Habits and Hustle
Episode 435: Dr. Stacy Sims: Workout Like a Woman Not a "Little Man" + How To Train Based on Hormones
Tue, 25 Mar 2025
Ever wonder why your fitness routine doesn't yield the same results as your male workout partner's? In this episode on the Habits and Hustle podcast, I talk with exercise physiologist and nutrition scientist Dr. Stacy Sims, as she reveals that women's bodies respond completely differently to exercise due to our unique physiology. We dive into the importance of tailored training protocols for women, especially during different life stages such as puberty, perimenopause, and menopause. We also discuss essential supplements, the implications of using Ozempic for weight loss, the benefits of exercise over pharmaceutical interventions, and underrated health tips. Dr. Stacy Sims is a forward-thinking exercise physiologist and nutrition scientist with an MSc and PhD who specializes in female-specific training, nutrition, and health. Named one of the top visionaries in the running industry and featured as one of the top women changing the paradigm of her field by Outside Magazine, she is the author of the groundbreaking book ROAR and creator of the "Women Are Not Small Men" philosophy. Dr. Sims has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers, directed research programs at Stanford, AUT University, and the University of Waikato, and continues to advocate for women's health through her courses, speaking engagements, and research. What We Discuss: 02:58 Understanding Women's Physiology 06:00 The Importance of Tailored Training for Women 10:08 Injury Risks and Biomechanics in Women 14:02 Navigating Perimenopause and Menopause 19:54 Effective Training Strategies for Women 25:03 The Role of High-Intensity Training 29:58 Jump Training and Bone Health 35:15 Understanding Ground Reaction Forces 35:43 Fasting and Women's Health 38:38 Hormonal Sensitivity and Nutrition 40:24 Protein Needs for Women 42:13 Plant-Based Protein Sources 45:38 Essential Supplements for Women's Health 49:41 Peptides and Their Efficacy 50:58 The Ozempic Craze 54:17 Microdosing and Inflammation 56:20 Training Across Different Life Stages 01:01:55 Underrated and Overrated Health Tips 01:03:40 Saunas vs. Cold Therapy …and more! Thank you to our sponsors: AquaTru: Get 20% off any purifier at aquatru.com with code HUSTLE Therasage: Head over to therasage.com and use code Be Bold for 15% off TruNiagen: Head over to truniagen.com and use code HUSTLE20 to get $20 off any purchase over $100. Magic Mind: Head over to www.magicmind.com/jen and use code Jen at checkout. BiOptimizers: Want to try Magnesium Breakthrough? Go to https://bioptimizers.com/jennifercohen and use promo code JC10 at checkout to save 10% off your purchase. Timeline Nutrition: Get 10% off your first order at timeline.com/cohen Air Doctor: Go to airdoctorpro.com and use promo code HUSTLE for up to $300 off and a 3-year warranty on air purifiers. Bio.me: Link to daily prebiotic fiber here, code Jennifer20 for 20% off. Momentous: Shop this link and use code Jen for 20% off Find more from Jen: Website: https://www.jennifercohen.com/ Instagram: @therealjencohen Books: https://www.jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: https://www.jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagement Find more from Dr. Stacy Sims: Website: https://www.drstacysims.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drstacysims
Chapter 1: Why should women train differently than men?
Dr. Stacey Sims, I want you to know that I've been a fan of your work for, I just said this earlier, but for years, because I saw your TED Talk on basically how women are not these little men. And, you know, the fact that you've been out there, like you said, talking about women and how women are not like men and they shouldn't be training like men and blah, blah.
I want you to kind of talk from your words, like what you do and why it's so important.
Yeah. So I started as an athlete and an academic and an academic in sports science and nutrition. And all the things that we are learning in class didn't really apply to me as an athlete or my teammates. So that really started the question of what are we doing? And as you started digging in, realizing that there really wasn't very much research on women.
And even when you're looking at the textbooks and textbook pictures of representation, they're all male, male bodies. So that was so many decades ago. And ever since then, I've been really trying to dig into both research and the application of research to get women to understand that their bodies are different. We have different physiology from birth. We have hormone fluctuations.
And these affect every system of the body. And we respond to training differently than men. We respond to stress differently than men. And the more we dig into it, the more we realize there's a lot of research to be done. So the research that we do have, I'm really adamant about getting it out so women can be empowered to understand what is going on.
Because face it, we put as much work into our training and we take time out of our day to really work on our health and well-being. So it should be appropriate for us. We shouldn't be fighting the battle against our own bodies because of protocols based on male data.
So that's my mission across the lifespan is to get women from puberty all the way through postmenopause up to speed about what their bodies are doing and how they can modify or alter what they're doing to get the best benefits.
Right. Because, you know, I think a lot of times a woman and a man can do the same workout, eat the same food, do all the same training, and the results are very, very different. And it's frustrating. I mean, it's frustrating for me anyway, right? Yeah. So true. And, you know, a lot of times I would kind of, you know, people chalk it up to genetics or that men just have more muscle mass on them.
Can you kind of go, I mean, this is what the podcast is about, but can we talk about how you see how men should train versus women and what women should be doing across the evolution of the different timelines in their life, 20, 30, 40, 50?
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Chapter 2: What are the physiological differences in women's bodies?
Yeah, for sure. I like to kind of start this conversation when we look at the sex differences that exist at birth. So that's like without our hormone fluctuations from our menstrual cycle and stuff. So when we look at XX versus XY, because that's the primary area of research that we have. Very binary, but that's all we have at the moment.
If you are born XX, then you have more endurant type fibers. So your slow twitch, your oxidative, very aerobic type fibers. And with that comes a lot of mitochondria work. So that means your body's really able to take fatty acids and use it, use oxygen and go long and slow.
When we look at XY, they're born with more of the fast-twitch glycolytic power-based fibers, so good at speed, good at quick reaction time, good at doing super high-intensity work, and they have to work on developing that aerobic system.
So as we feed forward and see at the onset of puberty what happens is there's another divergence where with what we call the epigenetic exposure or the situational change that happens with estrogen, progesterone, to some extent testosterone in girls, we have a change in all of our biomechanics. So our center of gravity goes from being up in the chest area down to the hip area.
Our hips widen, our shoulder girdle widens, but we're not told about this. So we feel ungangly in our bodies. We aren't taught how to run again, how to jump, how to swing, how to land or any of those things. They're just, well, you are at this point, you get your period. We know girls drop out of sport, but it has to do with the fact that the actual biomechanics of the body have changed.
So when we start looking at all of these trends that are out there and about doing like zone two work and improving our aerobic capacity and trying to do ketogenic diet for improving our fat burning capacity, all that's based on male data. Because being born that XX, you already have all of that capacity.
What we need to work on throughout our entire life is working on that power base and the fast twitch. And I say that because we want to be able to produce power. We want to be able to run fast, to jump, to land, to have good coordination. But more than that, when we look at longevity and we see this is really important in peri and postmenopausal that we keep producing lactate for brain health.
Because if we keep producing lactate from that fast twitch and that higher intensity work that we've been trying to build throughout our life, we are slowing the rate and the risk for Alzheimer's and dementia. So when we see that sex difference in Alzheimer's and dementia, it comes down to the type of muscle fibers and the metabolism that we've been exposed to throughout our life.
So that's why it's like, okay, if we look from birth all the way through to the end of life, There are unique things that women need to do to keep progressing and improving their health for longevity and performance, whereas men are more of a linear because they don't have all of these changes that women have with regards to biomechanics and hormone exposure.
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Chapter 3: How do biomechanics affect women's injury risk?
And when we're looking at things like what FIFAS put out for warm-up, it's all about warming up the posterior chain and trying to get those muscles firing as a counteract to some of those cutting motions that predispose women to ligamental tears. We also see that as we get into perimenopause, there is a definitive increase in plantar fascia issues and frozen shoulder or bursts in your shoulder.
And that has to do with the changing of the tensile strength in the ligaments as well as a weakening in the muscle contraction. So again, we're looking at what do we need to do to prevent that. We need to keep the strengthening and the faster type power-based action to create an environment that reduces injury, reduces the inflammation of the tendons, and allows better range of motion.
So when we look at men who are in their 40s, rarely do we hear about a plantar fascia issue. You look at women in their 40s, it's one of the leading issues that make them go see a physical therapist or an osteo or a chiro. It's an inherent sex difference, right? I can see you're like, you've probably experienced it.
I'm laughing, crying and laughing at the same time because I've had, I'm in my 40s. I had the frozen shoulder for two years almost. It's finally now dissipated. And I had the plantar fasciitis. And I didn't realize that those were two things that went with my age. I had no clue until I went down. I thought maybe I like pulled a muscle in my shoulder.
And the guy was like, no, you have a frozen shoulder. And I'm like, what the hell is that? Like, how does someone get that? They're like, you're old, basically, is what he said to me, right? And I never understood, like, I get the ACL because you're right. Like, we are quad dominant, right? And women tend to do those lunges and those squats. But the frozen shoulder, I didn't understand.
I did not understand that.
Yeah, so frozen shoulder has to do with we have a wider shoulder girdle because our hips have widened. But if you think about all the metrics that we've taught to do push-ups, pull-ups, they're all in a grip strength or a grip width that's based on male data.
male physiology because you know if you go to do a pull-up and you're a bit wider like no more narrow so it puts a lot of strain where it shouldn't same with push-ups they're trying to teach you to be really tight and use more tricep but our shoulders as women we need to be wider so it's just that inherent that we're and we tend to like when we get our 40s we're like okay yeah i really i most of us have a challenge and we want to accomplish so it could be a push-up or pull-up or we start doing more up
and push-pull motions, and even like lifting things overhead, groceries and all that kind of stuff. It's just the mechanics that we are not taught how to actually maximize with our wider shoulders. And you couple that with changes in our estrogen-progesterone ratio, which changes tensile strength and the actual texture kind of of our tendons and our bursa, and it just comes on.
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Chapter 4: What training strategies are effective for perimenopausal women?
So a lot of it is you're dropping your traps and you're pulling back. So you're doing a lot of rhomboid work. You're also looking at where you're placing to be able to use more of your back muscles when you're doing a push-up. Also back muscles when using a pull-up instead of relying on the shoulders. And the same when you go to lift something up.
Most of the time we're lifting, we're hitching our shoulders. If we're thinking about dropping our traps and we're using our back muscles to pick something up and then extending through the hips to lift it up, we're reducing the load in our shoulders and in that rotation. which reduces the whole onset of injury or soft tissue damage that can perpetuate injury.
And what about for ACL issues to kind of strengthen? What do you think is the best way to strengthen our posterior chain?
All the glute work where you're thinking about deadlifts, you're thinking about Romanian deadlifts, you're thinking about hip or glute bridges, hip thrusts, all of those things, right? And really focusing on getting the hips strong. And a lot of other things that can perpetuate it is we have weak and tight hip flexors.
So really working on developing that hip flexor strength so we can lift the hip and the leg up and over instead of stumbling.
Oh, that's good. Right. And so, but as we get older, we talked about, you were saying like, as you're getting into perimenopause, menopause, let's stay with that because I think my audience can appreciate that. And that's something that I feel like that's become super trendy now too. Like I don't remember, maybe because I'm at that age, I'm seeing it more or is it something that- No, it's come up.
Right?
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, absolutely. And it's scary because the conversation has not been out there. And now it's a buzzword and everybody's grabbing onto it. And there's a lot of misinformation that's being spread. And...
from a scientific point of view where I've been in the whole perimenopause, menopause research world for 15 or so years to all of a sudden see the conversation out there and people are misconstruing a lot of the research or they're in one camp bucket of pharmaceuticals or one camp bucket of suffering through it and none of it's actually right. And then there's just so much, it's just so noisy.
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Chapter 5: How does high-intensity training differ from typical classes?
So as a physiologist, I'm going to explain what's happening on the undercurrent of everything. So we look at estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone, and they affect every system of the body.
So when we start losing the higher doses and pulses of estrogen, and we have more and more anovulatory cycles, so we don't necessarily produce progesterone, every system gets affected, specifically bone and muscle. So we'll have women who are complaining about waking up feeling squishy overnight and they can't even open like the jar of pickles because they don't have the strength.
And they're like, what's happened? That's an estrogen effect. Because when you look at how estrogen affects skeletal muscle and the feedback mechanism for strength and power development, it's in every part. It's on the satellite cell to develop more muscle fibers. It's on the nerve endings to be able to say, yep, let's create a really fast nerve conduction mechanism.
across the gap junction to be able to fire a lot of fibers to create a strong contraction. And it's also part of the contractile proteins itself to be able to grab together to create a strong contraction. So when you lose estrogen, you're losing the impetus for those three main points of strength and lean mass development. So when I start explaining this, people are like, shit, now what do I do?
It's like, okay, well, now we want to look at a nervous system response. Because if we can find an external stress that's going to create the same cascade feedback mechanisms that estrogen did, then we can keep progressing. And that is strength training. But it's not lightweight, going to failure type stuff.
We have to take a page out of the power-based work where we're looking at zero to six reps. We're doing heavy loads. We have lots of recovery between those loads because we're trying to really stimulate the central nervous system and peripheral nervous system to say, you know what?
I've got to have a lot of muscle fibers and I need to be able to recruit them quickly to have a very strong contraction to withstand that stress and load. So now we can build lean mass, strength and power without estrogen.
So when we're looking at perimenopause, we have to look at all the systems that are being affected and we have to look at that external stress to apply to the body to create the adaptations that we want. So when we look at it, it's all about the intensity and the quality of the work. It's not about volume.
So like I said earlier, where zone two is not really appropriate for women, at this point, it doesn't really do much for women at all. Because when you take away our sex hormones, we're really endurant. We're really fatigue resistant. We burn a lot of fat. So we have to look at how do we polarize it. We want to do some true high intensity work.
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Chapter 6: Why is jump training important for women's health?
There are so many women in the past about six months that have come saying, I don't understand what's going on. I got my DEXA scan and I go to these classes. I go to boot camp. I go to Les Mills. I go to Orange Theory. I'm osteopenic and I have a very high amount of visceral fat. I'm like, okay, well, there's two things. One, you're probably not eating enough.
And two, you're putting yourself under this moderate intensity load almost every day and Your body has no chance to recover and polarize and understand that it needs to step up its game to be able to answer the challenge of exercise because it's not getting the feedback to actually adapt. It's getting the feedback to stay tired but wired and in a stressed state like you have to run from a bear.
Wow. So if I were to do like a weighted bet, like if I wore a weighted vest and went for an inclined walk on a treadmill at a low pace, would that be more beneficial than doing Orange Theory class for perimenopause?
Sure. Yeah, no. I get this in too. Because of the weighted vest. So if we look at the weighted vest, that changes your biomechanics. Because like I was saying earlier, our center of gravity is down in our hips. So if you're putting a weighted vest on, you're putting all the weight up here, which is not where our center of gravity is. So that changes your biomechanics.
And this is why you see a lot of women are like, oh, I've got a tendon issue. I've got an Achilles issue, which then develops into plantar fascia problems. It would be better to get on that treadmill without the weighted vest, but holding two heavy dumbbells and trying to do farmer's carry five minutes on, two minutes off on that incline.
So you're getting strength, high intensity work, and then some recovery in between.
I love that you said that. So, you know, it's really funny. I'm laughing and giggling because I get all these questions all the time about what do I do? Should I do this or that or this? And, you know, weighted vests have become like, again, it's like the new kale. The thing. Like everything. There's all these trends that like come and go.
And, you know, then all of a sudden, all the same people who are wearing these weighted vests are now complaining of their foot is hurting. Their Achilles is hurting. They can't walk. Because the weight from here is going down to your foot because it's not properly balanced. Right.
Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.
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