“The number of case studies where women have trained as men and then burnt out is extreme,” so says Dr Georgie Bruinvels, exercise physiologist and co-creator of the FitrWoman app, which enables women to track their menstrual cycle and offers nutritional suggestions tailored to their changing hormone levels. “The primary guidelines around training are focused on men – huge importance needs to be placed on training as a woman as opposed to training as a man.”
As Bruinvels explains, muscle activation pathways differ between sexes, and a key example of this is that women find it harder to use their gluteal muscles and hamstrings.
“For example, when cycling out of the saddle, women are more likely to rely on