The answer is, no, but also, yes. Let’s dive deeper here…

NO because at the end of the day, a great routine should implement forms of resistance, cardiovascular, and mobility/flexibility training. This holds true matter what you’ve got sporting in between your legs! Each gender will build lean muscle, burn fat, and improve posture/mobility if on a proper routine that focuses on a good combination of resistance, cardiovascular, and mobility/flexibility training.

YES because usually, men and women usually have different goals. Most guys will want to have a stronger looking chest, and ripped arms. While most girls want to make their legs more defined, and their glutes more lifted. This could obviously be flipped, but after working with hundreds of diferent people, i’ve come to find that males and females have completely different physique goals.

Try to follow the golden rule of Specific Adaptations to Imposed Demands (SAID for short).

Basically SAID = your body gets more efficient at certain activities based on the demands that you place on it. For example, if you want to run a marathon (26.2 miles), you need to CONSISTENTLY practice running on a weekly basis, and continually improve your mileage on a weekly basis to ADAPT to running so many miles.

If you are looking to shape up your glutes and have a stronger lower body, you shouldn’t be training like you would for a marathon. That would be BANANAS!! You’ll get great at running, your cardiovascular systems will work efficiently, but you aren’t going to get stronger, better looking glutes! You really need to stress out your glute muscles, by training them a bit more frequently. You see, the more you “stress out” a particular muscle, the more the muscle will adapt. It will adapt by gaining strength as the muscle fibers become damaged (thats where you get that sore feeling from). THIS IS A GREAT THING! As you continually damage the muscle fibers, the muscle will grow back stronger, and leaner.

If you want your shoulders and arms to look more ripped and defined, GUESS WHAT?! You’ve got to put a focus on more consistent upper body strength and hypertrophy work! This kind of goal would merit much more sets and reps for the big upper body movements (Bench Pressing, Rowing, Pull-Ups), as well as specific single joint/arm training (variations of bicep/tricep exercises with different set/rep ranges).

Here are some examples of what i’m talking about. These situations are generalized, and a full program would be MUCH more detailed than this, but this will give you a decent idea as to what kind of routine would be setup for someone based on their goals…

CASE A: Female who want’s a stronger and leaner lower body, and to have more defined arms

For this particular case, I would program a week like so…

• Day 1- Lower Body Strength Work
• Day 2- Upper Body Strength Work
• Day 3- HIIT + Arm Conditioning
• Day 4 – Rest
• Day 5 – Glute + Leg Endurance/Hypertrophy
• Day 6 – Upper Body Endurance/Hypertrophy
• Day 7 – Rest

CASE B: Male who wants to build a stronger back, shoulders, and chest

• Day 1- Upper Body Push/Pull Strength
• Day 2- Shoulder Strength
• Day 3- Lower Body Push/Pull Strength
• Day 4- Rest
• Day 5- Upper body Push/Pull Hypertrophy
• Day 6- Lower Body Conditioning + Shoulder Hypertrophy
• Day 7- Rest

No matter what your gender, a good program will be well rounded, which will enable you to build a great structure to which your body can call home. If there are muscle groups you would like to focus on, a proper program will focus on that muscle group with a bit more intensity, which will yield more results for that particular area. Remember to follow the rule of SAID!

No matter what your goal may be, its safe to say that you need to be SPECIFIC in your approach.

A GENERALIZED program will give you GENERALIZED results. Take the quiz below so that I can tailor you a SPECIFIC program that will fast track your health and fitness success!