’s brain works differently than a man’s, men should not be afraid to pick up a few things from women. This includes exercises at the gym. Women know what exercises to do to stay healthy and which exercises target muscle groups the best. Doing these three typical “women’s exercises” during a routine at the gym will actually yield great results, working the targeted area in addition to other muscle groups that stabilize your body during the routine. The question is, are you man enough to try?
1. Mountain Climber Abs
Combine this exercise with a Swiss ball for an easy yet effective core workout that not only works the major muscles of your abdomen but also the intrinsic muscle groups required to stabilize your body on the ball.
Lunges aren’t exclusively for women. Plenty of men do weighted lunges and seem completely comfortable. However more often than not, I see men doing them with a dumbbell in each arm. Instead, try offsetting the weight to work your core muscles while your quadriceps and gluteals work during the lunge motion. Offsetting weight includes alternating one dumbbell between hands, alternating a medicine ball between both hands, and some other variation.
Rarely have I ever seen a women throw weight on a straight bar and bench press. Instead, women often work out their chest using dumbbells. This is a great idea given that the dumbbell press works each side individually and focuses the muscle groups of the chest and arm to stabilize the motion during the exercise. As a bonus tip, increase which part of the chest is worked by using an incline or decline bench to perform the same motion.
Which one of these are you going to start incorporating into your workout?
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