One interesting factoid I learned while reading Convict Conditioning is that women have very strong legs relative to other parts of their body. It is obvious to most people (with the exception of several feminists in my high school AP English class) that men are physically more powerful than women. What I learned was that this discrepancy is far less in the legs than in the upper body.
This is probably because the legs do not hold the reproductive organs, so a woman’s body can be optimized for physical strength in this area. A woman’s torso is optimized for carrying a baby not strength.
Paul Wade said that in squats women can lift much more in comparison to men than in the other classic lifts. I looked at powerliftingwatch.com and compared the lowest weight classes:
- Squat (class 123 lbs): Men-606 lbs, Women: 281 (without wraps)
- Bench press (class 123 lbs): Men-391 lbs, Women: 165 (full meet)
- Dead lift (class 123 lbs): Men-618 lbs, Women 303 lbs
This works out as the following percentages:
- Squat: 46%
- Bench press: 42%
- Dead lift: 49%
In these lifts women do not seem to be stronger in the squat. I went back to the book and found the two athletes he was referring to:
- Becca Swanson has squatted 855 pounds according to Wikipedia
- Mark Henry has squatted 947 pounds according to Wikipedia
Both of these records are the raw (no equipment) world records. Swanson’s lift is 90% of Henry’s lift. I wonder if Paul Wade is cherry picking data in his book because the low weight class data from powerliftingwatch.com does not show the same trend.
I will defer to Wade’s expertise in this matter because I do not know much about professional weight lifting. It is interesting that women could be so close to men in the squat but so far from them at other lifts.
This does align “primal” theory because when moving from place to place both men and women would have to walk similar distances and carry about the same amount in this lower body activity. However in activities which require a lot of upper body strength such as hunting or fighting, the men would have taken on all the responsiblity. Women’s stronger legs may also help with child birth (I don’t know).
Paul Wade says that there is no real limit to the strength of the legs. Well there is a limit, the ability to load them. Before you reach your maximum strength you will have problems with your spine from having to transmit so much force. Extremely heavy leg lifting is associated with knee and back injuries.
A final interesting anecdote that Paul Wade shares is that during the middle ages, if there were not enough oxen, women would pull the plows in the field. Steering the plow requires mostly upper body strength while pulling the plow requires mostly lower body strength. Because the men and women had close to equal leg strength, the men would handle the plow because of their superior upper body strength.
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Makes sense. I’ve always been aware of how much power I can wield using my legs.
Hey Lindsay, I think most people are not aware of how strong their legs are/could be. I still have some thinking to do about this topic, but it seems like men and women might be close to parity in this area of physical strength.
Most people have a hard time translating force from their legs into useful motion or force. I think that is the real limiting factor here.
Fascinating. I’m not sure comparing just the LOWEST weight classes is enough–but when you look at the best of the best its clear that girls can almost keep up with the guys, amazingly. I’m glad to read you post because I have noticed for years that women seem able to “unlock” thigh power much more than upper body strength.
This is only anecdotal, but for a few years back, I was a personal trainer, and I can tell you that on a beginner level, women have much, much stronger legs than their upper body strength would have you believe. I’ve known girls who can leg press well over two hundred pounds fairly quick, but who still grimace and groan at curling or pressing 25 pound wieghts.
Really interesting post, I’d love to see a bigger study. I’ve not read his book but Mr Wade is definitely right.
Peter,
I agree that comparing only the lowest weight classes is probably not the best way to go. I would have been better to make this comparison for all weight classes and see how the trend went. I (unfortunately) was too lazy to do that. Maybe I’ll do that in the future.
I’m glad to hear that your experience corroborates these findings because I have not had a chance to put study this “in the field.” One disadvantage that women still have with their legs is a greater angle (to vertical) caused by their wide hips. This leads to a lot of injuries in running.
This was just a side note in Paul Wade’s book not the main point of it, so you may not be interested in reading it.