Do we need both

[drinkinmilk]

I have recently read NROL and feel that it should apply to both men and women. My wife has trained using the same movements I have for years with great results. We have always used the main movements I found in NROL ie. Squat, Dead lift, OHP, Bench or dips, Pull downs or chins and Power cleans. What are the differences in these two books if any?
Thanks
DrinkinMilk

[Chris-STL]

Here is a good interview done by Leigh Peele that discusses some of what you are asking about.

[Lou Schuler]

I'm not going to tell anyone they "need" both.

As the interview with Leigh says, this started out as a completely different book called "Lift Like a Man." Only after it was written, edited, and photographed did we decide to change the title to New Rules of Lifting for Women.

If a woman is already doing NROL workouts, the main benefit of the new book is six months of new workouts designed by Alwyn. There's also a comprehensive nutrition program.

The theme of the original book was the "six basic moves" idea. In NROL for Women, I don't dwell much on the six moves, partly because I hate repeating myself. But mostly I wanted to present two new arguments that are specific to women:

First, of course, is the message of the original title -- women will get better results from training if they don't think of what they do as fundamentally different from what men do. Same species, same physiology, same approach to training.

Second is a new way to look at nutrition. This was all new to me, which I think I admit somewhere in the book. So I didn't know what a metabolic nightmare these thousand-calorie-a-day diets are for women who exercise. I think my daughters eat more than a thousand a day, so it was shocking to think of adult women eating so little and still going to the gym and doing serious workouts.

So I think the new book has a lot of important and useful information, along with the diet plan and workouts. And, like the original, I hope it's entertaining to read. But I won't pretend any woman needs this book if she's enjoying the workouts in the original. I'll take it as a triumph either way.

[LT Hebert]

I don't know if it's just me, but I take anything that Lou is involved with and just figure it has to be good! I already ordered my copy. (Don't disappoint me, Lou! )

[Lost Dog]

Lou, do you cover that some women shouldn't do? Like running and that whole Q angle thing?

And, shouldn't the other sub-forum be called NROL -- Unisex or Original, not NROL -- For Men?

[Lou Schuler]

Roland, we get into all that in the new book. We don't use the phrase "Q angle," but we talk about knee injuries and the link to quad dominance.

Like the nutrition information, the issue of gender-specific muscle imbalance was new to me, and I was really surprised to see how big a problem it is. Without training designed to improve posterior-chain strength and correct the imbalance, sports and fitness activities actually exacerbate it as young female athletes mature.

With boys it's the opposite -- in a sport like soccer, the boys grow out of their natural quad dominance. Put another way, as all their lower-body muscles get stronger, their extensors grow proportionally stronger compared to their flexors.

So female athletes start out with a somewhat greater imbalance, and with maturity and conditioning the imbalance actually becomes more severe.

That's not the sole reason for the higher rate of knee injuries in girls and women, but the current thinking is that it accounts for a lot of them. Of course, the best solution is training to correct the imbalance, which is a big part of the focus in NROL for Women. When I did the workouts, I could feel them hitting my lower-body muscles in new ways.

As for the forum names, you're right, we should tweak that.

[Lost Dog]

Originally Posted by Lou Schuler

Roland, we get into all that in the new book. We don't use the phrase "Q angle," but we talk about knee injuries and the link to quad dominance.

Like the nutrition information, the issue of gender-specific muscle imbalance was new to me, and I was really surprised to see how big a problem it is. Without training designed to improve posterior-chain strength and correct the imbalance, sports and fitness activities actually exacerbate it as young female athletes mature.

With boys it's the opposite -- in a sport like soccer, the boys grow out of their natural quad dominance. Put another way, as all their lower-body muscles get stronger, their extensors grow proportionally stronger compared to their flexors.

So female athletes start out with a somewhat greater imbalance, and with maturity and conditioning the imbalance actually becomes more severe.

That's not the sole reason for the higher rate of knee injuries in girls and women, but the current thinking is that it accounts for a lot of them. Of course, the best solution is training to correct the imbalance, which is a big part of the focus in NROL for Women. When I did the workouts, I could feel them hitting my lower-body muscles in new ways.

Good. So, does that mean that a woman who really likes to run can use NROL For Women to set herself up for healthier running?

[stingo]

Originally Posted by Lost Dog

Good. So, does that mean that a woman who really likes to run can use NROL For Women to set herself up for healthier running?

I was wondering the same thing - I persuaded a woman I know that does triathlons to try NROL, so was wondering if NROL4W would be a better fit.

[Lou Schuler]

Philosophically, this book is different from NROL in that it assumes the women reading it already do more than lift.

Chapter 12 is called "Extra Stuff to Do," and it talks about how to balance different types of exercise with Alwyn's total-body strength workouts.

One particular focus is on interval-type training. Half of Alwyn's workouts use intervals at the end, so I caution readers against doing another type of workout that incorporates a mix of intensities (such as Spinning classes) the day before or after those workouts.

With any book, I try to anticipate the questions readers are going to have, and make sure the answers are in the text so they don't have to go elsewhere to find them. But I know from experience that I can never guess all or even most of them.

With NROL for Women, I can guess that there'll be a lot of questions about mixing different types of training. I really hope women who do multiple types of workouts will come in here and help readers. There's not going to be a single answer that applies to everybody, so I hope we get a range of opinions and shared experiences.

You guys know I'm worthless on endurance-training issues, so any backup I can get will be much appreciated.

[vanessa40]

I can't wait to read the nutrition section
That has always been my biggest problem..