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If you shout during your last repetition(s) then you can generate more power. So why don’t women actually do that?
Standard rooster behavior
For clarity: This is not exactly a question that keeps me awake at night. Let me start with the reason.
Lately, I happened to train a few times in a row when there were a few Golfs with a loud exhaust. Those guys who make disproportionately much noise for the power they deliver. I often look around to see what the reason is for the exaggerated volume. Usually, you see a woman walking around somewhere in the gym who is apparently within earshot. You don’t need to conduct a major study. Woman gone, volume down. I dare say there is a correlation.
It is also common that the weight being lifted suddenly goes up. That can explain the higher volume of sound and is therefore a variable you have to correct for. However, after such a correction, I still dare to speak of a correlation
woman-in-the-gym:volume-of-the-man. A heavier weight does not explain why you are already shouting like you’re going past failure on your first rep in a set of 15. It also does not explain why you suddenly drop the weights as hard as possible on the ground and slam the plates hard onto the bar*. You’re just not standing next to each plate with a loudspeaker announcing how much weight you’re using.
By the way, women are not the only possible cause of such behavior. This can also happen when the natural hierarchy in a gym is disturbed by an ‘outsider bodybuilder’. When a new guy suddenly walks in who is bigger than everyone else in the gym. Some alpha monkeys start to scream, completely confused by the changed hierarchy.
*The only excuse for this is if you learned this from
Arnold in Pumping Iron.
Why don’t women grunt in the gym?
So this morning I wondered: Why don’t women do that?
Women may not see a need to get more attention from men in the gym. They often get enough unsolicited attention already. Or they may not see grunting and shouting during training as a handy way to get this attention. Perhaps because it’s not the ‘feminine image’ they want to convey.
Compared to other women, it is possible that they are not at all concerned with raising their social status. However, I’ve had to watch too many chick flicks to believe that. In fact, I actually don’t understand why there isn’t a female version of the term
rooster behavior. If there is such behavior among women in the gym, they may not see training in barbarian mode as the best method.
So I can understand that there may not be social reasons for women to train loudly, or even reasons not to do so.
Screaming stigma?
But of course, we must not overlook the fact that grunting loudly in the gym is not just for show. Instinctively, we do this naturally when we are (really) exerting ourselves. It feels helpful to pep yourself up, mentally focus, and control your breathing. I also once wrote an article about the added value of the strength of grunting during physical exertion as demonstrated in research.
Screaming during strength training could increase maximum power output by 12%, as shown in a study discussed in the article. So maybe the question is not why women see no reason to grunt in the gym during heavy exertion, but why they see reason not to do it.
It won’t be due to the intensity with which many women nowadays do strength training. Especially in the last ten years, there has been a great development in which more and more women see the benefits of strength training. Whereas before it was seen as a ‘men’s thing’, many women now see it as a recipe for their dream figure. However, there is still a stigma attached to the combination of woman, strength training, and muscle mass, which I know all about as a fitness photographer. “I really don’t like it when a woman has a six-pack,” as a response to a shared photo, for example.
Tennis players have no problem making a lot of noise when hitting the ball. Rightly so, as shown in a study in the same article; the ball gained almost 4% more speed when grunting. This hardly detracts from their femininity. In fact, sometimes it’s considered ‘too feminine’.
It’s funny how apparently it matters whether you wear a short skirt and hit a ball or if you lift a heavy weight in yoga pants.
Turn it around
Suppose such a Golf with an exhaust is once again making a fuss in the squat rack because he has spotted his natural prey. Of course, he leaves all the plates on the bar so that everyone can see the weight with which he did two (so-called) reps with difficulty.
Then it seems so cool to me if you as a woman step into that rack and do 15 reps with the same weight as a warm-up. If you then add another 40kg and scream the whole gym together just to show who’s the boss.
After that, it seems very quiet in the gym.
