Hi, I'm Kevin Don, the Get Fit Guy, and this week I would like to risk alienating 50% of the population by discussing the question, should women be training differently from men?

Now, this is a topic that can be touchy with literally no need, because the goal of a coach or of a participant is just to be armed with the best information.

Men and women have different needs,

and the best training plans take that into account.

I'll also note that in this episode, I'll be focusing on cisgender athletes.

Now, earlier this week, I read an article on BBC news titled, Why are so many women footballers, soccer players for you Americans and Ozies listening,

suffering from ACL injuries? Now, this is something I actually have great insight into. I dated a

professional female soccer player

who represents her country, played at the Olympics and in the Champions League, and I have another

good friend who also represents her country internationally at soccer. So this might be beginning

to sound like a soccer-specific episode, but it's not, because the reasons why women get so many non-contact knee injuries playing soccer is the same reason they get them in all sports and even in their training.

So let's just be clear firstly, there are major differences between men and women.

Some are anatomical and some unsurprisingly are

economic, especially in professional sports. First up, anatomical differences. Women give birth.

Men don't. This means the pelvis is shaped very differently. This difference in pelvis shape to allow childbirth means that the head of the femur or

the thigh bone is generally set out wider from the knee than in men.

This is called the angle of cue because it forms an angle which is on average 16 degrees larger

in women than in men, resulting in uneven loading at the knee.

As you can see, this already might be a clue as to why women footballers have more non-contact knee injuries.

The next anatomical difference is called the intercondylum notch width. This sounds super fancy, but

basically if you drew like a cartoon bone, you'd likely have those two lumps or bumps at the end.

Now, in men, those are larger and set further apart, and in women, the notch between the two lumps

...