Habits and Hustle - Episode 340: Men vs Women: Training Styles, Cardio, Muscle, and More with Liron Kayvan.

Episode Date: April 26, 2024

Women, have you ever wondered if you should be training differently than men? Tune into today’s episode!  In this episode, Liron and I dive into the often debated question of whether women should train differently than men. Our discussion explores the psychological and physiological aspects of exercise preferences and the importance of a well-rounded fitness routine. We address the tendency for women to gravitate towards cardiovascular exercises, often due to concerns about building too much muscle or appearing "bulky." However, we emphasize that women are meant to lift weights just as much as men and that doing so offers numerous benefits, especially as we age, including improved bone density, muscle mass, and metabolism. Throughout the discussion, we stress the importance of symmetrical training for both men and women, highlighting the aesthetic and functional benefits of working the upper body. While we acknowledge that the best exercise is the one you'll actually do, we encourage listeners to embrace shorter, more intense workouts for optimal results. Liron Kayvan founded BFLA in 2019. He’s a NASM Certified Group Fitness Instructor, Personal Trainer, and Transformative Life Coach. Liron has competed in Amateur MMA, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and Rugby and has been a Fitness Coach for over 10 years. What we discuss:  Should women train differently than men?  Psychologically women gravitate toward cardiovascular exercises.  Why symmetrical training is important.  The best exercise is the one you’ll do.  Shorter, more intense workouts are better.  Thank you to our sponsor: Therasage: Head over to therasage.com and use code Be Bold for 15% off To learn more about Liron Kayvan:  Website: https://www.beyondfitnessla.com/  Instagram: @beyondfitnessla Find more from Jen: Website: https://www.jennifercohen.com/ Instagram: @therealjencohen Books: https://www.jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: https://www.jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagements Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it! Before we dive into today's episode, I first want to thank our sponsor, Therisage. Their Tri-Lite panel has become my favorite biohacking thing for healing my body. It's a portable red light panel that I simply cannot live without. I literally bring it with me everywhere I go and I personally use their red light therapy to help reduce inflammations in places in my body where honestly I have pain. You can use it on a sore back, stomach cramps, shoulder, ankle. Red light therapy is my go-to. Plus it also has amazing anti-aging benefits, including reducing signs of fine lines and wrinkles on your face, which I also use it for. I personally use Therisage Trilite everywhere and use code BeBold for 15% off.

This code will work site-wide. Again, head over to Therasage.com and use code BeBold for 15% off any of their products. Hi everybody. Welcome to another episode of Fitness Friday with, well today we'll be with a friend. I'm with my friend LeRae Ron who is a trainer, a fitness coach in LA who I adore and I've worked out with him many a times. And we are discussing today what I think a lot of people are curious about, which is training

styles for men and women. Do you feel as a trainer that you should train women should train differently than men, or they can train the same? They can train the same. I think it's just the differences personality and preference. Women tend to have different personalities than men and different preferences to men. And so within that framework, like if you enjoy the workout, don't be afraid. Like if I was speaking to women, don't be afraid. Like they're scared

to lift weights because of some absolute bullsh- Can I say bullsh-? You just did. Yeah. Well, there you go. Bullsh- from social conditioning and stuff. Women are meant to lift weights just as much as men are going to lift weights. They're not going to get as big and muscular, generally speaking, because they have different hormones. And hormones are what dictate how much muscle and where your muscle is going to be placed. So women are going to have different strength levels and be able to put different levels of muscle on based on their hormones because men and women are different biologically,

no matter what anyone says. So they don't have to worry about putting on too much muscle or getting bulky or getting unattractive. Women can lift. I don't think that you need to have a different training program for men and for women. What I believe, I think, I think I'm a woman, is that... Who knows these days. Yeah, right? I think this, I think that women tend to, they gravitate more to cardiovascular exercises.

Men gravitate a lot of times to more heavy strength training. And it's a really hard transition for a lot of women. Like I deal with this. Like I'm a cardio junkie. And even though I know psychologically, I actually know, I know theoretically that lifting weights is way better for my overall health with bone density, muscle mass, my metabolism, the benefits, especially as you get older. But just because you know something doesn't necessarily you like act on that thing, right?

With men, men love to lift weights because they want to get swole, they want to get more muscular, blah, blah, blah. The funny thing is, it is actually very interesting because the women who actually do the strength training and will, they will do the strength training and very little cardiovascular exercise tend to look the best. They tend to be more toned. They tend to look more fit because I think cardio, especially high intensity cardio, if you're doing for long bouts of time, it breaks down your muscle mass and it makes you look flabby. It sort of stimulates your appetite.

Well, it's going to say. And the other thing is it makes you really hungry. But even if we know that information to be true, a lot of times we still psychologically will do the alternative because it feels good in the moment. So this is something really about instant gratification versus delayed gratification.

Because if you're someone who can do delayed gratification, definitely strength training. But for instant gratification, like getting that true dopamine hit, those endorphins going through the roof, it's cardio. And this is for me, because I know for me, but I know for a lot of girls like myself, that's the issue.

So I think it comes down to not so much even the training. Like, yes, men and women should train the same but I think on a psychological spot it's very different because where women go they think oh my god I want to be skinny and if I want to be skinny I have to do an hour at least of cardio but the funny thing is you'll actually get more body fat that way long term long term you'll actually get more body fat that way. Long term, yeah. Long term. You'll lose weight short term doing cardio, but not long term because then your body becomes

very used to doing that amount of cardio. Oh yeah, and you're kind of breaking your metabolism. Well yeah, and then once your body becomes like, it becomes your baseline, like oh my, your body's now accustomed to doing an hour of cardio, you'll plateau. And then to break that plateau, you'll have to do an hour and 20 minutes. And then also you get exhausted, your body, you then let's talk about the adrenals that you're, you get burnt out on. So that's my personal belief system. But when you train people for women, for men, have you noticed yourself that like the women who do the weights like end up looking way better than the ones who do cardio?

Yeah. I mean, my training self, a personal training, which I'm kind of transitioning away from, but for personal training, I do half an hour sessions and I don't do cardio. And that's the same for men and women. I don't significantly change my training for men and women. A lot of what I have to do is break this conditioning that women have that they need to be on the treadmill for an hour a day and eat salads and celery and all this.

It's just so much nonsense. Like having been in the game for a long time, it just looks laughable to me, but it's very seductive to people. But do you do heavyweight with women? So if you're doing a 30 minute session. So, so I actually focus more on, on lower body with women because women just tend to, they also have more, women tend to have more muscle relative to their body on their lower body than men.

Men generally tend to be a bit more top heavy. And there's a reason for that. There's, uh, androgen receptors that men have because of testosterone and there's a whole biochemistry behind that. Well tell me what is it? You're saying men carry more weight? Muscle. More muscle, sorry. Upper body? Yes.

That's true. This is why a man can do a pull-up relatively easily and a woman would have to train for a long time. Can you do pull-ups? Yeah, that's a great one. You're one in what? One in a hundred, realistically? That's actually very true. That's a very good point. So men have way more muscular strength upper body wise. That's why pull ups, they can like, they can like rep them out. And women have more muscle on their lower body. That's why men, you see these men who are like really swole, they've got these

small little legs because they're not working their legs. But yeah, pull-ups, so what I like to say, what I like to tell women all the time is they need to start working their upper body because they gravitate naturally to their lower body because number one, it's easier. It's more, it's an easier thing to do. It's easier to do a squat than to do a pull-up. But here is the secret secret guys and ladies. If you actually

work your upper body, you will look symmetrically way better. So if you are carrying more weight on your lower body, actually work your upper body more. Because if you have broader shoulders, your lower body looks way smaller and you get that V. So it's all about like optical illusion and symmetrical training. So I train my upper body a lot. I have like a big butt. I don't care about it. I'm not saying it's good or bad, not whatever. But because I have a big butt, I need to work my shoulders more or else I'll just look, what do you call it? Disproportion. Yeah.

I mean, there's a trick that I just try it. There you go. Well, yeah, both. That's why I said at the beginning, I don't significantly train differently men and women. They're pretty similar. Everyone is going to train all their muscle groups. Everyone is going to lift weights and there's going to be an element of cardio that is not excessive for both groups. In fact, but you do 30 minute workouts. I do 30 minutes all the time

for personal training. Yeah. For one-on-one, but I also teach boxing classes, which are an hour because you need some technique in there too. And... Also it's good for your brain. Like when you're doing boxing or anything that has technique in it, it's good for your brain to be confused. Like then your body doesn't get confused. That's another trick. Like if you have to think about things that don't come naturally, it helps you with like just your brain power. That's how you learn is through awkwardness. I say this to people all the time. Like if something feels awkward, especially when they first start boxing, it doesn't matter, you're

boxing, dancing, whatever it is, playing guitar. Whenever you're learning, whenever you're doing something awkward, that's people are scared of that because we're like, oh, we want to be good and we want to be polished and we want to be perfect at everything. That's not how learning works. Learning works. The awkwardness is where learning happens. That's the learning curve. Yeah, I agree. I also think for stuff like that, do what you love. If you're going to have to do, because the truth is to be holistically, when I say fit,

I mean all of the things, like strong, cardio, cardiovascularly strength, mobility, flexibility, like do cardio. That's fun. Like I like to dance. I'm mad at it. Like you was like, I mean, I'm the worst dancer. Yeah, I've seen you. You've got some, I've seen your TikTok. I have a little, okay, fine.

I'm really not great. I mean, compared to like my husband, who's like literally a backstreet boy, it's like embarrassing. And my daughter's like a competitive dancer. I have two left feet. But my point is like things could be fun. Like fitness can be fun. It has to be fun. Like the biggest question or the biggest thing I always get people ask me is like what's the best thing to do? And I always say the best thing to do is the thing

that you'll actually do. If I was to give one, like one takeaway from today, it would be that like fitness should be the thing that you're going to, you have to do it like a lot and you're only going to do it a lot if you enjoy it. And our society loves to tell people to do shit they don't want to do. And that's why people fail all the time. I mean, there are times you have to push through there are definitely times Where you have to you're not in the mood But I always say think about how you're gonna feel when you leave the workout not when you get to that

That's what I always say. Did you steal that from me? No, great minds think alike. I love that. Okay guys So I guess some takeaways from this episode would be women and men should train very similarly from this episode would be women and men should train very similarly. It's more psychological than anything that women are much more, they gravitate to cardio. But a couple of great tips is if you are a woman, don't forget to train your upper body. If you also want for symmetrical, just for vanity purposes,

having that symmetrical look, it helps with getting that V shape taper. Do something that you actually like to do. The best exercise is a thing that you're actually going to do versus what someone tells you to do. Doing things consistently, what else did we say? You say you do one of your tips. Shorter more intense workouts. Don't drag ass for one hour if you can go hard and go home in 30 minutes. Don't drag ass for one hour if you can go hard and go home in 30 minutes. Don't drag ass for one hour is what Leroy says. That's not my wording.

And what else did we say? What are some other tips that we can give people to kind of... Don't be afraid of weights. Don't be scared of them. People know that, but again, it's like try to get over the fear of weights if you're a woman who's scared. If you want to be skinny, I think that's like a mindset a lot of women have. Can I add one thing on men and women?

I think something I've noticed, and this is a bit more of a tangent, but like men tend to wildly over-exaggerate what they think is attractive, what women think are attractive. I don't know about men and women and women and women, but like if a man wants to attract women, I'm assuming most people do, most men do, they tend to over exaggerate how much muscle they need. Right? I've found that most women are attracted to like a soccer player type, which is reasonably muscled, but like, especially in America, some people would say skin, right? Look at David Beckham. Right. Right. Look at the guys who all the women want and they're usually like lean.

They're not usually, I don't believe in this dad bod thing. I think that's kind of made up, but it's not even me. I'm probably too muscular for most. What's a dad bod by the way? Is it like having a beer belly? I don't know. I'm a dad and this is my body. So I don't know.

Am I wrong? I know. And you're a soccer player if you're tuning your own horn. First women like soccer player looks. I think a dad bod is an excuse for letting yourself go. I know, I'm deceiving you. Fair enough. And women do the opposite in the same way on the other side

where they think you need to be real thin. And I like, dude, my friends are like, she's too skinny, she needs to like eat. Like they say it all the time. And I think nowadays you get like a lot of this plastic stuff. That's a whole new world with like plastic butts and plastic faces and guys do not find... I've seen so many women just go from like a nine or whatever to like a three because they just become fake. So this is a great topic.

Let's talk about that. Okay you guys have to listen to the next topic, because, I mean, the next episode, because we're gonna go into that. I think that's super true and like fascinating. Okay, guys, remember, if you have not subscribed, please do, it helps us get traction so we get better guests and we get better content. Yeah, because you have to sell for me.

Yeah. And thank you, Liron, for joining me. And guys, have a great day. See you soon. Bye. Bye.