Any reason women don’t grunt, at least loudly, during their gym workouts?
Is this an alpha male thing or what?
Sure, some hardcore women do make vocal sounds when pushing out those last few heavy reps, but when compared to men, women are pretty quiet when lifting THEIR maxes.
Any women grunters out there at gyms during your workouts? The term “grunting” is ambiguous, and I’ve actually heard women grunting at the gym.
But they are little grunts, soft grunts, nothing conspicuous or loud … that is, nothing like what the men do.
And by the way, sometimes the loudest grunters at the gym are 40-something men who look like they spend all day in an office cubicle analyzing finance reports.
But back to the main question: Where are the women loud grunters?
I grunt during leg presses, seated dips (a ton of weight on my lap), and one day I grunted towards the end of a pec deck set. It wasn’t a loud grunt, but a woman nearby heard it and stared at me.
I asked her, if I were a man, would she had taken notice. She said no, and that really got her thinking … about the double standard … that women shouldn’t grunt at the gym.
Men who defend loud, obnoxious grunting that can be heard all over the gym insist that it’s necessary to perform super heavy lifts.
Shutterstock/UfaBizPhoto
From this claim, one may deduce that women don’t loudly grunt, or grunt at all at the gym, because they can’t lift heavy enough.
This reasoning is severely flawed. If a 115-pound woman is doing what is her 8-rep max on the leg press, it is just as difficult to her, as a 630-pound leg press is to a 200-pound man.
It’s all relative! This small woman with much weaker legs must strain just as much as that big guy with the huge quads. So why doesn’t she grunt loudly? Why doesn’t she holler and yell?
It’s because she’s not seeking attention. It’s that simple. A 180-pound leg press to this tiny woman is just as dastardly difficult as the 630-pound leg press is to the man who’s twice her size.
But she doesn’t holler … and we have to believe this is due to a certain mindset rather than a chemical imbalance involving muscle fibers.
And not all men who loudly grunt perform heavy lifts, nor are those lifts usually the deadlift, back squat or bench press, oddly enough.
Men have actually loudly grunted using the pec deck machine!
So this excuse that lifting very heavy justifies all the obnoxious noisemaking is not the least bit valid.
And I once witnessed a woman — yes, a woman — deadlift 405 pounds for eight reps. No loud grunting. I was close enough to know for sure that there was no loud grunting from this woman.
I didn’t hear anything, actually. I’ve also seen her shoulder shrug 450 pounds … again, no noise. Guys, this is something to think about.
Lorra Garrick is a former personal trainer certified through the American Council on Exercise. At Bally Total Fitness she trained women and men of all ages for fat loss, muscle building, fitness and improved health.
.
