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Comments
I workout hard and enjoy the benefits, my legs are more muscular than my husband's and much stronger. My upper body is as stronger or stronger and gaining strength faster than him. I workout while he's at work but he exercises two or three times a week while I do about four to fives times a week. I'm going to be way stronger than him as time goes by. Over all I'm more muscular but he is three inches taller. Last year my boyfriend beat me at armwrestling and later wrestled me and pinned me down. I don't know why but I was embarrised about loosing and angry about being pinned down. My father had a weight set in the garage doing nothing but collecting dust. I brought the dumbells to my room and finally mosted the bench and weights to the patio for me to use. It's been about 8 months since I started to use the weights and I already have muscles and gained lots of strength. I use my dumbells before school and the weights on the patio in the afternoon and usually the dumbells again before I go to bed. Now I can compare my muscles to my boyfriends and he's concerned if not scared! I like to see his face when he sees me make a muscle. I also beat him at armwrestling with right and left arms. Then I messed around playing mercy and had him shaking and asking me to stop! I will make him wrestle me soon but he hasn't taken the lead in starting it. I like how he looks at my muscles and even caught him feeling his own arm before I let him feel my muscles. ShawnaJun 02 2007 11:42am It seems like a funny question but I get concerned about my brother being stronger so I use his dumbell weights all the time. Even more than he does. He doesn't work his legs much and mine are bigger and have more muscles. I think my arms are probibly just as his strong now. TerryJun 03 2007 9:27am Hey Terry, how old are you and your brother. Do you have strength competitions? Years ago my neighbor girl was stronger than all of the boys in elementary school, and she had big hard biceps that put the boys to shame. A big part of her identity was being the girl who could overpower or outfight boys. When she was about 14 some of the boys started catching up to her. One scrawny but macho boy who was a year younger than her couldn't stand being weaker than a girl. He became obsessed with beating her. He got serious about lifting weights and challenged her to an armwrestling match. She was still bigger than him and teased him about how fast she had always slammed his arm down. Her smile disappeared when she couldn't move his arm. She struggled and heaved with all of her might, but he forced her arm to the table. To redeem herself, she quickly challenged him to wrestle-she had always easily overpowered and pinned him in the past. He let her attack, but quickly took the advantage and got her into a schoolboy pin. She bucked and writhed in vain, but he didn't let her up until she admitted that girls are weak and boys are strong. He menacingly promised to remind her of this anytime she forgot. Afterwords she was really embarrased and humiliated to have been outmuscled and threatened by this macho littler boy. We told her to work out too and she'd soon teach him a lesson he wouldn't forget. But she was scared that the kid would hurt her the next time and also her parents didn't approve of girls lifting weights. She resigned herself to being "only a girl". If the same thing happened today I think she would have taken up lifting and beat the kid. old timerJun 03 2007 11:42am My bf never works out, I work out 4-5 times a weak, I am 35 lbs heavier than him and 2 inches taller. We have never wrestled or armwrestled but I know and I'm sure he does that I am just so much stronger than him it is really no meaning to compare our strength. He is a great cook though, and a musician, and a writed and is a wonderful man. I sometimes feel protective going out with him, I stop him from arguing to much with the big boys (or girls) so he want get beaten up (he loves to make practical jokes). I guess we are still not a very common couple but the so called role veversal thing will be more and more common. I have two girlfriends that I am sure are stronger than their boyfriends as well. SandraJun 05 2007 8:16am Old Timer, I'm 14 years old and my brother a year older. We've had a rivalry over physical strength for as long as I can remember, I know I'm only 14 so it might not be a long time to you an old timer! I know my legs are stronger and much more muscular than my brother's but also my arms and shoulders are just as big now even when he is one inch taller. I don't think I could be as strong or stronger if I didn't work at it. I think my muscles look better developed than his and he is starting to get a bit concerned over this. I did beat him at pull-ups a few days ago by doing 20 to his straining 12! TerryJun 06 2007 6:18pm Wow Terry, 20 pull-ups is amazing. You must be working hard. My strong neighbor could never do that many, even when she was tougher than the boys. Do you armwrestle or wrestle your brother or boys at school? old timerJun 07 2007 5:28am Oldtimer, of course I've wrestled my brother many times but it wasn't until this year that I really could overpower him more often. As a matter of fact I beat him two out of three at armwrestling last time we did it and he won the first. I do pushups in the morning and situps & crunches before I go to bed, I use the weight room at school and use weights at home. I know I'm stronger in my legs and maight be stronger in upper body compared to boys. I don't wan't to be a bodybuilder but maybe built at least as good as Serena Williams and hopefully as athletic, sure! I know, she's world classs! My father has pullies in his barn for lifting hay that I use for weight lifting besides my brother's weights and I can put lots of weight on the pullies for workouts. I can pull weight like armwrestling at a bench in the barn and I do! I see how girl's are beaten and raped and I will not be some perv's victim! I can test my progress at strength and maybe take self defence. I've wrestled boys and I can beat most of them except when they are bigger. That's why I think it's a good idea to workout more and take self defence. I plan on doing more than twenty pullups! I mean think about it, What's stopping me from getting strong except me? The dumb weights are just sitting there! Teresa TerryJun 08 2007 7:15pm It's not an odd question. My x-husband managed a law office and was really dominating. We had put in a home gym and for a while he worked out but gradually less & less as time went by. I began to exercise more & more while he was at work. Within a few months I had gained a lot of strength and began to put on solid muscle and after about a year I could tell that I was closing the gap when it came to muscle. Following that enlightenment I would workout daily sometimes for hours and within about eight months after my first year with weights I was clearly more muscular but he remained domineering and sometimes abusive. He began to use the gym again and I really believe it was because he started to see the difference in our physiques. I know it troubled me and the situation became competitive without really talking about it. In the end It was my husband who tried to close the gap in strength that I had gained. I do believe that I had better genetics for athletics as I was able to widen the gap between my strength and his dispite his attempts at gaining on me. True he didn't have the time that I did for exercising and as I became stronger than him and even more muscular compared to his build, it drove him nuts. When he was stronger it was embarrassing for me because he was an ass about it being abusive and running my life in every way. It finally came to a head when I wrestled him down pinning him a few times and at our vacation home I beat him up when he again attemted to get physical with me. I was much stronger than him at that point and he knew it but pushed it to that point of a fight. The thought of being weaker than him repulsed me while the thought of now being stronger thrilled me and I finally cut loose and whooped him bad. All of my frustration came out that day as I delt with him and there was nothing he could do but take what he had coming. I now date a man who loves my build and respects my strength. I feel safer and stronger than the average man and very comforable with it that way. Yes it is embarrassing to be weaker and taken advantage of and I do not plan on that ever happening again. MaureenJun 09 2007 1:11pm Maureen, it is a shame that your ex was so inappropriate to you that you were forced to become physically stronger than him. Despite that, much good in terms of your physical fitness has come from that. That is what I have been seeing more and more lately. Many men take for granted that they are stronger than women but then learn the hard way they are not. One interesting thing about the change, usually when women become stronger, they do so for protection and then learn they like it. Is that how you feel? And do you konw of other women who are doing what you have done? ThomasJun 11 2007 11:44am I was at the swimming pool Saturday. I saw a 2-3 different middle aged women with visible abs and thick ropes of biceps in their arms who were playing with their kids. Never saw women that before at the pool. Maybe its a sign that there are more and more women like the ones here. swimmerJun 11 2007 2:54pm I have dated many women that were physically strong; there were several that were (much) stronger than me. As our respective relationships progressed, I became more open with these women, letting them know that I was especially attracted to physically strong women, "the stronger the better," I would tell them. Each one of these women welcomed the opportunity to explore her newfound position in our relationship, either subtly or overtly taking charge when she wanted. I was a willing mate, doing as I was told, acknowledging that I was weaker, and she could do with me as she pleased. It was enlightening to the women and a tremendous turn on for me (and them). somethingaboutastrongwoman@yahoo.comJun 12 2007 1:04pm Women have taken over education, are starting to dominante in the business world, and have for a long time been in control of the household. Is it surprising at all then that now Women are taking over the final bastion of male dominance, that of strength? I asked this question to see if the tide was changing in that before the questions had been asked from the standpoint of it being unusual for a Woman to be stronger than a man. As we have seen in the responses here, the general opinion has taken its first step toward it being accepted, and next common, for the Woman in any relationship to be stronger than the man. Thanks for the input and i look forward to hearing more as time passes. ThomasJun 13 2007 11:21am Thomas, yes I did it for my defence. Here's an example, we had guests over and while standing with my husband and listening to a conversation I began to comment on what a lawyer had said and my husband leaned in front of me and squeezed my upper arm so hard that it left big bruses for several days and later after the guests left he back handed me saying "who do you think you are?" He was an egomaniac and looked down on me. He became so busy with the law firm and partners that I was not even noticed when I did began to build my body up and later I knew he also entertained women. I remember looking at my brused arm and also looking at women bodybuilders on the internet and thinking about how he probably couldn't bruse their arms and laughed to my self knowing he would be afraid to even try. I never forgot that and later after I had overpowered him I told him as I showed him and made a muscle "that he would never be able to bruse my arms again" and it was about two years after I had proved that he wasn't so powerful after all before we divorced. It still took courage on my behalf and in my mind to confront him even after I was confident that I was stronger but he would bring it on anyways. Once I realized that he wasn't that strong and he was the one starting trouble, I Found that I could have him and rub his ego right into the carpet and I started to enjoy it. I was stronger and he was weaker than me and what a turn around in life. I was more musclular and he couldn't control anything about that nor catch up to me without total dedication, something that just wasn't going to happen. So here he was being given back what he dished out but multiplied. It was embarrising for him just like it was for me before the tables were turned. I was afraid of him before I did something and what surprised me was how well my body responded to weights. What he did drove me to workout hard and eat like I never have, like I said I was even surprised at how big I got in not that long of a time span. I'm not fat at all I'm hard and my boyfriend loves muscles... mine. I treat him to my body and love him like I like to be loved. MaureenJun 14 2007 8:54pm Maureen, what you describe is really why Women are starting to dominate in our society on all fronts. Women and girls are more tenacious, dedicated, and willing to sacrifice today for a better tomorrow than men and boys are. Its funny in a way how so many men insist that they are superior to women despite continuously being outperformed. Thank you so much for your input. ThomasJun 15 2007 8:51pm I have to agree with you Thomas. I have a gym membership and my husband did but he let his slide. He hasn't gone since some time last year and I really don't care at this point. I'm 5 ft 9 inches tall and he is one inch taller. I started off to loose weight and that was the hardest part, just burning fat is work work work! My husband got me started with a membership and I kept my part of the deal by loosing weight! After that I started to gain weight again when I started to work with weights to build strength. I hated being weaker and I've always believed that women are expected to be weak so as to fill some cultural standing "the weaker sex" and so much of the fashion & media says this is who we are. We are expected to be skinny, helpless, and weak! I think it's all made up, by men no less! I can tell you that it was so much harder to loose weight, improving strength and yes even *muscles* I've found easy next to dealing with fat. What I've also found is that I did not like being weak and so even playing along as the weaker sex, I avoid going there. Between my husband and I, when it comes to muscle, I now have more strength. To be honest, I'm enjoying living life's changes, I'm just letting Nature take it's course! Remember, my husband is only one inch taller. So know I'm having a strange and new experience and it's my hobby. What drives me crazy is I'm stronger and it didn't take long. Now I amuse myself with how his muscles are flabby and mine are hard and for the first time most are larger. I could break his legs with my legs, that's a fact. Don't ask how I know. No.. I didn't! Don't be silly. But the tendons and connective tissue are another story. I tore my husband up a couple times but I look at it this way. The "weaker sex" has payed every price for many generations so if I can just muscle a man around it's real real special! Is it? I sure hope so. Like I said, I didn't have that much trouble getting there, I spent more time burning fat, I don't know, maybe it's great muscle fuel ((when you workout)) and we have more... Thanks Thomas for seeing the forest. VickyJun 16 2007 5:52pm Your welcome Vicky. i imagine it wont be long before the weaker sex in many ways will be us guys. With all the information being given here about how Women have become stronger than men, we men have to accept it as a foregone conclusion. For myself, i used to work out a lot, and am fairly strong. But more and more, i am meeting Women who are stronger than me, in better shape than i am, and who would cause me some concern if i was forced to engage in a physical battle. Even more amazing is the younger generation, girls who have grown up with the idea of Female Empowerment. They are really starting to take it to the guys. i wonder if in a generation, it will be clear to all that we men are now the weaker sex. ThomasJun 16 2007 8:51pm Thomas, I don't often her men confess what seems to be happening. They just ignor it! I used to be quite skinny from aerobics and running. I have fantastic endurance from it though. About a year in a half ago I started strength training with weights. I've found that I enjoy it so much I go 5 days a week and try not to miss any days. I finnaly got very curious about seeing if my biceps are larger than my husband's because of what his look like next to me in the mirror. Mine relaxed and straight are 13 inches and flexed are almost 15 inches. I got the courage up enough to ask my husband to flex and let me measure. Now I was shocked at what I found! His were 12 inches relaxed and 13 1/2 inches fully flexed! Mine were at least an inch larger relaxed alone and 1 1/2 inches larger flexed!!! I got so exited I grabed the tape and wrapped it around my arm and showed him! He just stared at my arm and said "oh my G*D" so I said "let's armwrestle"! He declined. Compared to my husband I have GUNS! He's been acting funny about it when I mention it so I don't know if I'll get a chance to aermwrestle but hopefully he's cave and let what happens happen. He's chicken right now and I told him that. Since then when I get out of the shower I flex in front of him so I can watch him stare at my muscles. He will just keep looking as I flex, it's really funny! I got home from the gym in the evening the other day and before I showered and I'm pumped I stripped for my shower and walked over to him while he's watch the news and stood in front of him making muscles. CarolJun 17 2007 12:51pm Those photos certainly show what we men have to encounter more and more. Women are getting stronger and are diligently attacking their strength. She is certainly in impressive strength and i wonder if the question of the poll would ever even occur to her because she is most likely stronger than any man in her life. ThomasJun 18 2007 2:07pm My husban is a good man and a great provider but lazy when it comes to exercising. Through the years we had gym memberships, later bought a nice weight bench and barbell set, in the last few years a bowflex, all of this my husband starts and quits. I have stuck with it and I mean all of it. Some of these yesrs he's worked hard and understandable that he hasn't the time while I stayed home and found more than enough time. Never the less now I'm stronger than he is and even more muscular both legs and upper body. I do think a cultural change is happening and we women are for a fact becoming stronger at a real fast pace and now stronger than many men in our lives. It's all over the place and you really must be in denial to not see. JanJun 18 2007 7:10pm Jan, exercise is not the only thing we men tend to be lazy about. Overall, Women are harder workers, make a greater long term effort and are generally more focused than men. Fitness and strength is just the most recent area in which we are seeing the truth of that. ThomasJun 27 2007 7:34pm I have gradually become more muscular compared to my husband but it took me some time to realize that I was physically stronger. It becomes a mind set that men are stronger and you just except it. I finally asked him to armwrestle and wrestle and discovered that I didn't just look stronger and have a better muscular body but I am stronger. My husband has had far less stamina all along and now we both know I have more strength too. It's funny how he's all shocked over this. Lately I can pump my muscles up much more and that's something that gets to his ego. I don't see him doing anything about this though and he seems a bit scared of reality. DebraJun 29 2007 5:27pm Many of the Ladies who have responded have noticed that they are now stronger than their man. Do you think this is a good thing? Do you think it is becoming more common? How has it affected your relationships? Please share your thoughts and tell others to vote and post their ideas here. It will make this poll much more interesting if more respond. ThomasJun 29 2007 9:44pm (This from another forum) Many years ago after my two children were created, my husband encouraged me to return my 5'10" frame back into the athletic form that I proudly displayed in high school & college. I am by nature and VERY disciplined and competitive woman and the challenge was actually what I needed. It was about a year before I saw the changes I wanted and it became apparant that Hal was excited as well. (literally) It wasn't long before he could stand it no longer and he challenged me to arm wrestling ... rememeber I am so competitive, I loved the opportunity and eagerly took on the task. Yes, I was strong, maybe not stronger, but my stamina withstood his advances and over the next months I could out last him and eventualy pull his arm down. For me I wanted more, I wanted to be stronger than him and be able to totally dominate our matches. Over the next months I worked extra hard, at my college gym where I was taking graduate work, and Hal was unaware that I was taking all this very seriously. He had shown his great pleasure at experiencing my strength in these matches, yet I WAS NOT HAPPY. When I felt right, I made a special effort to show him who was strongest and teased him and forced him to admit I was much stronger than him - I flexed - taunted - and I was totally able to control the match and ended it when I wanted to - no waiting for him to weaken, I simply was now stronger than my husband and partner and I now was happy. In order to keep this alive, I continued to open the window of discovery, and began allowing family members and friends to see I was stronger than my husband - I simply challenged him in controlled meetings with others (c*cktail parties - picnics - pool parties, etc.). At first he was taken back by the outting of our "secret" - yet this is exactly what I needed. I wanted the repsect of others for my physical abilities and for the fact that I did indeed over come my being weaker than my husband and now I was the physically superior partner. All the family, including the kids, and our close friends knew that Hal's wife was something special. Since those days, I enjoy my attention and yet I am sure that Hal may have some thoughts about what he wished for .... there is no turing back now! AnonymousJun 30 2007 5:48pm Thomas, I would have to agree. My wife is hard as rock now and while workout articles mention "women won't get big" I don't think it aplies to a lot of women. My wife and her friend, a woman she works out with are getting bigger. They go to the gym every day but Sunday or if something changes and workout for one to two hours. It wasn't until recently that she started to compare her build with mine and while she has become muscular and hard in the last few months her muscles have become much larger. By the looks of her she's now stronger than me. AnonymousJul 01 2007 10:26am 7-5-07 AnonymousJul 05 2007 4:02pm I wouldn't be embarrased if my g'boyfriend was stronger than me but I would sure be surprises, he is a very slim and all my muscles are bigger than his and I am stronger, a lot stronger. And he is OK with that, he is not a wimp but just a slim man. Buff girlJul 28 2007 1:50pm I knew the minute I saw my husband to be that he was weaker than me, I mean I am a big athletic woman, javelin throwers are strong and he was the typical bookworm. He joined a gym some years ago and started to work out hard to become stronger. I found out that I didn't like the idea of having a man that was physically stronger than me so I started to work out even more than before. Some weeks ago we playwrestled on the lawn in our back yard, I really had to give everything I had to be able to pin him, something that I could do with one are behind my back some years ago. He was frustrated to loose since he has been working out so hard to become stronger but I am still bigger and all my muscles are bigger than his. I just need to put in even more effort to stay stronger. Javelin JaneAug 12 2007 1:51am Wow, that is a great herstory you have Javelin Jane. He is probably starting to understand that he cannot compete with you when it comes to strength. And like you, he probably likes this, even if it is only subconsciously. thomasAug 12 2007 9:55pm Buff girl, do you find this to be common or do you think you and your b/f are the exception? How do you feel about being stronger than him? Do you like that or does it matter? thomasAug 12 2007 9:56pm I am not sure he likes it since he has tried so hard to become stronger, if he had liked it he could have stayed as he was, a weaker than normal man with a strong wife. Javelin JaneAug 14 2007 11:49am Javelin Jane, how do you feel about bein stronger than him? Does it bother you or excite you? It seems you want to keep it this way, so what is your motivation to do so? thomasAug 16 2007 7:15pm I've become really thrilled about my progress in our gym in the last couple of years. In the first year I must have gained about 50 percent more strength and my muscles became hard as rock but not that much larger. Now they are getting big! Recently I beat my husband at armwrestling and have found it very exciting. I'm also comparing my muscles to my husband's and mine have developed now to the point of being noticeably larger and much harder. I'm convinced that I'm stronger in all respects, I have far greater endurance and I know it is enhancing my development because I can outwork my husband in our home gym and see the results from endurance while he weakens not being able to put out the same. While this did take two years I could see it coming after the first year when I could see I was becoming more muscular than he was. Soon it became apparent that I have more endurance as his muscles would give out sooner when working until failure and when I did finally match his strength I was able to do more reps and sets with the same weights. I thought that's amazing! His muscular strength is spent while I can pump the weights even more! I know this is why I'm building more muscle than he is, it's the endurance difference. He is stuck and hasn't really gained anything in some time all when he can see the changes in my muscles. I can't help it but it totally thrills me that I'm stronger and still progressing at a good pace while he sees what is happening and the look he gets when I flex or when we exercise together and the truth becomes obvious is unusually enjoyable to me. My goal now is to actually see how much stronger I can become compared to my husband and measure it by percentage. I'm already logging the amount of weight moved between us as a result of my better endurance which is on average 50 % more. Not by the amount of weight but by the amount of reps or sets with the same weight! Going until failure and being able to do two-four more reps or one more set than he can adds up and that's when my muscles get really pumped There are times when we add more weight and the results are the same when I can do 1-5 reps to his 0-3 but we don't often go for some power lifts. Still I can out power him now espesually in the legs, big difference comparing our legs but even our upper body strength gap is slowly widening. While my muscles are slightly larger than his now they are noticeably longer, more defined, and 'parts of my muscles' began to expand and resemble rope fibers pushing out from different parts of the muscles while his muscles show nothing in the same areas. I know this is embarrising to him but that's the way it goes. I like to have him flex and than show him mine and see this extra muscle fiber push out and become visible and see it become bigger than his while flexing. LeanneAug 18 2007 1:10pm I like to be stronger, I enjoy being powerful, I like to feel my husbands muscles give in to mine. Is that strange? Javelin JaneAug 18 2007 3:08pm No, i do not think so in the least. Women today are enjoying the benefits of the past battles to gain equality. Rather than just resting on their gains, they are instead moving to higher and higher levels. Why should women not enjoy being physically stronger than their men? I bet many if not most of the women who have commented here would say the same thing. Do you think you are an exceptional case in which you are stronger than your man, or do you know of other women who are also stronger then their men? thomasAug 20 2007 7:44am Sure I know several cases with women stronger than their men, since I have been an athlete I have female friends in track and fields that have been very strong, stronger than the average man and they weren't always looking for men that were stronger physically . Javelin JaneAug 21 2007 11:45am Would you date a man who is stronger than you? Do you know of any women who would not date a man if he was stronger than her? thomasAug 24 2007 2:03pm I know a woman that is a powerlifter, she is probably twice as strong as the average man. Her husband can't beat her with both his arms against her weakest if they armwrestle and they are very happy. ruthieSep 03 2007 8:28am 9-7-07 AnonymousSep 07 2007 12:01am ruthie are you stronger than the man or men in your life? thomasSep 28 2007 9:20pm The man in my life has stronger arms than me (not a lot but still stronger)but I think that the rest of me is stronger than him. I mean my legs are a lot stronger and I have a very strong back. I have beaten him when we playwrestle, this happens when I succed to get him between with my legs. But my friend is a lot stronger than both my husband and hers. ruthieSep 29 2007 7:02am and comment this poll, being weaker than my husband is not embarrassing, but I really would like to be stronger and I am working on it. ruthie againSep 29 2007 7:03am Good for you ruthie. It is always good to have goals and objectives, and yours seem to be very realistic. thomasOct 01 2007 1:09pm Do you ladies or men find it is becoming more accepted and even looked for by women for their boyfriends/husbands to be weaker than them? Or is it just something that happens? We can always use more votes in here to move up higher on the list and get more responses so if you know anyone else who would be interested in contributing, sending them here would be much appreciated. thomasOct 01 2007 1:11pm I became stronger than my husband within less than a year by going to the gym. I began to realize it by wrestling and armwrestling and at about eight to ten months of strength training, my husband was no longer able to pin me, after that I began to over power and pin him. It's been almost three years now since my husband gave me a holiday gift certificate to a gym. I'm now so much stronger than him that any strength contest is easy to defeat him at. I'm also much more muscular than when I started and far more compared to him which I really enjoy comparing in the mirror or with a camera. My muscles are much larger, harder, and stronger than his and I find I prefer it that way. I have always had greater muscle endurance but not the superior strength, now I have both. DeanneOct 07 2007 9:18am Deanne - can you show us pictures comparing you and your husband? Describe your feelings as you're overpowering him... 10/8/07 AnonymousOct 08 2007 6:46am Thats fantastic Deanne. I think it is a wonderful time for Women and we men are enjoying it too. Keep up the good work and send your friends around to add their comments. thomasOct 08 2007 9:25pm 10-17-07 AnonymousOct 17 2007 8:14am Overall I've increased my strength by 75 percent and 100 percent in my upper body considering that I can do the same exercises with twice the weight of when I started. It was my husband that got me started and would want to wrestle. I always lost even though I was strong. Girl strong and could tire him down but I would loose. What I first noticed was that it was getting more difficult for him as I spent time in the gym. He no longer initiated wrestling or armwrestling and I became curious one day when sitting on our patio and could see that My legs showed muscle and were larger than his and my arms were the same size. I asked him to flex his arm and I did the same and was rushing with a thrill when I could I was more muscular when we flexed. Not much later I asked him to armwrestle and during the wrestling I could tell things had changed. I had plenty of strength to hold him until he was wore out and that feeling when I overpower his muscles and feel his arm give in to mine is awesome! Wrestling is likewise more enjoyable. His struggling time trying beat me has grown shorter as I get stronger and learn to wrestle. Before he would have my arms pined down and now he can't do it and I have greater arm strength than him. Once I have his wrists, he's finished, sometimes it takes me a little time but I now beat him at any wrestling. I like feeling it happen and how his muscles give in to mine and knowing I'm stronger. Contracting muscle groups and overpowering his while armwrestling or wrestling is enjoyable somehow. I can depend on my body to win. Believe me I'm amazed at how strong I am and believe most women could be stronger than a lot of men by exercising. DeanneOct 27 2007 6:40pm Deanne, it is interesting how wrestling has become more enjoyable for you now that you win and less so for your husband. As Women learn the joy of being stronger than their men, i expect that this trend will continue as Women have the ability to set a goal and stay focused on it better than we men. It is certainly one of the strengths Women have that is propelling their superiority in the home and in society. Keep up the good work and let us know of any other changes that are happening in your relationship. thomasNov 01 2007 1:02pm One other change I've noticed besides my muscles being bigger than his is that my rib cage is now larger than his! I can see this when I ask him to take a deep breath and expand your chest and compare his to mine. I'm also looking at different ways to compare strength and endurance with him and yes he is not as as enthusiastic as before, he's also shy about flexing and comparing. Which is becoming more and more in my favor as far as muscle is concerned when I show him the size changes as time goes by and he falls farther behind. All this drives me to workout hard as the changes are quite visible espesually using him as a reference point. DeanneNov 04 2007 9:24am Have there been any changes in your relationship as a result of the change in physical power? Are your roles the same still or have you taken more control of how things are done or even what is done? Often the physical power change seems to coincide with a change in what both partners do and who decides for the couple. thomasNov 05 2007 1:48pm Deanne?s experience reminds me of a girlfriend in college who overpowered me after about 10 months of working out with weights. She began lifting after losing an armwrestling match to me, and I insisted that men?s natural advantages would always be too much for women to overcome. As time went on, it became obvious which one of us was lifting weights. Her upper body grew thicker and harder by the week and several people commented on the differences in our physiques. (I am rather thin and wiry.) Confirmation of change came when her girlfriends encouraged her to armwrestle me one day in front of them. She clearly had been waiting for another match and with good reason. What strength. I never had a chance. After pinning my arm within a few seconds, she jumped up from the table and flexed her muscles for everyone to see. She was clearly superior to me in every way now and wasn?t afraid to show it after that day. I envied her muscles, but was never motivated to pump iron like her. JoeNov 06 2007 11:21am Many people are experiencing the role reversals for the sexes everyday. Muscles and strength are just such examples. Have any of you viewed a change in your relatinships because the woman is stronger? Are the men doing more of the housework? Do the Women make more money? Always curious about how our society is changing and look forward to your comments. thomasDec 03 2007 9:14am My relationship with my wife has changed in many ways after we had tested the who was stronger some years ago. After a rather wet evening at the pub we came home and started to playwrestle. We were both quite surprised that I she was not only stronger than me, she was a hel of a lot stronger. She could pin me 5 out of 5 times and the last fall lasted about 4 seconds. We then armwrestled and she could slam both my arms to the table in seconds. She is about 20 lbs heavier than me but and quite a bit shorter but neither of us had guessed that she was physically stronger. The morning after our wrestling night I said that she won just because I was more drunk. This led to another series of matches. 10 wrestling matches and 10 armwrestling matches with each arm. I lost all of them, for each match I lost quicker. She has changed quite a lot after this. She can tell me that we should go home when we are at a party, and if I say know she says that she can wrestle me down and then throw me over the shoulder and take me home to embarrass me. She has never done that but I am afriad that she could so I do as she says. And in bed she is always on top and we are doing it her way. She loves to wrestle me down and "rape" me. I would say that the night we wrestled changed our relationship to an equal to one where the woman dominates everything. I almost left her because of this. One night when we came home after another wet evening out she was very angry because I had been flirting with some young girls. When we were about to go to bed she suddenly took me over her lap and spanked me! I fought like hell to get out of this embarrasing situation but as you already know she is far stronger. To be spanked as an adult is no fun at all if you are not into things like that and I can tell you I am not. I think she spanked me for more than 10 minutes, I couldn't sit for a week after and had to stay home from work. I packed my things and told my wife I was going to leave her. She regretted the whole thing and begged me to stay. I am very much in loved with her so I stayed. But I am still a bit afraid of her and I always do as I am told, but this is mainly when I have been drinking too much or flirting. She has said a few times that I should remember what she can do to me. KurtDec 14 2007 2:32am For the longest time I was doing aerobics only when at the gym. After only six months of weight lifting I beat my husband at armwrestling. From there on I grew stronger than him and within a year it became clear I had bigger muscles. I wouldn't want to go back to being the weaker sex. Now my muscles are far better conditioned then his but what has shocked him is my muscles are almost two inches larger around in my arms and calves and my thighs are four inches larger. My husband's muscles when flexed are easily sqweezed by my hands and are mushy compared to mine. It just doesn't seem that it took that much effort to become stronger than him. Now I enjoy comparing me to him and the difference is increasing. I'm five foot nine inches and only one inch shorter but I'm so much bigger than him that he now looks small! AnneDec 23 2007 6:36am Anne, That's great. It's wonderful to see so many Women are now realizing Their power and superiority to males. More and more males are coming to enjoy the beauty of Women's muscles and strength and even to envy them boyDec 23 2007 2:59pm When reading the posts in this group and others like it, i wonder if it is time that the Ms. America pagent and the Mr. Universe competition be reversed. We could see Women competing to see which is most developed and men trying to look as sexy for the Female audience as possible. Would anyone watch these shows? How might it affect the desire of Women to be stronger than their men and men focus on looking good for their Women? thomasDec 23 2007 9:11pm 12-26-07 AnonymousDec 25 2007 9:58pm I have found several advantages over my taller husband when it comes to strength training and building muscle. Like many couples, I found that my endurance is better and that encludes muscle endurance. Second to that I began to notice that my muscles are longer, two to three inches longer in my legs and less but noticeable in my upper body, most visible in forearms shoulders and back but my biceps have more length too. Over the course of time and workouts it's obvious. What I've read and seems to hold true is that the more length the muscle has the more cross-sectional area or size the muscle can gain. This results in more power. Strange but at first I thought that with me having more muscular endurance, I might have more slow twitch fiber and might not be able to build more mass. Contrary to that belief, I've been able to develop more muscle size than my husband and more raw power as if I had greater fast twitch muscle fiber ratio and less slow twitch. Once I matched his muscles in closer circumference, I discovered that I weighed a litte more than he did. That is because of muscle length. As we have continued to workout together, I've passed him in strength and size. Not by a lot but enough that he is no longer stronger at anything. I attribute this to me having superior muscular endurance and more muscle length. I believe he is limited in these areas more so than me and it's become obvious. I'm more muscular than he is and not afriad to show him. SusanDec 26 2007 5:22pm Susan, you have the advantage. Differences in strength development may come about because of variation in muscle length. Some people have long muscles, and some people have short muscles. Persons with relatively long muscles have greater potential for developing size and strength than persons with relatively short muscles. What is the difference in measurements around flexed muscles now? Do you stretch? AnonymousDec 28 2007 3:30pm Yes I stretch my muscles before and after workouts for about ten minutes each time. My biceps are 15 1/2 inches my husband is 15 inches. My calves are 17 inches and his are 15 1/2 inches. My thighs are 3 inches larger than his at 26 inches. So I'm a little larger anywhere we measure. My calves are 3 inches longer than his if we measure from our knee joints and I've added about one inch in length to my muscles over about one year by stretching which seems to be making them get bigger around as well. I'm amazed at the difference in our muscles and how they are developing so I do compare mine to his often and can see the changes. SusanDec 29 2007 4:33pm I've lived next door to the same couple for five years. She has become so much bigger than her husband in the last two years and her muscles are massive. We have a gym at our apartments that she uses along with other muscular "housewives" in our apartments. When you go by the workout room, it's almost always the women pumping iron. WadeJan 06 2008 9:16am Wade, Please tell us more details. Have you heard any of the husbands comment about their wives building muscle and strength? Thanks AnonymousJan 07 2008 11:46pm Every day it seems that more and more Women are getting stronger. At the same time, men are becoming softer, more emotional, and focusing on their appearance. Recently, i ran into a guy who was excited because he was dating a Woman doctor. He mentioned that she was not only making way more money than he was but also that she was stronger. This is happening all the time now, and in growing numbers. Sounds like the Women Wade sees working out are finding their future househusbands to me. Keep up the good work Ladies. thomasJan 08 2008 8:13pm Women have always been stronger, but society was structured in such a way that They were coerced into pretending to be the 'weaker sex'. Now that Female superiority is no longer a secret, Women are less worried about men's fragile egos. As a result, male are starting to adjust to their new reality as the inferior sex. FempwrJan 09 2008 1:49pm Your right Fempwr. Even in some of the most "traditional" countries, we are starting to see Women break through the barriers previously set up to hold them down. Interestingly, Women are not setting up barriers to preserve their power. I guess that is a sign of confidence Women are gaining that they can remain on the top simply because of the fact that they are superior. thomasJan 09 2008 8:40pm I work rotation shifts of 10 to 12 hours and I've tried to workout but it's very difficult. Our apartment gym facility is only about 80 ft by 24 ft but has some good equipment. When I come home from nights there is about 6 to 12 women in there and only sometimes 1 to 3 men. About the same other times or evenings. I've seen women flexing in the mirror and some have biceps and shoulders that most men would have to train consitantly for as these women are far more muscular than men who don't workout. By the end of summer my neighbor was bigger and more muscular than her husband and me for that matter and I began to notice that he wasn't wearing shorts as often when at the pool or outside to cover his thinner next to his wives legs and would wear a shirt because of his lack of muscle and soft belly. Mean while she had become quite a hard body and big next to her husband. At the pool he seemed mesmerized by her muscles and if she sees me looking at her, she will reach back and play with her hair and show off her shoulders and arms or lean back and flex her triceps or put lotion on her legs making sure to give a slight flex. Now I don't think my apartment complex is any differant than thousands plus the internet is full of sites with people discribing simaler observations. A sign of changing times? It seems obvious that some women want to be stronger then men and clearly are. Some are even widening the strength gap between them and their man and from what I see they are making sure the situation is not likely to reverse direction. WadeJan 12 2008 12:07pm My wife and I attended a big health and fitness expo the other day. We stopped at a booth to buy a protein bar. The woman behind the counter looked like she might have been a personal trainer at a health club somewhere, judging from the broad shoulders and thick arms revealed by the tank top she was wearing. I might have been staring a little too hard, because at one point she raised up an arm to fix her hair in the same manner Wade has described. I wanted to tell her how good she looked as her biceps swelled, but it wouldn?t have been a good idea with my wife around. I agree with Wade; times are changing, roles are reversing and more women are showing off their muscles to impress men. DonaldJan 15 2008 7:20am Donald, I have a cousin that's 20 years old in college sports that flexed her bicep for me and I was completely shocked at the size of her muscles. She has bigger arms then most in shape guys and more muscle then me. Her bicep is much bigger than a baseball. I was shocked and didn't ask what it might measure? I would guess 16-17 inches? Mine are 14 1/2 inches and her's makes mine look little! Her forearms and shoulders are so thick, My arms look skinny next to them. She can ripple the muscles around in her forearm just wiggling her fingers and make her biceps stick straight up, this is from college sports training in a gym. I thought about armwrestling her later but at the time and seeing her muscles, I couldn't think, I was just stunned. I hadn't seen her for two years. PaulJan 19 2008 4:11pm Did anyone from another blog read this? We are STRONGER when we are equal to you men in size. In studies carried out at the University of Jyvaskyla in Finland, for example, 10 male and nine female strength athletes (powerlifters and body-builders) performed 20 maximal squat lifts, with three minutes of recovery between each lift. After the 20 lifts, the fatigued leg muscles of both males and females had lost about 20-24% of their maximal strength. However, various indicators of muscular power favoured the females. For one thing, the force-time curve an indicator of muscles ability to contract powerfully and quickly changed negatively by 28% in the males over the course of the workout but dropped by only 19% in the females. Females also recovered from the 20-lift session more quickly. One hour after the workout, female lifters leg muscles could generate about 92% as much force as before the session, whereas male muscles were just 79% as strong. Why was the fatigue greater and recovery slower in males? Part of the problem seemed to be that the male lifters nervous systems became less responsive over the course of the workout. From the first to the 20 lift, activation of leg muscles by nerve cells fell by 20-25% in males but held fairly steady in females. While its not clear why male nerve activation should deteriorate more quickly, it is clear that females lose less of their muscular power during heavy-duty resistance training and seem to recover more rapidly once a tough session is over. (Neuromuscular Fatigue and Recovery in Male and Female Athletes during Heavy Resistance Exercise, International Journal of Sports Medicine, vol. 14(2), pp. 53-59, 1993) LindaJan 19 2008 4:26pm I can defeat my husband in workouts when intesnity is part of it. I can out lift him both in weight and reps when the intensity is increased and we go until muscle fatigue takes over and failure soon follows. After that point he looses strength rapidly until he can't even keep up or lift what I'm still doing reps with. I'm amazed at this! My muscles are still very strong although tired when his have failed all together. We women are the stronger sex! Men are often bigger but my husband and I are about the same size and close in strength. Yet when this becomes the deciding factor, I'm much stronger. I actually enjoy this part and seeing it happen and the look on his face when he's wore out. I have even turned up as much muscle as I can to see how far ahead in strength I am. He will just stair at my muscles with disbelief as they keep pumping way past his with the same weight! It's fun! LindaJan 19 2008 4:39pm Way to go Linda!!! More and more science is proving that Women have superior endurance to us men. 5 years ago, no one would have believed this. As Women continue to advance and men decline, it is easy to see a time when Women are considered in the general opinion to be the stronger sex. And we men had better get ready for that time. thomasJan 19 2008 8:13pm I know it's not totally scientific, but I did a google search for the phrase; "women are the stronger sex" (with quotes) and it gave 4,010 results. A search for "men are the stronger sex" gave 2,640 results. It certainly says something about the kinds of discussion that are going on. I mean - it used to be kind of a joke to suggest that Females were stronger than males. Now it's becoming totally accepted. A Female friend of mine says this is because science has caught up with the natural truth. Male scientists tried to suppress research showing Female superiority, but luckily there were Women who able to get the message out. It wasn't long before there was a flood of information about scientifically demonstrated Female superiority. It's no wonder that Women now outnumber males in biological sciences ( and are outstripping males in just about every academic field - while pushing men off their athletic pedestal as well. ) Anyone can go online and see which way the discussion is headed. The stronger sex is asserting Her superiority more and more. mereboyJan 22 2008 1:44pm I wanted to say that I beat my husband at armwrestling after I had spent about six months in a gym. After that and continuing to go to the gym we armwrestled and I began to win more and more. After a while I discovered that I could wait it out and hold him for several minutes until his strength faded and pounce on his arm. So I would wait sometimes for a little while and then test his strength and found much of it GONE! Now that's an interesting and fun feeling, when I use the strength I have left, his arm trembles and yields to my muscles within seconds. Now I find myself looking at my arms in the mirror! ValJan 26 2008 1:33am I've read many research reports that have proven that women have much greater muscular endurance. On average 75 percent more. My husband who is bigger than me and out weighs me by 30 pounds has argued and scoffed at this. Being the way he is, he can't back down or except this fact. I'm in good shape, 5'8" at 160 pounds. I've come up with ways to challange him knowing that he won't back down. Using dumbells of various weights we had stood half way squatted while holding the weights for as long as possible. I beat him by a long shot. Also with weights on upper body when holding static weights for a time period. I actually did better right after a workout while he did much worse and noticeably lost even more strength. We never really armwrestle and the last time we did was quite a while back. I would like to armwrestle him before and after a good workout because now I'm confident that I can beat him after we both do a long workout. In some muscle groups, I can lift more weight after a workout and a short rest period while I'm sure he will not be able to becaus I can see this now. JannisJan 26 2008 11:26am Its wonderful how much people are experiencing what has been talked about in these polls. These are in some ways important questions to be considered as the roles of each gender continue to be sorted out in society. Thank you so much for your input. thomasJan 28 2008 8:38am 1-31-08 AnonymousJan 30 2008 11:17pm Kind of a strange quiestion for this poll but it interested me anyway. Has the moderna society gone so far that a well trained woman should be ashamed if she was weaker than her boyfriend or husband. I think it will take some time before this is a general thought among women but I can start to see the point. I work out a lot, almost every day and has done so for a couple of years. This has made my body very strong of course. You can't see that when I am wearing my clothes and my muscles are not very big but extremely hard and strong. My boyfriend avoids the gym but runs frequently and is also playing soccer. I never thought that I should be stronger than him but when I read this I realized that I should be a lot stronger than my bf since I really worked out a lot harder to be strong. I asked him if he would be embarrassed if I was physically stronger than him, he looked at me and just laughed, my god I am probabably only half as strong as you, you could kick my ass anytime you want, I never doubted that. This really surprised me, both that he was so open with this and also because he took this more natural than me. He was right as well, I am almost twice as strong as him, some parts of my body more than twice. And yes, I should have been embarrassed if i despite all my ours in the gym had been weaker than my boyfriend that only works out to stay in shape. SonjaFeb 06 2008 3:33am Thank you for your input Sonja. You are right i think that we have not reached this point as a common thought among women, but it seems we are moving in that direction. While the polls here are not completely indicative of society, there is nothing about this site that in any way indicates a bias. Still, we see so many polls about the power of women and how they have moved beyond men. Few look at things from the opposite perspective. That seems to mean something. thomasFeb 07 2008 8:32pm I also think is is tought for the men that always need to be big and strong, even if they aren't. I have asked men to help me lift heavy objects just because they are men, not because they look physically strong. And I could probably have done the heavy lifting myself. I love the way my boyfriend is, since I realized he was so cool about being weaker than me I often help him with heavy stuff, take the wine bottle from him with the impossible cork, and he just thanks me. Other men can be really intrigued when I ask them if I should help them with something heavy. One guy at my work tried to store a big very heavy box at the top shelf some time ago. I asked him if he needed help when I could see he wasn't strong enough to lift the box all the way up. He laughed a bit and said no, he would fix this later. When he left I lifted the box up, it was heavy but I am really strong so I managed. He was not happy with me when he could see I had done the job. He said that he could have done it and that I should be careful not to hurt my fragile body. I really wanted to show him there and then who had the strength. I think that both men and women are very conservative about male and female strength. In West africa of Asia no man asks the women if they should help them with the heavy liftings, mainly because they know the women are strong and perhaps alos because many men aren't as strong as the women. I would like to see a man from the west world carry 50 kgs of rice on his head for a km. When I was in Gambia the male owner of the hotel told me that every time that he needed to carry something heavy for a distance he asked his wife. His wife's neck and shoulders were very muscular and impressive so it was easy to see what he meant. I think that woman should have been ashamed if her husband should have been stronger than her. SonjaFeb 08 2008 1:56am Sonja, i recently saw an article where men in japan are trying to look slim and sexy for women. Women on the other hand are going more for comfort and work out more than the men do for sure. It seems that even in the east, things are changing and Women are getting stronger and announcing it much more often today than at any time before. thomasFeb 08 2008 10:24pm Japan is a funny country where many young people are big and tall and the older short and sinewy. I think that young women especially has grown a lot in that country. I saw the article about Japanese men that were small and slim and that they had big stron women. I kind of like that idea. SonjaFeb 09 2008 1:57am I've been going to a gym for almost four years. When my husband and I moved we had an extra room. I talked him into buying gym equipment for the extra room. Now I've found out what I've suspected for some time. I'm a lot stonger than he is! Both in raw strength and endurance. I was pretty shocked. My upper body is maybe 25 percent stronger in any lift or exercise, my legs are really twice as strong. Endurance is perhaps 50 percent better all around. He sees me in a different light and with a little fear. I asked him if he cared to wrestle, he says he'd think about it. We have never challenged each other at such things before and for the first time I've compared muscles with him by flexing with a big surprise there too. Espesually my legs to his! GailFeb 09 2008 9:30am A few yaers ago my husband and I bought gym equipment. Before that I had no hobbies or interests, I was just a housewife. I realized that I really enjoyed exercising and within a year I was stronger than my husband. After that I continued and from that point became more muscular than him and stronger. One day he said that I looked like a man and that hurt, the only thing I could think of to say was that he was a man and didn't look like this and flexed. What was going on at the same time was he began to have an attitude and pretty much quit workouts. I finally found something I really liked and while I got stronger and improved my build, he lost the muscles he had put on. He would ask me to flex more often and feel my muscles but I couldn't get him to workout much and when he did it was with a bad attitude. We are close in size with me being five foot nine and him an inch taller but I'm much bigger than he is with a lot more muscle than he has. So, how do you repair a man's crushed ego? My muscles are inches larger than his and he's weaker by far yet he gets turned on by my muscles and feels then all the time. I know his ego is smashed bu me being like this and him loosing muscle but it's his fault not mine. I don't mistreat him in any way and I have no intentions of stop lifting because of him. The fact is I keep gaining strength and enjoy it. Strange that he's all over my muscles with his hands but I can tell there's unresolved resentment. At the same time I really like it when he puts his hands on my shoulders and arms and asks me to flex. I just don't know what to do about his resentment that I can see. He will not wear shorts or take off his shirt when in the presents of others now if I'm around and I guess when I'm not around, don't know because I'm not there. Even flexing my arms he gets this look and will procrastinate if I ask to see his muscles. I have no idea what to do about his male ego though. I know he's looked at women bodybuilders on the internet but still has a problem with it. He's attracted yet crushed by the whole idea that some women are stronger. Go figure? TerryFeb 10 2008 2:51pm It is an intriguing idea Sonja. I think we are seeing the early stages of that happening in the US. Not long ago, metrosexual dress for men was all the rage. While the term is no longer the hot word in the media, we have not lost the idea and it is really starting to become sort of the "norm" in society. Especially in athletics and hollywood it is very popular and that is where the fashion trends truly come from. thomasFeb 10 2008 8:53pm Gail, it is great to hear about your progress. Im sure you are proud of how strong you are. Also, it must be nice not to have to worry about what might happen if your husband lost control. We men are learning what it feels like to have a healthy fear of women. thomasFeb 10 2008 8:55pm Terry, it is a difficult problem we all face as the strength equation switches. In many ways its the same problem women face who make more money than their husband. For some time, and even today, some men struggled with the fact their wives made more than them. But as it has become more common, it has become more accepted both by society and many men. Also, i suspect that like many of us, his being turned on by the idea makes it harder for him to admit how he likes it. If you can get him to admit to you that he likes you being stronger, it may help him deal with the resentment. Also, if you do not act like it is a big deal, but instead, that it should be expected, that may help. One last suggestion, maybe you should point out others in similar situations so he can see it is really not that unusual anymore. thomasFeb 10 2008 9:00pm 2-17-08 AnonymousFeb 17 2008 6:13pm I hate loosing to my boyfriend when it comes to wrestling and armwrestling. I read somewhere on one of the boards that one way for a woman to win was to test armwrestling your man after work outs like doing push ups. I work out every morning doing more and more pushups and situps. My boyfriend is also working out but he is quite a bit heavier than me, his arm muscles are bigger than mine (my thighs are bigger than his though). Anyway I challenged him to a series of armwrestling matches with 20 pushups between each match. We only did right arm matches since we are both right handed. Match 1= he won in about 4-5 seconds, than 20 pushups. Match 2=it took him 20 seconds to win, 20 new pushups. Match 3=it took a very long time for him to pin me and he looked very tired. We now did 15 pushups since we were tired. Match 4=it was a draw!!! He coulnd't take me down, he was very frustrated and tired. We did another 15 pushups or more accurate, I did 15 and he did 12. Match 5=I won in 4-5 seconds!!!I felt so powerful since I could see how tired he was. We now did 10 pushups, he could barely do his 10th while I still felt rather fresh. Match 6=I slammed his arm down and then I wanted to try his left arm as well. The same outcome, I could slam his arm down. After this he didn't want to continue since he realized I would win all the matches. Now who is stronger, me or my boyfriend? I now do pushups severald times a day, I work 2 times a week at a gym. My goal is to beat him in match one. RobertaFeb 18 2008 12:02am There is a lot of evidence from various scientific studies as well as examples like yours Roberta that women have a marked advantage when it comes to endurance over us men. In addition, it seems like all the examples we see when a woman decides to get stronger than a man, she achieves her goal. I have yet to come across any examples of the opposite. Maybe we are seeing that in fact many if not most women can be stronger than many or most men if the women put their mind to it. Not sure if it is so, but maybe. What do you think? thomasFeb 18 2008 7:58pm If the size difference isn't too big I am sure that most women can be stronger than their men if they really work out hard. I am surprised to see how strong some women are at my gym. Still many of the women work out hard with their legs and not with their upper bodies being afraid to get too muscular, and this shows. I see 50 year old women at the gym that can lift a lot more than 25 year old guys with their legs, but when it comes to the arms it is the other way around. I am working very hard with my arms, doing all the pushups I do during the days and now working out with weights as well has made me one strong woman. And I will become stronger than my boyfriend, in raw strength I mean since I am already stronger than him in terms of endurance. RobertaFeb 19 2008 12:35am Your right Roberta, if there is a huge size difference between two people, the smaller individual will have a very hard time being of equal or greater strength. But you, like many other women are finding that with a few inches difference in size, as is typically the case, women can be equal or stronger than a man. The question about being muscle bound, however, for women is a tough one. Really, i guess that comes down to simply do women want to be as strong or stronger than men. For you, the answer is clearly yes. And more and more, woman all over are coming to the same conclusion. thomasFeb 19 2008 9:57am This from another blog on this site... MYTH BUSTERS The age-old myth of women having less muscular strength than men do is just thata myth. This excerpt from Shameless Magazine puts it best: Many people believe that all men, as some sort of single unit, are stronger than women. And reason says that simply isnt true. Mens strength is just as variable as womens. Men, on average, are bigger than women, with a higher lean body mass-to-fat ratio. But women generate the same force per unit of muscle as men. That is, muscle pound to muscle pound, women and men are similar in strength. A strong woman is strong, full stop. This observation was confirmed by a study from the US National Strength and Conditioning Foundation, which adds that although women and men have the same muscle strength, the reason many men appear stronger on the surface is because they have more muscle mass from being bigger (as opposed to muscle strength), have a higher lean body mass-to-fat ratio, and have different fat distribution in the body than women do. Wait a minute (I can hear someone say), arent we just picking nits now? What does it matter if technically womens muscles produce the same amount of power, if due to the other factors mentioned above, a womans body altogether still produces less power, on average, than a mans body altogether? And if this is true, whats wrong with saying so? First, this distinction is important to make because its actually a pretty big one, with implications and consequences depending on whether one makes it or not. Stating without qualification that women have less strength than men, period, is inaccurate and suggests that this is an inherent trait in women, something that cant be changed. As mentioned though, womens muscles have the exact same strength as men do, and it is in fat distribution and lean body mass where they differfactors which are variable and can be changed through training or exercise. Moreover, even though muscle mass is cited as a contributing factor of mens strength, the same studies have shown that women build strength the same way men do yet without building as much muscle masswhich is interesting, because if both men and women build strength equally, but only mens muscles build much mass to go with it, to me that suggests that in the end,WOMEN'S MUSCLES WOULD ACTUALLY HAVE MORE POWER PER INCH/POUND THAN MEN'S, to do the calculations! And as Shameless said, if a strong woman were matched with a man with less muscle (or lesser built muscles), more fat, and less lean body mass, she would in that case definitely not be the weaker sex. Second, making this distinction is important because it affects how people approach this and related topics, and this ties in to the last question above. There is nothing wrong with explaining why many women have less net strength output than many men. After all, a fact is a fact, right? The problem arises when people start making unqualified statements like the ones at the beginning of this post, and making them frequently and thoughtlessly. Although clearly I was kidding when I said I feel weaker already, can you imagine what the effects of reading or hearing statements like that over and over again would be on someones mindset, whether consciously or subconsciously? If you imagined the logical, youre right: other studies have shown that women significantly underestimate their own strength, compared to men. Because were told were weaker, we think we have even less strength than we have to begin with. This affects everything from whether or not a woman will reach her full potential while weight training, to whether or not shell choose to fight off a man who attacks her in the street, or just let it happen because to fight back would make it worse (according to another disastrous, popular myth). Its all woven into one more narrative about what women are or arent or should be or shouldnt be, whether its a young Mestra Ednas relatives telling her martial arts arent for girls, or todays average female capoeira student only able to find articles reiterating how weak she is compared to all the male capoeira students in her classwhich may be true, but also just as well may not, and whos the articles author to say? So mulhers i meninas, remember this the next time you aim for that macaco/s-dobrado/bananeira/cool upper-body strength-requiring move! AnonymousFeb 19 2008 4:45pm Anonymous, this also seems to support both ideas that i have held about strength and gender. First, in many ways, the balance of power is based upon not only the basic make up of people, but also upon effort. That is no great surprise but when looked at from the standpoint of gender, not something people always think. So if a woman is more efficient, consistent, or better at working out, she can become stronger than a man, at least in general. The second point that i feel is important is the influence of society. Because for centuries women were viewed as the weaker sex, they did not strive to achieve strength in any formal way. Men on the other hand were encouraged to be big and strong. Today, women in general seem to be exercising and more importantly, lifting weights more than men. If this trend is correct and continues, it seems like before long, the power balance will shift. The only difference being that since men are in general bigger than women, to be stronger, women will have to be some amount stronger than men for the absolute strength difference to exist. thomasFeb 20 2008 1:14pm The average height for women is increasing more than that for men. More and more women are training and working out hard already from childhood just like men has done for ages. Women are now into sports that just 50 years ago was impossible for them, weight lifting, boxing, wrestling, pool jump etc. There are now more women than men in the gyms and the trend now is that a woman can have muscles without being unfeminine. All these things put together will let us see a lot more physical strong women, in many cases stronger than their men. I think that many women still like to have a man that is stronger, bigger and protective but more and more women like to be strong and independent. I have seen more often women that offer their help to men to carry something heavy, they can take the impossible winebottle from a man and like to try where he has failed. Small signs of changes but to be honest the changes has been enormous tha last 25 years. I am 47 years old, always been sporty and rather big. Until I was 35 I never had something sleeveless on, trying to hide my big arm muscles. At the same time I was proud of my strength and quite often proved that I was stronger than many men in arm wrestling matches. I now go sleeveless all the time and I flex my biceps for anybody that wants to see my muscles. BeateFeb 20 2008 11:32pm You are so right Beate. You should also be very proud of your strength. It is a very feminine trait to be strong and only now are people coming to realize this. thomasFeb 21 2008 1:45pm It would be interesting if the ideal man changed for women, from the muscular hunk to the slim, non-muscular man. I think many guys would think twice before they built big muscles. I saw the article from Japan where there is a new trend where big, strong girls choose the skinny weak guys. And it seems that more and more men really likes women with strength and muscle. Im some countries, for instance in Africa, many women are stronger than the men since they do all the hard labour. I would like to see some office guys here in the western world carry 30-40 litres of water for 1 km or two, or lifting 50 kgs of wood that you have to carry for perhaps 3-5 kms. This requires a great deal of strength and endurance and ther reason for that this is a female task is perhaps that men don't have both the strength AND endurance. JohannaFeb 24 2008 11:59pm Johanna, i think we are seeing the change in what an ideal man looks like in the eyes of society. Men are now doing things to become attractive to Women in ways that our fathers and certainly our grandfathers would never have considered. Whether its make up, tighter clothes or more clothing that historically has been "feminine" in character. Women, are going in the other direction. Women are finding joy in being in great shape, dressing for comfort and not as much for looks, and in general a power look. It takes time for the roles of the genders to switch, but i think it is happening. Thats why i asked this question because while it may seem somewhat odd today, in the future, it would be a thought provoking question if i am right. thomasFeb 25 2008 1:02pm One interesting phenomenon these days is that males are being used as sex objects in media. Shirtless males with well defined muscles have become the norm. But these males are not portrayed as strong - but passive. The passive muscular male is a toy for Females. His muscles are merely asthetic adornments and not symbols of strength. The fact is he is not likely to be stronger than a healthy Female anyway. More and more Women are not so intimidated by male muscles because They know They are probably stronger than him even if Their muscles don't bulge as much as his do. Remember that bulging male muscles are often just puffed updue to hypertrophy which makes male muscles bigger without making them stronger. It seems more and more Women (and men) are seeing male musculature as something more for show than for strength, since they know that Women's muscles are where the real strength is. wmnpwrMar 02 2008 11:52am How about your muscle strength wmnprw? I am a rather small man, 5'6 and skinny, but I can still do reps with 100 lbs, can you? ChristoferMar 02 2008 11:47pm wmnpwr, you are right of course. Usually, when the astheticlly pleasing male is shown now, he is not very intelligent and needs to be corrected or helped. When that isnt the case, he is either admired for his physical beauty or chuckled at. The times are changing, but the changes are fairly subtle so you have to watch for them. We men are now in a position of slightly lower status compared to Women and our fall is just starting. thomasMar 03 2008 8:05am Thomas, The end of patriarchy is upon us. Almost every day you can read about some 'last bastion' of masulinity being broken by Women. Whether it's business, politics, sports or academia, Women are routinely overtaking males as the more capable and powerful of the sexes. It really began when science discovered the y chromosome. Ever since then there has been mounting evidence of the natural superiority of Women. This has resulted in old fashioned myths about male superiority being disproved by empowered Women who are no longer afraid to hide their strength for fear of being socially ostracized. Girls now grow up knowing that they can be stronger than boys and be admired for it. Women can flaunt Their superiority and lots of males are turned on. It's not just a 'kinky fantasy' for men to be attracted to strong Women, it's an open everyday reality. Women will continue to assert Their power until patriarchy becomes a footnote in the herstory books. Males will be appreciated for their ability to pleasure and amuse Women. wmnpwrMar 07 2008 4:22pm wmnpwr, you are absolutely correct. Women are gifted in ways that we men can never truly understand. It is absolutely stunning how quickly this role reversal is taking place. Amazingly, we men are growing very comfortable with the idea. In many ways, it feels natural for us to be secondary. We yearn to be allowed to take on the mantle of subserviance. Many men still prance around in the old macho style, but even in places around the world where patriarchal control seems strongest, the changes are taking place and Women are advancing. Empowered Females are taking over and we men need to get on board and learn how to pleasure and amuse Women. thomasMar 07 2008 8:37pm My closest friend (a woman of 32 ,I am a man about the same age)told me the other day that her husband had beaten her fair and square when they armwrestled. My initial reaction was So what? She said, so typically male, haven't you noticed that I am bigger than him all over and that I am the one that goes to the gym all the time. I had to admit that this was the case but I kept on, but, he is still a man and you are a woman. She got a bit upset with me saying that she could probably beat me so I better watch out. We have known each other for ages and I think that we armwrestled when we were kids. She is bigger than me as well, 6'1 and probably around 200 lbs, her husband is 6' and perhaps 10-15 lbs ligther, about the same as me. We decided to armwrestle straight away. I am left handed and we started with our right hands. I could feel that she was really strong but also that she didn't have any technique whatsoever. Neither of us could win, me because she was stronger and she because she didn't know how. With our left hands I had the power to pin her at last. She was really pissed to loose to another "weak man". Since I am her best friend I told her how to armwrestle. She learned how to get the right hand grip, she learned how to use her wrist and she learned how to use her whole body, not only her armstrength. When I had shown her a number of times she wanted a new match with each arm. She could slam my both arms to the table as easy as that, with only 20 minutes of practice. A few days later she called me and told me that her husband is now the second strongest in their family again. I think it was kind of cute that this big woman was so sure she should be stronger than two men only a bit smaller than herself. And she was right, she only needed a man to tell her, huh! I.R. McNastyMar 17 2008 4:21am In our forties and working out with my husband, my muscles have become larger than his while his have actually shrank slightly. The other difference is in me have harder muscle and more strength. I'm enjoying this and find it encouraging to workout more! In the mirror flexing next to him now, I can see a big comparison gap. I would not have believed this was possible without seeing this with my own eyes. I really do have superior muscles that have responded far better to exercise than his even though I'm a woman. Seeing my muscles compared to his when flexing has been one of the best things to ever happen and the biggest thrill. Totally crushing the weaker sex theory in his mind, something that had a firm foundation has crumbled. The look on his face when I flex my arm is worth every hour of weight lifting! My muscles are making his seem small and he knows how strong they are and it's changed everything in our marrage, he's pretty shaken by his wife having a far stronger body than his because it wasn't always this way. Male hormones didn't seem to make a difference in the end. Seems kind of funny to me but results speak. We women can really be stronger than men. JanetMar 22 2008 9:10am No longer is the theory that Women are the weaker sex a viable, realistic option. Instead, we now have as a fact that Woman are the stronger sex and we men are the weaker sex. Jeep it up Janet and let us know more details about how things have changed in your marriage. thomasMar 22 2008 8:40pm Wow, Janet, have you tested your strength against your husband or is he too intimidated by your flexing to accept a challenge from you? An iimpressed maleMar 23 2008 10:43am When we married, I was 19 and my husband 20. He was stronger and bigger. We had armwrestled and wrestled all in fun. The first half of our marrage was this way but later I did develop more and after having children, I was large you could say with big legs. When I started workouts to loose weight and I did but later gained some back and it was good because I was becoming muscular. I'm much bigger and more solid than he is now. I really believe more so than he ever was. To see and feel this happening gave a further boost to workout hard for sure. Any strength challenge now is in my favor by a lot. JanetMar 27 2008 8:20pm Janet, have you compared progress to that of your husband? If so what is that like? Such as lifting or flexing and how long did it take once you started? Was there a point in time when you edged him out so to speak? Thanks AnonymousMar 29 2008 4:34pm I have to agree with Thomas in that "no longer is the theory that Women are the weaker sex a realistic option" in my relationship with my husband. Like I said I started out to loose weight but soon found that I was fully capable of gaining strength and building muscles at a very surprising pace. To start with I realized that I had better endurance in the long run but was amazed to discover an advantage in muscular endurance too! When this became noticeable after about eight months, I started to think more about the outcome and was I really stronger? I began to see better muscle development compared to his in my legs in less than a year but mostly I gained lots of strength. After a year my muscles started to get larger. When that started I was very excited and over a few months my muscles were most definitely becoming larger than his. This made me wonder how could this be? All that testosterone in a man while I was the one with such muscles! Now I don't question it and I love it! My husband is weaker and marvels at me and this outcome. I'm 5 ft 9 inches at 180 pounds and solid. The first big thing was at bench pressing, I had continued to add a little weight as I progressed like the rest of my workouts. Anyway while doing sets with 180 pounds "my body weight" one day, my husband fell behind and could not match my reps and at that point I asked him to really push it only to find out that he was no longer stronger than me! From there on I tested this as often as I could and it drove me crazy to see this happening! I increased our strength gap from there on and continued to build my muscles. I started to leave behind the notion that I'm the weaker sex as soon as I started to see what was happening. While my husband can no longer deny I'm stronger than him, he still has a little argue left in him. He can't explain what's right in front of his eyes though! He used to make macho comments about "male-ness" and testosterone but no longer. I do flex in front of him and compare muscle and mention how powerful estrogen can be! I know that boggles his mind! JanetMar 31 2008 7:20pm I recognice what "swedish woman" says. Swedish females are strong. Most woman my age work out in a gym, and most men don't, and i would say a typical female around 25-30 y is fitter than the typical guy (at least in my town, south of sweden). Me and my girlfriend is another good example, she is stronger and have bigger muscles compared to mine. I usually run or play "innebandy", while she does aerobics, bodypump or horseriding. I remembered how suprised i was the first times we where playwrestling and she noticed how she was able to pin me helpless with her legs. She is very competitive and wanted to try armwresling also, and she manage to beat me there also with both arms. This was many years ago and i would say she has only increased her advantage since then. I know she enjoys beeing stronger than me and the fact that she is able to overpower me. I'm pretty cool about it, and think it's pretty sexy, but i don't like her talking about it in front of others. Another example was when a was wathing a bodypump-class a while ago. there was about 15 females and 3 guy there, and the weakest person there was one of the guys. 2008-04-02 Peter KApr 02 2008 8:42am I've built my biceps up one total inch in six months to fourteen inches. Is this considered good progress or just average? I have a home gym. MichelleApr 02 2008 4:28pm Michelle - adding 1 inch of bicep muscle in 6 months is excellent! Keep it up for at least a couple more years! AnonymousApr 03 2008 7:22am Thank you! My husband has about 14 1/2 inch biceps. As far as exercise I spend more time at it than he does. He can beat me at armwrestling but I've made it very difficult for him lately. considering it was almost easy for him before I started lifting. It takes him some time and work now. I tried to look up on the internet what is good or fast muscle development and found no answers. I'll admitt I'm surprised by what I have accomplished so far. As I see it, I will beat him soon. My husband really hasn't added much muscle with this just toned up. Something I first thought would be the other way around. MichelleApr 03 2008 7:52pm Michelle - if you keep lifting to gain strength I'll bet you equal him in 3 months and pass him in 6. A year from now he'll be commenting on a board like this that he can't believe how somehow his wife is suddenly stronger and bigger and more muscular than he is. And you will have earned it! AnonymousApr 04 2008 6:26am Michelle, the more reps you do, the more you are going to gain in endurance and less in pure strength. The fewer reps you do, the more pure strength you gain. When i was in football, we routinely did between 3-5 rep per set. Usually more toward 5. For body builders, i believe they do more of 3 reps per set. Hope this helps some. Congratulations on your great improvement. You Women have been making great strides. Keep it up. thomasApr 04 2008 7:59pm 4-14-08 AnonymousApr 13 2008 10:07pm 5/8/08 AnnonymousMay 08 2008 12:33pm I hadn't measured my biceps in months but just compared with a tape measure to my husband. We both workout and yet my arms are now only a quarter inch smaller than his. Over a year ago his bicpes were about an inch and a quarter bigger! He's now having a terrible time beating me at armwrestling and often can't. When he's wore down and can't win I wait until his strength is depleated and I still have the power to lower his hand to the table, slowly but I have more strength than he does after waiting several minutes. I've even felt his muscles start to get tired when he has an advantage and has my arm over center. I've held him long enough like that until his strength is all gone and pulled his arm up and over to beat him. To feel this happen is a real thrill while feeling my own muscles are still at nearly full strength is awesome! I can't beat him right away but like clock work he won't be able to maintain his strength and I know at that point I have far superior strength over him. I imagine it to be 10 or 20 percent more power than him. I think it's kind of strange but very interesting. I'm going to apply this to wrestling and I'll be able to overpower him in the same way! LizMay 09 2008 1:10pm Several things have happened over the last few years working out with my husband. I have broad shoulders and a strong upper body from when I was a competitive swimmer as a youg girl that would pay off later when strength traning. First off I was able to beat him up hills on our bikes followed by beating him at sprints in the park. This began to happen after we started lifting weights together. My leg muscles grew bigger than him and stronger. At first I was embarrassed because of this but later I started to feel different about it. I started thinking about the fact that I was stronger than him as my upper body gained on his so fast that I realized the same thing would happen as with my legs. At first I thought about stopping or backing off so I wouldn't have this happen. This thought stayed with me for some time and I did back off but not much changed. At some point I said to myself "screw it let's see what happens" and I started to push myself even more and I began to want to make it happen. It did, I'm stronger than my husband and more muscular. As it turns out, he can't keep his hands off me! We have this new fire as he feels my muscles and gets worked up so easy. As I flex and he feels, he get aroused so easy. It drives him nuts! What started as an embarrasment is now fun and a turn on! I'm bigger than he is and he's OK with it. He now wants to measure my muscles often and measure his own. Even though I'm more muscular he takes it like a real man and enjoys it. This whole situation may be odd but I think it's happening more and more now days. All the muscles and frame I'd built swimming years ago stayed with me and might have given me an advantage later, it's not just my legs that are so much bigger than his, my upper body had more than enough muscle to beat him at this. Believe me he was surprised by this outcome and even I was. It's not just the strength, I began to use bodybuilding Principles too. Now I'm all about out muscling him as much as nature will allow me. It's amazing to see these "girl muscles" develop more than his. Is it from my swimming, female hormones, better muscle fibers or just better genes? MagenMay 10 2008 1:40pm I would be embarrassed if my husband were stronger than me. I've worked hard in the gym to get where I'm at. I have more muscle than him and I'm stronger and I see little chance of that changing because he can't stick to workouts and I've become stonger than him more and more. I recall when he could beat me at armwrestling and then gradually that changed until I can now beat him with ease and if we wrestle now I'm fully cabable of controling him and when I choose I can tie him in a knot. It's one thing for a woman to have superior leg strength but upper body? I'm blown away by the results of weight lifting. I never thought I could have larger muscles than my husband in my upper body but believe me weight training can change all that. Recently wrestling him I've discovered it's becoming easyer to overpower him. I wrestle him about once a week and as the months go by he can not only see the big changes in my muscles but feel those changes as we wrestle. I enjoy wrestling him immensely now more than ever and I can tell he's now afraid of what has happened. I have enough control over him that I'm able to try new ways of pining and holding him. I even allow him an advantage sometimes, for example he got on top of me and held my wrists down to the floor, I was able to squeeze his legs with mine and then pull them up to wreap around his mid section, from there I started pressing his arms back and turn my wrists until I could grab his forearms about half way up and coninue pressing his arms back while holding him with my legs. Now he was traped like this and didn't have the strength to get out of my hold while I continued to press his arms behind his back more and more until he's completely pined. I've got my legs around him and straight up in the air at the same time my arms, shoulders, and chest are overpowering his. My hands slipped until they held onto his upper arms just below his biceps until I pressed his elbows together behind his back. I realize this is starting to get painful for him and I must stop there at the same time I know I could continue and could rip his muscles or dislocate his shoulders. No I'm not that cruel but it's part of the fun being able to achieve that much strength agianst him. When I have him pined in such a way I ask him to do something, get out of the hold, use all your stength to overpower me, I then get to enjoy the feeling of him trying and even let him gain some back, only then to reverse his gains and put him back into the hold and do it a few times until what strength he had left is all gone. At that point I tell him he has no strength left and I increase my strength one last time squeezing him into the knot I've put him into. His boy is to weak now to change his predicament and his mind melts and gives in until he literally licks and sucks on my muscles, usually delts as I wisper to him what I could do if I wanted. I know this sounds naughty and cruel but men overpower women all the time so turning the tables and reversing the order of things doesn't make me feel like it's so wrong. Believe me he tries but always ends up losing. It wasn't alway this way as we have wrestled for a long time with me on the recieving end and losing time and time again with rough play. So I don't carry feelings like it's wrong. My physique is very muscular and it would take a well trained and muscular man to beat me, my husband has not been able to keep up with me in that regard and as far as a strength gap goes, I'm continueing to widen that gap as I look at the results next to my husband's body and testing my strength to his, that gap widens as I continue to weight train. By the way, I havn't injured him but I've made him sore a few times. I'm 5'9", 182 lbs, of lean hard muscle and he's 5'11" 160 lbs of smaller squashy musculature that doesn't resond to weights as well. I've gone from being somewhat weaker than him to much stronger to the point that I'm convinced that he couldn't match me no matter what he does. The funny thing is my muscles look like I'm on steriods compared to his but I've never touched the stuff, only protien and creatin. All the time I had these muscles but untrained, I looked stocky or chubby until I started to workout. The fat went away and my large muscles got even larger and my strength increased tremendously. I know from reading here and elsewhere that I'm not the only woman to experience this change and I have no desire to return to the roll of the weaker sex. I had great muscles to start with but never realized their potential until I started weight lifting. Now it's very obvious who has superior muscles. We now have home gym toys and while my husband works out it's fun to watch him attempt to compete with me. I enjoy pushing myself to the limit and watching him ware down and weaken trying to match me. This is just as fun as wrestling. I will deliberately choose heavy dumbells and push sets of overhead presses and curls to my limits only to enjoy watching him fall short of what I can do or use very heavy weights that I can only do a few sets only to see him fail to lift the weight one time. I enjoy the look on his face as he sees me lift and the look when he is simply not as strong. I know it's strange but that is what drives me. Thanks for reading what I have to say about this. The relationship between men and women is changing fast. The last bastion of male dominance is physical strength and slowly but surely that dominance is being outmuscled from first place by more and more women. Many women are fully capable of doing it but don't yet realize it to be the truth and only steps away from taking over and having dominant muscle over a man. So many women don't realize that they already have dominant muscles and are only a step away from discovering that they are for a fact have far more potential strength then they can even imagine. Like I've said I know I'm not alone in finding this to be true. DeniseMay 11 2008 1:51pm Way to go, Denise. The description of your overwhelming strength in wrestling matches with your husband has to be one of the most detailed accounts of its kind I?ve read among these posts. Working out has obviously made you powerful, confident and proud of yourself. I?m wondering if you have told any of your friends, neighbors, co-workers, etc. about the physical superiority you display over your husband. If so, what have their reactions been? Are they jealous? Admiring? Uneasy (if they?re men)? Has your ability to build muscles led other women you know to try working out and challenge their husbands for the role of the stronger sex? It looks like more and more women are doing this. JakeMay 12 2008 4:54am Every time i hear one of these stories, i am continually amazed at how much stronger Women are becoming. Not only on this page, but elsewhere we are seeing Women totally reverse the roles of the sexes by outsmarting, out training, and out doing men. It seems like this is truly natural as both Women and men find the reversed roles to be intoxicating. I asked the question for this post because of the changes i have been seeing. Nothing that has been written in here has changed my impression, only deepened it. On top of that, on the rare occassion when a poll asks if men are stronger or superior to Women there is very limited response. I guess that further shows how people feel. thomasMay 12 2008 8:51pm Jake, my younger sister recently said "oh my god, your're so much bigger than he is now" and she's very interested in working out herself. I've had a few questions or comments from friends. Another thing I've noticed is our relatives (male) will now (when greeting us) walk up behind me and put their hands on my shoulders or upper arms and say "hello" but feel my muscles at the same time and then do the same to my husband. Obviously feeling the difference in muscle between us. They also keep an eye on my body and look at my shoulders while talking and look back and forth between my husband and I with their eyes on muscle. Not saying much though and seem shy about what is now a big difference. I'm not trying to be a fat head about it but I have much more muscle than him now and it's easy to see like a bodybuilder compared to more of a sedentary body he has. As if we have muscles made out of something different. DeniseMay 17 2008 5:07pm Thomas, There is a steady increase in the number of people - male and Female - who are aware of Female superiority. You mentioned that Women are outsmarting, out training and out doing men and it's more true all the time. Of course, males are always trying to convince people that Female superiority isn't a reality because the fragile male ego can't handle the truth. You may have read recently that Girls are more likely to have certain types of injuries in sports. Many reports claim this is because Females are just weaker, but it's actually just as possible that the Girls are getting injured because they actually play a lot harder than the boys. Look at the huge increases in Female athleticism and you can understand how males are afraid that the last bastion of male superiority is crumbling beyond repair as the Females redefine physical superiority. WmnpwrMay 19 2008 2:14pm Wmnpwr, recently, i have begun to think of the men who believe in the fallacy of male supracy as fetishists. They come into these polls are say they are stronger than Women. They claim they can beat any Woman at any sport. Obviously, these men are fantasizing. The rest of us are seeing the writing on the wall so to speak. We understand that there is nothing for us men to be ashamed of. We are made inferior to Women, so what. All this means is that we need to find our place in this world. And for us guys, that means in a supporting role. thomasMay 19 2008 8:54pm 5-22-08 AnonymousMay 21 2008 10:52pm we are not inferiour at all to women, I believe in equality. Many men are in denial though that women can be both mentally and physically stronger then men. Men in general are physically stronger than women but when a man and woman have similar physical back grounds, they have similar body types and put down the same amount of hours in the gym my money is on the woman, she will probably be stronger. So thanks to size we are normally stronger than women. But that doesn't really help me since I am a 162 cm tall man weighing in at 49-52 kgs. This makes me about 6-7 cm shorten than the average Norwegian woman and probably 10 kgs lighter. So I am an exception to the rule, where probably 60-70% of the adult women in my country are stronger than me. I still believe in equality between the sexes. TryggveMay 22 2008 4:28am I am a 5'9 Brazilian woman around 185 lbs. I could probably take on 3 men your size in a wrestling match Tryggve and win! I was you weight when I was 11-12 years old. My oldest daughter is 14 years old and she is if I know kgs right, about 74 kgs. My second daughter is about your size. SazaMay 22 2008 4:34am Saza, do you do any weight training at all? Are you married? If so, are you stronger than your husband? It seems that all around the world Women are surpassing men in strength but i have not heard from anyone from Brazile on the subject. What are you experiences? thomasMay 22 2008 8:29pm I have always been working hard with my body taking care of a pension (pousada)form many years. My ex-husband didn't help me with anything. I am not doing everything from building, mending, repairing and a lot of carrying. I was born strong but a life with hard physical work has made me very strong. I was a lot stronger than my ex-husband, that is probably one reason that we split up, when I wanted him to help me with different tasks and he refused I threatened to beat him up, I actually slapped him around a bit when he was drunk. The only training I do is pushups and situps. There are many big strong women in Brazil, us women are working harder than the men in general, heavy work. You get strong from that but at the end many of us get worned out. My sister is married to a fisherman, he has the bodu of a 17 year old, sinewy but no big muscles. She is big and strong just like me. Her husband would never dare to missbehave he knows that she is much stronger than him. He asks her to help him out to load and unload the boat, she can carry more than twice the weight he can. SazaMay 23 2008 4:06am Saza, your comment indicates one of the areas where Women have a huge advantage over men. We men tend to be lazy and because of that we are losing the advantages we had held for centuries. In the US, we see more and more Women working out and focused on their conditioning. We men tend to rely on our natural size advantage and thus we lose the strength battle quite often. Given the situation in Brazil, would you be embarrassed if your male was weaker than you? thomasMay 24 2008 10:14pm Saza, Brazilian girls or women are strong, but do you think they could beat boys or men in boxing or fistfight? What if your ex-husband fought you when you threatened to beat him up? He might have beaten you badly even though you are stronger. Men are faster and hit harder than women and women are easily injured by a man's punch. I knew a strong girl who beat up many boys when she was young. When she got to be 15 she fought a weaker boy. She attacked him powerfully, but he responded fiercely and his punches hurt her too much. Soon he beat her badly. alexMay 25 2008 6:34am I think you are both right and wrong Alex. Men are normally more used to fights so they would have an advantage fighting a woman, generally speaking. My ex-husband didn't have any fighting skills, I have been in more fights than him. Add my strength and weight advantage he would have been in serious trouble if he laid a hand on me. Like I said I had to discpline him a bit when he was totally out of hand drinking to much. He tried to defend himself but I could slap him around for quite some time before he admitted that he behaved like a jerk. I wouldn't count on women always being bad fighters, I have seen cat fights that scared the poo out of both me and the men watching them. I could see in the eyes of the men that they could never handle some of these women. Scratching, biting, hairpulling, kicking and hitting. I know that some of these girls I have witnessed could beat up much bigger men. SazaMay 25 2008 11:05pm Saza, you are right about that. In addition, in most cases, Women can endure much more pain than men. So what might cause a man to stop fighting, might only anger a woman. On top of that, if the Women got the advantage in the fight, the man would then have to deal with the realization a Woman could hurt him. Many men simply could not handle this. thomasMay 26 2008 6:58pm I'm a 22y old girl from sweden, and it have been interesting to read all the stories here. I think here is sweden it's heading the same trend as in Japan, the girl ideal is sporty, strong and incharge and the girls wants the guys to be slim, cute and not having too much muscles. I remebered when the swedish gladiators show was on, everybody on my school thought the male gladiators was gross and having too much muscles, but it was cool with the female gladiators muscle. I know everyone in our little "girlgang" prefer slim bodies on guys and not the buff gymguys. Nowdays when we go out on nighclubs we always chase the cute and "weak" guys, i think they are sexier somehow. The last two guys i had been to bed with, have been slim musician in my age, with slim arms and legs. I was clearly stronger phyicly than both of them, and i could easily take control of them and be in "charge", and i think both me and them loved it. I talked to my best frinds about it, and they thinks it cool and also prefer their guys to be weaker, or at least not much stronger then themself. They say it's both safer and you can have more fun with them (i'm not telling what they like to do to cute guys ;-0 ) I also notice that the guys with big muscles are getting jelous at smaller guys, since they seems to get girls much easier. I talked to an ex. classfriend of mine, and he said he had stopped training at gym a year ago, since girls had told him he had too much muscle. I told him of course he looked better now then he was smaller (of course ;-) ). I dont say everyone in sweden prefer smaller guys, but it's definatly an big trend among girls in my age. And then i get a serious boyfriend, i'm pretty sure he will be weaker than me. PS. I lift more than 2 of three guys in my bodypump-class, and they are around 30 years. Not bad, huh? (if they wasn't engaged both of them (grrr), i would invite them home, hehe ;-) ) /Kattis KattisMay 28 2008 4:34am 5-28-08 AnonMay 28 2008 4:42am Wow, Kattis, that is incredible!! It seems that Women are taking on their new found position of strength with joy and fun. In the US, it is not quite as obvious as you describe but more and more Women are lifting and getting stronger. Men are learning about styles and ways to look better for Women. BTW, would you be embarrassed if you boyfriend was stronger than you? Or would you even consider dating a guy that was stronger than you? thomasMay 28 2008 8:38pm Kattis, I have been chasing the small weak guys all the way since High school. I got an appetite for them when I was 15. I had a crush on this shy and cute 18 year old but didn't really know how to nail him. I was a gymnast and had a robust strong physique but he never noticed me. He lived a block down the road from me and one day when he passed my house I asked him to help me with my math. He accepted and I could invite him to our house. We were alone, he helped me with the math problems and I moved my body close to him, he was really shy and tried to move away. I teased him a bit about being so thin and said that I was probably stronger than him. He smiled nervously and said no way, you are only 15 and I am man. I pushed him to my bed and pinned him. It felt great having him under me. He said that I was cheating and that he could take me in a real match. We cleared a big spot in the living room and stripped down to our under wear. I got him to do that because he just had to prove that a 18 year old was stronger than a 15 year old girl and he didn't want to destroy his clothes. I toyed with him. I was (and still am) really strong after hours of gymnast training since I was 5, and a gym rat on top of that. I pinned him, scissored him and had him to give up a number of time. I that stripped him and...let's just say he was my first. And I was his first...We were a couple for 4 years. Since than I have only been with slim, weaker guys. The big muscular hunks just can't do the trick for me. Please tell us some more Kattis. RondaMay 29 2008 12:15am In America, I've noticed that women are slowly feminizing men. In the 1970's it was considered "manly" or "macho" for men to have a hairy chest. Now a hairy chest seems to provoke snickers and sneers and comments like "he needs to get his chest waxed". Manicures, facials, waxing, dieting, all these things that only women used to do, men are now doing at the encouragement of women. The next step is for women to demand and only choose men who are softer and more slender than they are. AnonymousMay 29 2008 7:05am Don't worry. Even a weak male of age 15 or more is stronger than any girl or woman who does not work out. Some women do work out and they can become much stronger than the average man, but most women still choose to be either plump, weak couch potatos or skinny, weak stick figures with too much make-up and padded bras. alexMay 29 2008 10:38am Hi again. To thomas, i wouldn't be embarrassed of i had a boyfriend who was stronger, society still think that?s normal. But i think i would been frustrated ;-) And about dating a guy stronger than me, i cannot say i would never do that. It's many more things than bodytype and strength that is important when choosing a mate. But i can honestly say i prefer dating guys who are weaker than me, and i hope my future husband is weaker than me (but i know it's hard to plan these things too much, love is strange...) And to Rhonda, nice story there. Reading it make me wish i was more forward against the guys when i was that age. I knew a guy, similar to your guys, who I had a crush on. But i was nice and waited for him to make a move (witch never came and then he moved away). Lucky for me i am now older and have learned it's no use sit and wait for a guy, the best thing is just go out and grab them. LOL (just like you did when you where 15y). "Please tell us some more Kattis." I have some stories to tell also, but have not time right now (they may be long...) But I have BTW showed this forum to some of my friends, and they have promised me to write something here also (as a proof i'm not alone thinking this way in sweden ;-) /KattisMay 30 2008 4:18am I have had some problems getting my smaller boy friends to like sitting in my lap, being carried around a bit and gettin wrestled down sometimes, I just love to do these things and if they are not up to it I will leave them in the end. But I have also been surprised that some of them have loved feeling protected and safe in the arms of a stronger woman. Why not? RondaJun 02 2008 12:53am Hi Kattis. I read your post and think you have some good points. I am middleaged myself, but have seen some changes in my school over the last years, to confirm your trend. The school I work in is a rather small school in Sweden, grade 1-9, with less than 200 students. There have been a few "incidents" the last year about strong girls. In one grade 8 class, a girl can beat all the boys in armwrestling. She has also challenge three male teachers and won over two of them. The one who won is a very big guy, the two who lost have average build. And we had a fight in the middle of the schoolyard, with ended with an 8-grade girl (not the same girl as above) pinning down and slapping a humiliated 9-grade guy who couldn't get loose. And this spring, the grade 9 girls won aver the boys on both football and brannball (baseball) in their annual battle before they end school. It's the first time the girls have won the footballmatch, before the guys always won easily, but the last few years it have been more close, and this year the girls actually won. I would also say that almost every girl on school is involved in some sort of sport, football, riding, judo, track and field and so on. And I would say less than half of the guys do the same. Many of the guys are just sitting in front of a computer or videogame when the school ends, and are clearly more unfit or skinny than boys where few years ago. I have also notice the girls are more confident and bossy around the boys than before. The footballs girls are not shy about their stung legs, as they often where before and often compare them next to skinny guys and tease them about it. This spring I also saw a few girls compare arm muscles to a few "cool" guys and the girls was about even with them. 10 years ago you would never seen things like that. I would say there has been a definitive change in power between the girls and boys over the last few years in this school. The girls are not afraid anymore to train their strength or show off their strength. I think one part of the explanation is that athletes like Sussanna Kallur, Kluft, Anja Persson is very popular, and they are muscular and strong. I have more examples from my school, but it would take too long... Blue nun Blue nunJun 02 2008 4:31am Hi Kattis. I read your post and think you have some good points. I am middleaged myself, but have seen some changes in my school over the last years, to confirm your trend. The school I work in is a rather small school in Sweden, grade 1-9, with less than 200 students. There have been a few "incidents" the last year about strong girls. In one grade 8 class, a girl can beat all the boys in armwrestling. She has also challenge three male teachers and won over two of them. The one who won is a very big guy, the two who lost have average build. And we had a fight in the middle of the schoolyard, with ended with an 8-grade girl (not the same girl as above) pinning down and slapping a humiliated 9-grade guy who couldn't get loose. And this spring, the grade 9 girls won aver the boys on both football and brannball (baseball) in their annual battle before they end school. It's the first time the girls have won the footballmatch, before the guys always won easily, but the last few years it have been more close, and this year the girls actually won. I would also say that almost every girl on school is involved in some sort of sport, football, riding, judo, track and field and so on. And I would say less than half of the guys do the same. Many of the guys are just sitting in front of a computer or videogame when the school ends, and are clearly more unfit or skinny than boys where few years ago. I have also notice the girls are more confident and bossy around the boys than before. The footballs girls are not shy about their stung legs, as they often where before and often compare them next to skinny guys and tease them about it. This spring I also saw a few girls compare arm muscles to a few "cool" guys and the girls was about even with them. 10 years ago you would never seen things like that. I would say there has been a definitive change in power between the girls and boys over the last few years in this school. The girls are not afraid anymore to train their strength or show off their strength. I think one part of the explanation is that athletes like Sussanna Kallur, Kluft, Anja Persson is very popular, and they are muscular and strong. I have more examples from my school, but it would take too long... Blue nun Blue nunJun 02 2008 6:13am My problem is that girls and women that have been physically stronger than me have looked down at me, when we have matched strength they have tried hard to win and when they have won they feel that I am no longer worthy. Women are as stuck with the traditional roles as men. It is OK to be a strong woman but they need to be a weaker than the man. And shorter, and lighter etc. etc. I am 5'6 and perhaps 110 lbs so there are a lot of women bigger and stronger than me. I am not looking for somebody that is weaker or smaller than me, just looking for the right woman to love and so far most of them have been stronger than me and because of that have left me. I am thinking of taking steroids. Skinny and not too strongJun 02 2008 11:31pm Hello kattis. Don't mess with swedish girls LOL Funny to read about you and Swedeish girls here, caurse today there is big news here in Paris about a seial rapist who got caught last night. This guy, 31 y old french, attacked a 22y swedish girl last night. He sneaked up behind her and grabbed her and got his hands under her skirt. But she defended herself well and got lose. The rapist attacked her again but she defended herself good with fists and kicks and screamed to get attention. The man gave up and tried to run away, but followed and alamed a few people on the street, who stopped and chased the man down and held him there until the police came. The police found both knives and handcuffs in the man pockets. He confessed beeing guilty of over 30 assult rapes in Paris. The prosecutor Isabelle Montagne was very pleased they had finally manage to capture this serial rapist and was impressed by the young swedish woman and told the papers: "- She was really brave and gave him a very hard resistance." I guess he did the big mistake to attack a young fit swedish woman, LOL. BTW i think strong girls are very cool and you are welcome to France and see if you can handle a 170cm, 62kg french guy (me) ;-) Paris, FranceJun 03 2008 5:18am It is interesting to see how things are changing. The next generation will surely show how much more Women are moving ahead of men in the strength and physical conditioning aspects of life. And as the previous comments are showing, this is a world wide change not just something limited to a few countries. thomasJun 09 2008 1:51pm My brother is married to a athletic woman, a former elite gymnast that is now training gymnasts. My brother is built like me, slim and on the short side, my sister-in-law is about the same height but looks almost twice as wide with her broad shoulders, trapeze muscles and beefy arms, her hips are today wider than when she was an active gymnast and her thighs and calves are just huge. I am surprised to find that my kid brother is just fine living with a woman that is so much stronger than him and as a woman I am proud to see how he is bragging about her strength. The sad part is that I would like to be strong and muscular like my sister-in-law but it is really difficult for me to build muscle. But I am a lot stronger than I look, I work out almost every day and my small muscles have surprised many guys. My current boyfriend is about 25 lbs heavier than me but I can beat him when we wrestle, he is probably stronger than me in his arms but my body is stronger all over. My boyfriend douesn't like to wrestle me since he never liked loosing to a girl. He just has to get used to that since I intend to get stronger, even if I can never be as strong as my sister-in-law. I am stronger than my brother by the way. CallieJun 09 2008 11:15pm Callie, you will be surprised at how much muscle you can add over time. As you pointed out, your sister in law has spent a lifetime gaining her strength and it will take some time for you to get up to speed with her. But keep at it, you will be pleasantly surprised. You mentioned that your boyfriend doesnt like to wrestle you because he never liked to lose to a girl. Is the opposite of that true. Do you like to beat a guy, especially someone close to you like your boyfriend or brother? thomasJun 10 2008 12:03pm I wish you were right thomas, I really would like to bulk up a bit but it seems to be difficult. But I am really getting much stronger. I have shocked my boyfriend when we playwrestle, as many girls I have a very coordinated body where I can use my strong parts, legs, back and shoulders in an efficient way, my boyfriend is still a bit stronger in his arms but I can wear him out with legscissors, and other moves. Once he have realized that I can kick his butt he is avoiding these little friendly tuzzles. Yes, I like to beat my boyfriend in these matches, and yes I like to beat my brother in armwrestling matches. My brother is totally cool getting his butt kicked by his sister, my sister-in-law has showed him that women can be very strong. I will keep on working out. CallieJun 10 2008 11:09pm Good for you Callie. Keep in mind that often how you work out is determinative of the results you seek. Generally speaking, the more reps the more toning you are doing. the lower the reps, the more bulk and strength you gain. On to the rest of your post, it certainly sounds like in your family, the women wear the pants. Is your mother stronger than your father? Do you want to marry a man who you can outmuscle? Im curious as to your thoughts. Thanks for any response. thomasJun 11 2008 7:17pm I've been working out for two years and my biceps are almost 15 inches. My husband works in an office and never weight trains but does play golf for exercise. His biceps are 13 inches and has smaller muscles everywhere else we've compared. I'm far stronger than he is now and it seems strange but I like it this way and feel I haven't reached my full potential by any means. My muscles have greater length than his espesually quads and calves but it's even noticeable in our biceps and forearms. This alone to my knowledge gives me an advantage over him in building larger muscles as I've read that more length in the muscle will allow greater gains in cross sectional size over shorter muscles and I'm already seeing this huge difference now. we've armwrestled and there is no chance of him beating me plus we've wrestled a little just in fun and it's easy to take control. I really believe that even if he did workout he would not have an advantage over me just because he's a man. There is a difference in our muscles as I've mentioned that seems to have little to do with gender and more about muscle qaulity. Other tests of strength enclude clasping each other's hands and finding out who has control while pushing up or down. His arms go where I want them to go while he can't force mine at all. He will tire out within minutes while I force his arms above his head or to his waste over and over. When he tries to do this to me I'll hold steady without much movement at all. We've done this a few times while standing in front of each other. I've also cornered him in a door frame and had him push like a bench press only to watch him struggle and then I push his arms back to his shoulders or chest and hold him there while he's unable to push my arms back. There's a big difference in our strength now as you can see but I had not teated my strength against his until recently so I may have out muscled him months ago or even a yaer ago. Still this has only taken me two years to become way stronger than him and more muscular. Something many people don't realize is quite possible in such a short time. We are always told that we are at some huge disadvantage but now I no longer belive that to be true. Fact is I now believe my husband is at a disadvantage and always has been. My progress and comparing him with me gives me even more drive to continue. The comparison in another six months or a year? I trully believe there will be a huge difference and something he will never be able to change. I really do like it this way. I know this might sound crazy but I would like to be able to lift his body up over my head and press his body weight up. Something I don't think I can do yet but will be able to in the future hopefully. I really don't believe it's impossible so I plan on doing it some day! TarrisaJun 21 2008 11:28am That is simply amazing Tarrisa. Good for you and im glad to hear that you not only are comfortable with this but like it. As to the ability to gain strength, your right in part and wrong in part in my opinion. From what you describe you have a genetic advantage over your husband because of the way your muscles are shapped. That is not necessarily gender driven. But as for the fact that you have greater stamina, that is generally a strength most women have over most men. If you scroll up and read some of the information others have shared and look at other questions in this or other polls, you will find a wealth of information about the advantages women have in longevity. A search on the web or at your local library will also confirm this. Keep up the hard work and before long, I have no doubt you will be able to lift and carry your hubby. thomasJun 21 2008 7:33pm Tarissa, what is your husbands reaction to all this? Can he take being weaker than you? I suspect my wife is stronger than me but scared that she might find out. She sometimes gives me hints that she's got the muscles in our family but so far we never have checked who is stronger. She outweighs me 185 lbs to my 167. She is working out 4 times a week with weights while I am running and playing tennis. I feel her big muscles when we are intimate and I really have to admit that she is bigger all over and beneath a layer of fat her muscles are rock hard. I think that our relationship would change if she won against me in a wrestling match, I think she could be rather bossy and I don't know how to take that. It would be great to hear from a strong woman about how they feel when they are stronger and how their husbands/boyfriends can take being weaker. McLeodJun 23 2008 1:04am Hi all. You wanted more info, and I told you before there is two guys around 30y in my bodypump-class, and i now lift more than both of them. Unfortunally both of them have girlfriends. The first one is funny, he and his girlfriend always train bodypump together, and they always stand next to each other and ALWAYS have the exact same weights on the bar in all exercises. They have also the same colour on their clothes, LOL.----------- The other guy is really good looking, but I have heard he have a girlfriend. I usually place myself behind him in our bodypump-class, so I have a good view on him while training. I don't know why, but I enjoy watching him struggling with lesser weights than I use. When I do good reps with heavier weights, it's a confirmation of my girl body is stronger than his male body, even if he is an handsome adult guy 10 years older than me, and I enjoy the feeling. I have tried to talk to him after the class, but he seemed to be a bit shy. I told him he had a slim and fit body, and he laughed and said thank you, and seemed to like my compliment, as loosen up towards me and the last weeks he is always saying hello and do some small talk to me before the class. Maybe Im getting somewhere ;-) /KattisJun 23 2008 2:44am Kattis it indeed sounds encouraging.? Many men, especially those of us who appreciate strong women tend to be a bit on the shy side.? Keep up the effort and it might not hurt to make some more comments about his looks.? Im sure he likes it.? The one couple who wear the same colored clothes, which is stronger, the guy or the girl?? What colors do they usually wear?? Or is there no pattern?? Just curious and thanks for any input. thomasJun 23 2008 1:46pm Hi all. I have promised my friend kattis to write something here on topic, so here we go. I can describe myself first, I?m 21 y old, and have always been the "bad girl" among my girlfriends, doing crazy stuff, love to party late, having tattoos, some piercing, love kinky stuff, getting boyfriends very early and so on. Despite this I have a steady boyfriend since almost 4 years now, and I am actually the only girl with a steady boyfriend in our "girlgang". My boyfriend is same age as me, are also some kind of bad boy, with long hair and many tattoos. I must say I share Kattis taste in guy, I like guys who are slim, "boyish" and not too muscular. I must say my boyfriend fit that description pretty good, pretty light with slim arm and legs. He was still stronger than me, course I wasn't very strong and didn't train anything except guitar... Anyway, two years ago I moved to this town to study, and met Kattis and the other girls. They where climbing and I started also, and soon found out I was pretty good at it. It seems like I have some natural talent for it, and I was very fun to climb also. The first months my arms where screaming in pain after my climb training, but after a while my arms developed so I could handle it better. I also trained some bodypump with Kattis to help build strength to make me a better climber. I was surprised to see I could develop muscles pretty quick, since I never had any muscles before and didn't think I could ever be athletic. My boyfriend noticed this too, and he was amazed that after just a few month climbing weak little me was pretty even with him in armstrengh. We tied at armwrestling, but he was cool with it and wanted to feel my new muscle and so on. As I continued to climb, my strength and muscles continued to develop good, and I am now clearly stronger and have more muscles than my cute bad boy. I didn't like my body much before, but now I?m proud of my fit body and thinks my new stronger body fits my "bad ass" personality much better, and I feel I can put some physical force behind my brave word and demands now. And i feel more confident also. But even if i have trained pretty hard, i was very surprised how quick a girl like me could pass his male strengh. My boyfriend thinks my new strength is cool, and likes when I get physical with him. When among his friends, he doesn't want me to show off, and I respect that, but among my girlfriends I love to show off, winning over him in strength contests like armwrestling (it's often Kattis who egg us on after a few beers ;-) I want to tell more, but this is all for now. TessJun 26 2008 1:44am Good news about the bodypump-guy. We smalltalked before the pass and I asked him about his girlfriend. He was surprised by the question, but anwsered that they broke up a few month ago and he was single now. A said that a guy like him must have many girls chasing him now, and he almost blushed and laughed, and said he dind't know anything about that. Then tha pass started a placed myself in front of him this time, and everytime i looked at him in the mirrors i could see he was studying me. Everytime we changed wheights during pass, i turned back to him and we both smiled. One time he told me "Damn, you are really good att this." I had heavier wheights during all excersices, and one time i saw him put on my wheight on one excercise, but he failed after just a few bad reps and had to put off some wheights. I flirted with him openly during pass, and he seemed to get nevous about it even of i could see he enjoyed it also. I'm a bit surprised i can get him nevous like this since he is almost 10 years older than me. After the pass, i had changed and saw him talking to another guy, I told him bye Peter and see you here on friday again, and he was very friendly against me and said we will meet on friday here. I could see how he followed me when i went away on my bike. LOL, i think his interesed. I have to plan my next move. Your suggestion Amina may be good, but the only problem is i dont work out in the gym myself, i only do bodypump, climbing and use some free weight at home (this gym is expensive for me right now). We'll see what will happen, i'll keep you updated ;-) PS. thomas. The couple who wear the same colored clothes seems to have exactly same strenght. It's hard to tell if one holds back to please the other, but it don't seems so. They always do things together, read the same books and we call them the siamese twins (even if he has black hair and she is blonde). Their clothes have diffrent colors, gray, red, but always same color and same brand togheter. PS2: Hi Tess. Nice to see you join in ;-) /Kattis /KattisJun 26 2008 5:11am Welcome to the discussion Tess. It is always nice to have new posters in here. I am curious from your comments, do you find that it is common for the girls to be chasing after the boys now, or is it still mostly the guys trying to date with the girls. Also, has your increase in strength changed your relationship at all? Has your boyfriend tried to catch up in strength or is he happy being the weaker one? Kattis, i would say that these are all good signs. Thanks for the answer to my previous question. For myself, i am seeing more and more women and especially more girls who are stronger and more aggressive with boys. I even saw one time a girl forced a boy to kiss her while she fondled him. I almost called the police but then she let up. Not that that is good, but it is starting to happen more where i am at. Do you have any similar experiences? thomasJun 26 2008 1:32pm 7-8-08 annonymousJul 08 2008 2:18pm i think the women here are confused..in most cases the men in the house wont go full strebgth against a woman. i read maureen's story..perfect example of a guy who wont hit a woman..if he did..he would probably be in jail. lanceJul 09 2008 5:33am I think yyour confused lance. There are a lot of women pumping iron now and as a result they are becoming stronger than many men often husbands or boyfriends. The ratio of women to men that are working out has changed so you are for sure going to increase the numbers of women outmuscling men. Sometimes the strength ratio changes radically with some women having much more muscle than some men. Just a fact of life now. AnonymousJul 11 2008 7:24pm I think you're confused. Anyway you get the picture. AnonymousJul 11 2008 7:26pm Today, i watched a volleyball tournament. The women who participated were very strong and conditioned. But in the crowd, there were so many strong women it was almost intimidating. Just adding to your thoughts Anonymous thomasJul 13 2008 8:36pm ok..then lets put all women on a work out schedule..and then they can be the majority in the army..lol lanceJul 14 2008 8:25am Lance, men are on average "larger" but not always stronger when it comes to equal muscle mass. AnonymousJul 15 2008 8:28pm Perhaps Lance can add some understanding to this... In studies carried out at the University of Jyvaskyla in Finland, for example, 10 male and nine female strength athletes (powerlifters and body-builders) performed 20 maximal squat lifts, with three minutes of recovery between each lift. After the 20 lifts, the fatigued leg muscles of both males and females had lost about 20-24% of their maximal strength. However, various indicators of muscular power favoured the females. For one thing, the force-time curve an indicator of muscles ability to contract powerfully and quickly changed negatively by 28% in the males over the course of the workout but dropped by only 19% in the females. Females also recovered from the 20-lift session more quickly. One hour after the workout, female lifters leg muscles could generate about 92% as much force as before the session, whereas male muscles were just 79% as strong. Why was the fatigue greater and recovery slower in males? Part of the problem seemed to be that the male lifters nervous systems became less responsive over the course of the workout. From the first to the 20 lift, activation of leg muscles by nerve cells fell by 20-25% in males but held fairly steady in females. While its not clear why male nerve activation should deteriorate more quickly, it is clear that females lose less of their muscular power during heavy-duty resistance training and seem to recover more rapidly once a tough session is over. (Neuromuscular Fatigue and Recovery in Male and Female Athletes during Heavy Resistance Exercise, International Journal of Sports Medicine, vol. 14(2), pp. 53-59, 1993) AnonymousJul 15 2008 8:31pm If I read the above post correctly, about the study done in Finland with male and Female bodybuilders and powerlifters, A Woman and a man of equal strength can do the same maximal lifts and they will both reach the same level of fatigue after the first set, but then - the Woman will be ready for the next set much sooner than the male, who will be at 79% of his strength when She is at 93% of Hers. So the Woman will then be 14% stronger than the male. Therefore a male who starts out stronger than a Woman might end up weaker than Her after a similar period of exertion. Any male advantage is strength is likely to be simply based on a man's greater size, but that advantage will be lost when put to the endurance test. SorryboysJul 17 2008 5:32pm I think you are right Sorryboys. And that is proven out in real life if you give it a try. Recently, i went to a conditioning program. Part of the conditioning was resistence training. The resistence training was limited to using your own body weight for most of them and the rest was only strength bands. When we started the resistence training, I was able to do all of the exercises better then most of the women. But when endurance came into play, the women started to achieve much better results than I was able to. So i saw first hand the quick decline that we men experience compared to women. thomasJul 17 2008 9:59pm That is not the only research. Ther are others that prove that women have more flexable muscles as well as a high amount of muscle fiber that contracts to produce power, actually about 10 percent more since not all of the fiber contracts. LynnJul 19 2008 5:17pm That would demonstrate that women have more powerfull muscles would it not? Not long after I started weight traing, I beat my husband at armwrestling and then soon wresting. At nearly two years in the gym my muscles had become much bigger than his. While my husband does workout he has lagged behind me, his muscles reached what size and strength they can it would seem regardless of the fact he is a man. For what ever reason my muscles respond better than his. AnnJul 19 2008 5:27pm Recent research has discovered one of the key mechanisms in the function of muscle tissue on the cell level. Each time a muscle flexes the cells in each strand of muscle tissue draw in and then expel fluids containing certain minerals and proteins. If the tissue isn't fully flushed with each contraction, it becomes less and less responsive. Males' muscles are simply less efficient at this repeated cleansing process, so male muscle takes longer to regain it's maximum strength when it reaches a point of exhaustion. In other words, men's muscles get more 'clogged up' faster. Naturally there is some overlap, and quite a few males and Females are equal in muscle efficiency, but Women as a group are superior in this regard, and it's safe to say that the human being with the greatest muscular power over the long haul is a Woman. ScienceJul 20 2008 9:21am Ann, WHAT IS THE SIZE COMPARISON AND AGE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN YOU AND YOUR HUSBAND? JEFFJul 21 2008 6:54am Ann, I would say your genetics are the most important factor in your muscular development. i.e. body type ectomorph, vs mesomorph. Some men have better genes for building muscle just as some women have better. Beyond that all we can do is work with what we have. cheers. AnonymousJul 21 2008 9:34am Your right Lynn. There is much research that is showing that women are capable of being stronger than men. One change that is happening today that is helping this potential become realized is that women are now finally being allowed to reach for what they desire. In the past, and the not to distant past to say the least, women had been discouraged from participating in athletics or body building. Today, women are finding freedom to participate and thus see what they can achieve. Unbeknownst to anyone when this freedom became more open was that women would excel and begin to catch men. Now they are seeing they are capable of surpassing us and it certainly will not surprise me when that occurs. The other part of the equation is that when women set their mind to do something, they have a tenacity not many men can achieve. This will give an even bigger boost to women. People like Ann are becoming much more common for everyday people and it will continue to grow in numbers, at least in my opinion. thomasJul 21 2008 2:23pm Seen the latest vids of colette guimond on youtube? very few men can even dream of developing such big strong muscles. AnonymousJul 25 2008 10:33pm Colette Guimond and other FBBs like her are the worst nightmare of the typical macho muscleboy. She could break most men in half. AnonymousJul 26 2008 1:56pm Loved reading your comments Kattis, do you have anything new (or old) to relate? And you to Tess. I am also Swedish but right now living abroad. Swedish girls/women are often rather tall with a strong build and now you seem to like working out for strenght, something that was not so common when I was your age. I am a woman over 50. When I was in my 20's I worked out but stopped using weights when my muscles became too big. I have kept on working out ever since but it was about 5 years ago when I started to work out "for real", I mean working out with free weights with a Personal trainer. I recently remarried to a wonderful man, a bit shorter than me (he thinks it is fantastic to have a tall Swedish wife). He has never been to a gym and when we some time ago playwrestled (yes you can do that being over 50 years old) he was shocked how strong I was. I wasn't, I knew already from the start that I was a lot stronger than him and would actuallay have been ashamed if he proved to be stronger. I also beat him armwrestling. I thought this could cause problems with our relationship but I also liked to show him that I was proud of my strong body. He took it really well, I mean he is from a country in Southern Europe where the man is supposed to be the breadwinner and of course stronger than his wife. Keep on the way you do Kattis and Tess. Lycka till och bli starkare, that is the way for the modern woman. Swedish womanAug 04 2008 11:55pm Swedish woman, thank you for your post. As I have said before, people are getting comfortable with the woman being the stronger one in the relationship. Heck, people are getting comfortable with the idea of the woman being the head of household, main bread winner, and being the leader in all ways in a relationship. What does Lycka till och bli starkare mean? thomasAug 05 2008 9:20am Good luck and get stronger is what it means. Swedish womanAug 05 2008 1:48pm swedish woman, would you beat him up if he bossed you around? AnonymousAug 07 2008 3:33am I don't think that my lovely little husband would dare to boss me around since he know I am a lot stronger. If he got out of hand and tried to hit me he would be in big trouble and I think that he realizes that. But I am pretty sure this will never happen. Swedish womanAug 08 2008 4:51am he is still male....so be careful..if he gets angry...i think his male strength will surprise you. AnonymousAug 08 2008 9:03am Recently saw an episode of Big Brother in which there was an 'endurance challenge' where all the contestants had to stand on a narrow ledge on a tilted wall while hanging onto a railing to keep from falling. It started out with 5 men and 4 Women. After an hour and 15 minutes all the men had fallen off the wall. one of the men was a body builder who later said that he thought it was a 'bogus competition', meanwhile there were two Women who hung on for 2 hours and 50 minutes more than doubling the endurance of any of the males. None of them expected the Women to win, much less by such a wide margin. The Woman who did win probably could have stayed up there a lot longer but it wasn't necessary. Women really are the stronger sex! AnonymousAug 08 2008 11:12am Swedish woman, thank you for the translation. You are very right about it being the way for the modern woman. I notice you called your husband your "lovely little husband". Did you just do that in here or is that something you say either in private to him or in front of other people? thomasAug 08 2008 12:21pm I call him my lovely little husband mainly in private but also when mentioning him to my girl friends. Swedish womanAug 10 2008 11:39pm wow..after reading this stuff..im wondering why we use men for the armed forces...lol...99% of men are stronger than 95% of women..wt training or no wt. training mr. realityAug 13 2008 10:04am WE use men because men start the wars and your percentage is way off too. Fact is men are the larger sex and strength is based on that? Still there is a large overlap simply because men and women come in all sizes and strength levels. You obviously didn't read (Neuromuscular Fatigue and Recovery in Male and Female Athletes during Heavy Resistance Exercise, International Journal of Sports Medicine, vol. 14(2), pp. 53-59, 1993) even though it was posted here. Several of todays research articles confirm that women are just as strong when compared on an equal muscle mass basis, they have the same muscle fibers and ratio of fast twitch/slow twitch... yet women do show a huge advantage in muscular endurance as well as recovery and flexability not to mention female muscle is more resistant to injury. So Mr. Reality... you have little to base your statement on other than comparing larger men and smaller women, something that is convenient from your point of view and not much more than that. Technically speaking women are the stronger sex based on size, endurance, longevity, and so on... again men usually have size in their favor but not much more than that. Scroll back up and read what the "International Journal of Sports Medicine" actually says and try to argue the research findings. AnonymousAug 13 2008 5:28pm Just have a look at the female Asian weight lifters. These small women look great, not overly muscular yet so strong. I have witnessed women in China lifting weights that I could never carry as far as they did, and I am a rather athletic big man. I think women can use their bodies in a more efficient way than men in general. It comes to them naturally. Very few men can carry rather heavy weights for a long time. Look at some mothers carrying their 2 year old children for ages with one arm, and at the same time carrying something else with the other. I have never been able to carry our children for the same amount of time as my wife even if I am stronger than her when it comes to armwrestling (I am quite a bit bigger than her). And I have nevere been able to beat my wife in a wrestling match either. She is fast, she can use all parts of her body in a more efficient way than me and her legs and hips are a lot stronger than mine. I admire women for their natural strenght, even if most of them would loose to us men in a test of raw strength. H. LawrenceAug 13 2008 11:45pm I had a very active holiday with my new man last summer. We first hiked in the mountains for 10 days and then went biking for another 10 days in a very hilly landscape. I have been physically active all my life and have been quite used to be more fit then the men I have been dating, nothing strange with that. This new man (now my husband) claimed to be a rather good walker, he said he could walk for days. The thing was that he wasn't used to have a 15 kg back pack on his back. The first day of the hike was OK, he was dead tired in the evening though. The day after he had big problems already after one hour of walking. I had to wait for him all the time. He was clearly embarrassed about this but I wasn't surprised. I took it easy so he could follow me. The next day he looked miserable. I repacked our things and took away 5 kgs from his back back and now had about 20 kgs to carry. It worked out better this way. As long as we didn't had to walk up too much he could follow me. At the end of the 10 days i think I carried about 22-23 kgs, quite heavy really but I am strong as a donkey and he started to realize that he was totally outclassed when it came to physical challanges. The biking part went a bit better but I could go on for 2-3 hours more than him and always had to wait for him when it was to much going up hill. I was happy that he could do this holiday with me. He really tried his best and after this trip he has never questioned my physical ability (and yes, I am stronger than him when we armwrestle and wrestle but that is another story). Mrs WalkerAug 13 2008 11:58pm "Loved reading your comments Kattis, do you have anything new (or old) to relate? by swedish woman" Hi there and thanks. I actually have some nice news ontopic here, but we have to see if i got time to write, is a long story and i am on vacation now. Nice to read about a woman in your age who also is proud of her strengh. I hope i'm like you when i'm 50+ ;-) Take care och forts?tt att tr?na ;-) /KattisAug 14 2008 7:02am Kattis, I just recently had a holiday in Sweden and was surprised about all these big boned strong girls and women in the streets. Swedish women obviously take care of their bodies. I overheard a conversation in the Stockholm tube where a Swedish woman talked with her male friend in English, the friend was probably from Eastern Europe somewhere. They talked about working out and how much they could lift when they were working out. The Swedish woman then flexed her big muscles for her friend to feel. Her biceps were really big and many people in the tube smiled when the man felt these guns. The women claimed she could bench 80 kgs for reps. (On a good day I can bench 40 kgs for reps.) I am not sure if a woman in Belgium where I come from would flex her big muscles like that in public. But I liked the way this women showed her strength and to a male friend. He was a bit embarrassed about the whole thing, I guess that he realized that this woman was quite a bit stronger than himself. During the two weeks I stayed in Sweden I saw more women flexing their arms, is this common in Sweden? And I also realized that being 172 cm many Swedish women are taller than you. J W OAug 14 2008 11:35pm Mrs. Walker, this is certainly becoming more common now a days. I bet it feels good to know that you are stronger than your hubby. Do you call him your lovely little husband too? thomasAug 15 2008 8:03pm I don't call him my lovely little husband, only my lovely husband. But I think of him as my lovely little husband. Just as the Swedish woman. Mrs. WalkerAug 16 2008 2:48pm Im sure he appreciates being called lovely. That is very kind of you! thomasAug 20 2008 7:32pm I was able to beat my husband at armwrestling at just six months in the gym. I had never beat him before in our eight years together. I think I'm actually becoming stronger than him! Plus my muscles are developing very fast! He's pretty shook up by this! I've always had strong legs but I have no doubt my upper body will be stronger and more developed than his within six more months to a year. He works in an office and I workout! He doesn't workout at all and now his muscles feel soft and compared to my own. I just love the way things are changing so fast. Now since I gave him the shock of his life I'm working out harder and can't wait to see the difference over the next few months. LynSep 06 2008 7:13am China Daily Updated: 2008-08-16 09:20 Novel training methods, unprecedented scientific insight, or simply hard work and a talent pool of 1.3 billion people? Weightlifting experts from around the world are striving to uncover the secret behind the success of China, which was expected to win one-third of the 15 Olympic weightlifting gold medals on offer but has already beaten that target. Chinese coaches and athletes say there is no secret - just a tough training routine and the determination to win. Cao Lei of China sets an Olympic record of 128kg in the women's 75kg Group A weightlifting snatch competition at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games August 15, 2008. "Weightlifting depends on strength and so our women weightlifters have fully understood the importance of strength and pick up gold medals," said Olympic champion Cao Lei. Cao brought home China's seventh weightlifting gold of the Games in the 75kg class Friday. Hours later, in the men's 85kg contest, Lu Yong won the eighth. China's female lifters have been especially impressive, not only because they have won every competition they entered but also because of their style. Cao and her compatriot Chen Xiexia appeared to lift the barbell with astonishing ease and assurance that contrasted with their groaning, straining challengers. At the Olympics, Chen lifted 13kg more, Cao 16kg more, and gold medalist Liu Chunhong, 31kg more than their closest rival - this in a sport where there is often just a single kilogram between gold and silver. Some speculate that China has unlocked a new technique which allows women in particular to achieve unprecedented results. Andrew Charniga, an international weightlifting federation official, has watched the Chinese women train and suspects the secret could be in a long warm-up. While a long warm-up can exhaust men, it possibly has the opposite effect on women, allowing them to take on higher and higher loads. "It's a training method that is unique. They think women can do more loading than a man," he said. AnonymousSep 06 2008 8:32am Lyn, now that you have seen the changes in relative muscle strength, would you be willing to go back to the old way with him being stronger than you? Do you think it is a better situation in which the woman is stronger than the man or is it just something that makes you happy? thomasSep 09 2008 12:54pm That is interesting Anonymous. I wonder if we will see this continue in the future. thomasSep 09 2008 12:56pm I THINK THAT ANY DUDE WHO HAS A WIFE THAT IS STRONGER..ONLY NEEDS TO HIT THE GYM..AND IN NO TIME HE WILL BE STRONGER AGAIN..FACE IT..MEN BUILD STRENGTH MUCH FASTER. AnonymousSep 09 2008 4:16pm been there, tried that, but no, my wife stayed stronger than me. I used to be stronger than her when we were younger, or at least I thought so. She now says that she never really tried when we armwrestled and playwrestled. She joined a gym some years ago and just bulked up in a short time. After some months she wanted to show her strength to me and just dominated me when we armwrestled and wrestled, she taunted me (in a friendly way) and I secretely joined a gym, working out 2-3 times a week. I got thinner, not bigger, a bit stronger yes, better endurance yes but I never got near my wife in strength. She's got the genes for building muscle and I don't. A lot of men build strength faster than women but quite a few don't. I am the living proof of that. Skinny skinnySep 10 2008 8:21am How interesting Skinny, have your relationship changed since you both realized that she had the muscle? Are you still working out secretely or have you given it all up? Men are fools, why can't you guys accept that some girls/women are stronger than you? As most of us know women dominate the gyms in the westerna world, something like 60% to 40%, women work out for maximum strength like never before, it is even OK with muscular arms on a woman. Leg muscles have longer been accepted. I started to work out with weights about 10 years ago just before turning 30. First I just added reps to my work outs. Benching 25 kgs for countless reps was boring, it certainly made me slimmer but not a lot stronger. I wanted to feel real strength in my body and hired a personal trainer, the goal was to become really strong, no matter how the body changed. I started to lift as much as possible for 3 x 7 reps, added reps little by little to 3 x 12 with the same weights, then added weight for work outs 3 x 7 up to 3 x 12 etc. And the result was amazing! Within 3 months time I was stronger than my boyfriend that is not a small weak boy, rather a normal guy. He commented one evening on my muscles and asked if I wanted to become a body builder jokingly. I challenged him to an armwrestling match and won rather comfortably. Since then I have become a lot more powerful and not one single guy among our friends can beat me in an armwrestling match. And they all take it rather naturally. I get comments from both women and men on my muscular physique but very few negative ones. If my (now) husband would beat me in an armwrestling match today I would be very embarrassed, but it will never happen, I am just way too strong for him. CathySep 10 2008 11:42pm Wow, Cathy, you are what I believe epitomizes the modern woman. Strong, independent and very confident in her power. As I am sure you can tell by the positive comments by men, it is very sexy for a woman to be strong. More women are also finding the opposite to be true, non-macho men, who are willing to be the weaker sex in a relationship are also sexy. thomasSep 12 2008 11:00am I think you are right Thomas, we will see mora and more couples where the woman is stronger, and sometimes also bigger. Once our friends had realized how strong I was it sort of became natural, I am a strong person that is stronger then the men around her. I can't understand why smaller, weaker men should feel bad about being weaker than women. CathySep 14 2008 5:16am If you are a 5'10 woman that all your life has been working out and been into track and field and that have a boyfriend 5'8 30 lbs lighter than you the answer of course is, yes, I would be embarrassed. It is so obvious when you see me and my boyfriend that I can take him down without breaking sweat. We met when we were both travelling in Australia (we are from Europe). I saved his life actually. I saw him swimming in the big waves and noticed he didn't have the power to swim back in the strong streams. He started to scream for help and there was just me there. I swam out in the big waves and helped him, he was so weak after this that I had to carry him up in my arms and helped him get the water out of his lungs. I never had been looking at smaller guys before this situation. I realized that I liked to be big, strong and protective. I loved saving this young man with my strong body. He recovered rather quickly and asked me out for dinner to thank me for saving his life. We had a wonderful time and travelled together from that moment. He told me that he had never had a preferance for bigger girls until he met me. Kind of strange, but that moment was very important. Me to save his life and of course even more important for him, without me he had been dead. This was some years ago and today the difference in size and strength between us is even bigger since I work out a lot and he is only jogging. Since I met this lovely guy I find big muscular men unatractive. If my boyfriend would beat me in an armwrestling match in public I would feel very embarrased, but it could never happen. For you big girls I can just say one thing, go for the smaller guys, they are fun, caring and not full of them selves. Barbara CSep 14 2008 11:46pm Lyn, tell us more about your new situations as the stronger partner. It is great to hear from women that are strong. Barbara CSep 14 2008 11:49pm Cathy, I work out in a similar way to you, for maximum strenght 3 times a week and for enduranace ones a week. It is not only my boyfriend that is weaker than me among ouf friends, only 2 of our male friends can beat me when we have armwrestling tournaments, and my sister is stronger than me (I hate that but it's a fact) making her stronger than most men we know. She is 6'2 and more than 200 lbs. Barbara CSep 14 2008 11:51pm To Skinny Skinny I can only say, keep on working out if you like it but not only for getting stronger than your wife. You have a body type that makes it just impossible to bulk, you will get stronger but not at all as your wife since she has another type pf body. It is not too bad to be with a stronger woman, my boyfriend is very happy with it anyway. Barbara CSep 14 2008 11:55pm And Kattis, you seem to be the same type of woman as me. I am very curious to here more about your experinces with smaller and weaker guys. Barbara CSep 14 2008 11:57pm to this board... if a 5'8" 160 lb drunk became violent...you ladies here think you could handle him? i dont think you could..wt. training or self defense stuff..the male would win. regular maleSep 16 2008 6:09am I know of a female bodybuilder who is bigger than that and who works as a bouncer. The male regularly loses. realistSep 18 2008 9:23pm Wow, Barbara C, you have added so much good information and things to consider. Thanks so very much. As an aside, I had mentioned this poll to a woman i know who is stronger than her boyfriend. She said she was not likely to participate because it didn't have any connection in her life. She just simply knew her man would never be as strong as her. I find that very interesting. thomasSep 19 2008 1:45pm Many of my older girl friends actually had a problem with my smaller man at the start, they thought I was crazy, I could have had any big muscular guy. That was until they had got to know my(now) husband. Society says that men should be big and protective and women small, delicate and dependent on their men. If you have a role reversal kind of relationship people talk and stare but they also get used to it. I am stronger than a lot of men, not only my husband. But the day when I saved him in the big waves my preferances for men changed dramatically and so did his for women. Barbara CSep 23 2008 1:21am to this board... if a 5'8" 160 lb drunk became violent...you ladies here think you could handle him? i dont think you could..wt. training or self defense stuff..the male would win AnonymousSep 23 2008 8:33am Usually it is not something so dramatic Barbara C, but more and more women are finding this to be their preference and men are as well. thomasSep 24 2008 8:53pm Kind of strange question, I don't think that women would be embarrased if they were weaker than their boy friends, the other way around is probably more common. But in a way I can understand the question of this poll. I am working out like a maniac, 4-5 times a week and I am strong and rather muscular (not like a body builder). I don't have a boy friend right now but if I had one and he, without working out like me, should be stronger than me I would consider this unfair, especially if he was about the same size as me (I would never date a man a lot bigger than me). There is a guy at my gym that I really am interested in. I have helped him with his work outs since he is new to lifting weights. He is slim and not very strong, I will try to snare him. And I would hate if he after a few months would be stronger than me. 26 year health nutOct 09 2008 12:38am I'm stronger than my husband and a little more muscular. This took me about a year with weight lifting. I started working out at home about a month ago because of the prise of gas driving to the gym. KimOct 09 2008 7:54pm How did you test your strength against your husband? Do you know of other women that are stronger than their men? It suddenly seems to be more and more common with strong women, sometimes stronger than their men. MonicaOct 10 2008 12:06am Sorry, my question was for Kim MonicaOct 10 2008 12:06am MY legs are much stronger than my husbands, and many more men as well. My thighs are more than 3 inches bigger than his and my calves are 4 inches bigger. When we compare our muscles, mine are also much, much firmer and defined. I was a track athlete and a cheerleader in school many moons ago. His upper body his bigger with his upper arms about 3 inches larger, but he wishes he was as hard and defined as me. I can outlift, outwrestle, and out arm wrestle him as well. There is absolutely no contest in leg wrestling, I can hold both of his legs to the floor using only one of mine. We love our strong wife relationship. d.j.Oct 12 2008 12:22am That's so cool d.j. ... It's time that males get a lesson in the strength of Women. I know lots of males who are bigger but not stronger than athletic Women. Your husbands bigger arms are clearly no match for your superior muscles. Interesting that 3 inches in arm size favors your husband, your arms are actually stronger than his, while the same three inches added to your legs seems to double your strength advantage over him. I guess you won't have to worry about being embarrased by a stronger boyfriend. AnonymousOct 12 2008 12:45am d.j. have you showed other men your strength? My legs are very big and strongs as well, I can outlift most men at the gym I am working out at, just the really big beefy men are stronger than me, and a few women as well. I always win when me and my husband wrestle, my legs are too strong for him and nowadays my arms are stronger than his as well. Women peak physically later than men I am sure, my husband was at his strongest when he was 30-33, I have never been stronger than now at 45 years old, same age as my husband. Mary AnneOct 12 2008 2:44am Monica, it wasn't until after I started to workout at home that I discovered I was stronger than my husband and actually more muscular. I'll explain in a later post. KimOct 13 2008 8:16pm Health nut, your post shows exactly what the intent of this poll is about. Historically, we always think that men are the stronger gender. Society, however, is changing a lot. There are now a fairly significant number of women who are stronger than men. And at least for some time into the future, we can probably expect this to continue as women move past their old limitations on exercise and sports activity. So what this question is about is how have perceptions changed over time. Thanks for your comments. thomasOct 15 2008 7:41pm Kim, how do you feel about the fact that you are stronger than your man. Does it change your feelings about either of you? Do you think this is a good thing, a bad thing, or neutral on the subject? thomasOct 15 2008 7:43pm I am not Kim but I can give you my thoughts thomas. My feelings for my husband is even stronger now when I am quite a bit more powerful than him. He used to be stronger than me in his arms but over the years I have passed him in strength even in the upper body. To wrestle him down and to see that he is trying his very best but that this is not enough is quite erotic for me and I also feel big, strong and protective. Perhaps not the feelings you expect a woman to have. Mary AnneOct 16 2008 11:31pm Mary Anne, would you please share your physical stats with us? Also your husband? somethingaboutastrongwomanOct 17 2008 11:16am Mary Anne, when i was younger I would have been surprised by your feelings. Today, I think it is getting more and more common so it is not surprising. Women are finding that being stronger, more independent, and more in control is something they naturally gravitate to. That is what this question really is about. Thanks so much for sharing. thomasOct 17 2008 6:03pm After at least a month of home workouts and sitting next to him one night I noticed that I was slightly bigger than him. Not fat just larger, I could see that my muscles were larger than his. I just kept looking and he asked "what"? I said "I'm bigger than you now" and so I started flexing my arms next to his and he didn't say a word. I hadn't flexed in front of him in a very long time. He was shocked and it took him a few minutes to snap out of it! As it turns out my muscles are a little bigger than his everywhere. This has changed our relationship as I ended up proving that I was stronger too. It's not real difficult to beat him at armwrestling. It's a good thing Thomas, my husband is mesmorized by what seems like a surreal event in our lives and is now asking to feel my muscles often. That just drives me to exercise more! Then when he discovered my muscles were harder then his as well, he just just trembled! It wasn't that hard to gain the upper hand and I think that really surprised my husband and he knows that I'm really just getting started. With me having the freedom and time to workout, he knows he can't go catch up. He's the one that got me started and I take full advantage now. Believe me I like it the way it is now. He's mentally surendering to the fact that I'm stronger and I've found that it takes time and a few tests and now in bed it's different. He has his hands on my muscles in bed and can't help but get excited. KimOct 21 2008 7:58pm I can only imagine that things are different in bed. Do you find that your relationship is different in other ways? Has there been any other shifts in your relationships because you are acknoweldged as the physically stronger person in the relationship? If so, how? Btw, thanks so much for the input. thomasOct 22 2008 1:56pm to this board... if a 5'8" 160 lb drunk became violent...you ladies here think you could handle him? i dont think you could..wt. training or self defense stuff..the male would win AnonymousOct 22 2008 3:37pm In the yard my husband and I were moving stone artwork, you know yard stuff. He was not able to lift a heavy stone bench, I was! I was able to lift it almost waist level and carry it across the yard. The bench feels very heavy maybe 250 lbs. He now admitts that I have become stronger than him and likes to look at me more so than ever, he wants to see my muscles. He also admitts that he has fears about it. I explained to him that women have just as strong muscles and that it was because women were smaller than men and that was the only difference, men are still men and women=women. I have more muscle and I'm physically stronger but things remain the same. I do believe that I have superior muscles though and time is proving me right. KimOct 26 2008 11:16am Kim, do you know of any other women that are stronger than their men? I think it is quite rare but again, this is nothing you talk about perhaps since men are quite sensitive about it and perhaps women are the same, they don't want to stick out as unfeminine. I suspect that my new girlfriend is stronger than me but I really don't want to test my strength against her since she might think I am a weirdo. As you can understand I wouldn't object to her being stronger, quite the opposite really. I can feel that her muscles are stronger than mine when we are in bed, I can see her lifting heavy things easier than I can. We just came back from a train trip where I could see her throw her suitcase on the top shelf as if it weighed nothing. I had to struggle to get mine beside hers. She is a bit shorter than me but heavier, I don't know by how much but my guess is 10-12 kgs. Should I just challenge her to see who is stronger? JoachimOct 27 2008 7:01am Joachim, I realize that you are stepping into un-tested ground. I would tell her that you suspect she is very strong physically and perhaps stronger than yourself. Tell her that you believe most men fear women who are strong and that they feel that their masculinity is threatened but you do not feel the same way but in fact you find it very sexy. Tell her that you are interested in that part of her and that weak women are not as attractive and that a woman's strength adds to her femininity in so many ways such as self assured, more dependable, and confident. I know it can seem awkward or a sensitive subject but weak women are actually a cultural creation as if it were a fashion, leaving strong, athletic, and even muscular women on the sidelines along with leaving many men who are attracted somewhat lonely, only to keep those attractions sidelined as well. All because of cultural fashion, pretty silly when you think about it. Meanwhile nature and genetics that have no knowledge of fashion are left out of the picture, rejected as if culture somehow knows what you like. It doesn't, it's blind and the creation of someone else's mind. God created strong women too and men like you to love them. Fortunately nature is in control and not the whims of fashion. Follow your heart, there's nothing wrong with you. KimOct 28 2008 5:51pm 2008-10-29 Mr timeOct 29 2008 6:45am Kim, of course, men are still men and women are still women regardless of who is stronger. Still, many things come from being physically stronger, at least in my experience. For example, there is a natural confidence one has from physical strength. Also, sometimes the stronger person physically has a stronger voice in a relationship. These are things that are not biologically fixed but can be influenced in some situations by strength. Have you found these or other things that have changed when both of you realized your stronger than him? thomasNov 03 2008 1:49pm I work out almost every day in some way, self defence, lifting weights, running, bicycling, push ups, sit ups etc. I have been doing this for many years. I am today 45 years old. My husband is playing tennis twice a week. He is a bit bigger than me but nevertheless I would consider it unfair if he was stronger than me. And he is not, I am quite a bit srtonger than him. He thinks this is OK since I am the health nut. When we met 14 years ago, I pinned him in a wrestling match the first evening we spent together, just to show him that I was a strong woman. He was a bit embarrassed in the beginning but took it very well. He started to work out in a gym for a while but found it too boring so he just told me to get some more muscle, since he didn't want to get any bigger. I love him for that but to be honest, if he started to work out and get some big muscles and become stronger than me I wouldn't like that too much, B R ANov 22 2008 2:32am B R A there is nothing wrong with your feelings. In fact, it shows a level of selfunderstanding that is very healthy. It is really amazing how often this is happening today. While it is still sort of the exception, that status is changing. Girls are now more free to compete, to strive for their best even if they are ahead of the men in their lives and they dont have to be embarrassed by success. That is really a great thing in my book. thomasNov 24 2008 7:12am Thomas, It's true. Girls are now more free to compete against males. And they're winning. It used to be that Women were kept out of sports because it was believed that They were unfit for physical competition because of Their gender's inferiority. Now the only thing stopping direct competition between males and Females is the fear among males that they may actually be defeated by a Woman. It is a real possibility that the majority of Women could physically defeat the majority of males if They really wanted to. But Women are still convinced of Their own inferiority in many parts of the world. Males are more brutal than Women and have always used brutality to control Women as a group. Individual contests between equally matched men and Women are likely to favor the Female because Women have greater endurance and coordination than males so with equal muscle power, the Woman will almost always have a long term strength advantage as the male's muscles tire more rapidly and take longer to reain their strength when they are exhausted, My Girlfriend is slightly smaller than me, but She is definitely stronger over the long haul. The contest will always start off even, but I simply tire out before She does, so SHe is definitely stronger! AnonymousNov 25 2008 12:52pm Annonymous, I think that you are exactly right on what you say. The biggest hurdle that we in society face to seeing the full benefit of over half our population reaching new heights is the removal of the long held myth that men are smarter, stronger, or more capable than Women. Many of the responses on this site show that change in attitudes is happening but not entirely keeping with the physical and test results that support the change. In my mind, once Women gain the confidence and belief in themselves to reach for the stars, we will see some amazing things happen. thomasNov 25 2008 3:30pm My husband had ALWAYS beat me at armwrestling until recently. I have been strength training with weights and actually noticed my arms were about the size of his after about a year. Our armwrstling episodes began to change as it became more difficult for him to win untile one night I discovered that if I held him off for a while, I could beat him. The first time it happened I was shocked! Once he became tired, it was pretty easy and I've even let him gain some advantage having me over the top but once his muscles are fatigued I can have my way and return to the top and continue to push his arm until I win. I've done this a bunch of times now and always beat him. It takes about four or five minutes and I can feel it as he's not as strong as he was at the start. I feel I'm just as strong or stronger after several minutes. I can feel my muscles better at that point and they're not tired. My muscles feel pumped and really strong and can continue and his are drained. Weird but I love that feeling when I can feel my muscles contract and get hard and his grow weaker at the same time. DeanaDec 02 2008 11:32pm Deana, nothing weird about that in my opinion. You are getting stronger and it must feel good. You should be proud of that to say the least. What you are experiencing is also supported by research that women can maintain their strength longer than men as a general rule. What is most impressive about what you have achieved is that you can equal him until he starts to fatique. It may not be long before you don't have to wait before you can beat him. Do you see any changes in leg strength by the way. If you are at about an equal level in the upper body, you are probably stronger than him in the lower body. Thanks for the message. thomasDec 04 2008 1:44pm Thank you Thomas, I will start timing more acurately how long it take to beat him and see if it does start changing because I've already gotten this far and I'd like to be able to close that gap of having to ware him down to beat him. Still I beat him, he can struggle but can't beat me untile his muscles are exausted and that I can hold off and waite for. I would like to power him down emediatly so I'll work on that. I believe my legs are stronger but have yet to prove it. They are bigger than his. I think my muscles are harder than his, so what causes my muscles to be harder then his? He's not weak, he's in good shape. I've been thinking about that, the fact that my muscles are harder when we flex but I don't know why? Just curious. DeanaDec 05 2008 11:00pm 2008-12-06 DeepDec 06 2008 5:18am try thigh wrestle him Deana, sit opposite each other, put your legs outside his and try to press his legs together, than switch. Then you can start with your legs together with his outside, he should than try to stop you from prying your legs open. Than switch. I would be surprised if he won one single match in this game, this is perfect for women, strong hips and legs, and the right angle for it. I easily won against my man in this game. I cannot beat him when we armwrestle right handed but left handed I am stronger, together with the thigh wrestling I think this make me over all stronger than him. AnonymousDec 06 2008 5:39am Deana, I think the only explanation for your muscles being harder than his is that yours are stronger than his muscles. Does this fit with weight training you both do? I would be curious to find out what sort of leg strengthening exercises you both do and what your results are in comparison. thomasDec 08 2008 12:55pm Anonymous, how did you two decide to start doing this competition? Have you beaten him from the start when you thigh wrestle or did you gain the upper hand as your relationship progressed? thomasDec 08 2008 12:57pm thomas, we saw another couple thigh wrestling on a caf? and the girl winning easily. Another girl challenged this young man and he once again was beaten as easy. When me and my husband came home that day (about two years ago) we just had to try this, for us, new game. And we were a bit shocked about the outcome. I totally dominated him and we both thought that I was weaker than him before we started. He then challenged me to an armwrestling match to get even. He won rather comfortably with his right hand but then we both got a big shock again when he couldn't pin my left arm. I then realized I didn't use my full strength and then it took seconds before I had pinned his left arm. Since then I have been working out more than my husband, we have tried to test our strength against each other once after this day, the outcome was the same, he had to fight a bit more to win right handed (we are actually both right handed) and I won more easily with my left so I think I am right to say I am stronger than him. Now almost another year has passed since we last wrestled. I think I can take him right handed now but I am not sure he will take it well. He hasn't got a clue I am posting here. I am interested to see many couples testing their strength. AnonymousDec 08 2008 11:23pm Anonymous, I was going to ask how your hubby is handling it, but i think you answered it. He is avoiding the idea. If you and he were close and you have been working out more and harder for a year, i don't doubt you would beat him. And there is nothing wrong with this, but he may be uncomfortable. Maybe you need to find ways to make him realize it doesnt make him less of a man if he is weaker than you. Then see what happens. thomasDec 09 2008 9:46pm Well thomas, this weekend he found out he was weaker than me. As I said I didn't really want to armwrestle him right handed since it seems to be so important for him to be stronger. We were on our way to bed when I splashed some cold water on my husband. He of course wanted to get back to me and we ended up wrestling. When we stood their hand to hand, arm to arm, body to body, I felt that even my left arm was stronger than his right, I could move him around with my greater strength and combined with my very strong legs I pushed him through our living room into our bedroom and on the bed where I jumped at him and pinned him. He couldn't get up. I teased him a bit and he wanted a re-match. Now I gave everything and the force shocked my hubby, again he was on his back, with me on top. I then stopped the aggressive side of this tussle and started to be more feminine and he was like wax in my hands. The day after this, two days ago, he looked at me in a different way, he looked at my strong body to understand why he had lost. He didn't say anything but I then understood that he had accepted that he was weaker. I will see what this leads to. AnonymousDec 15 2008 11:23pm Very interesting story by Anonymous. You seems like a very cool girl. Love to hear more stories from you JonaDec 21 2008 2:11am So now that some time has passed, has his acceptance of your superior strength continued or has he changed? I am curious how he has dealt with this as once he has faced the truth, he can't go back. Is he working out more or harder, or is he giving in and not doing anything to try to bridge the gap? So many questions this raises and any response would be greatly appreciated. 12/23/08 thomasDec 23 2008 2:17pm Jona, what is your situation? Are you a strong woman or just interested? What are your thoughts on the subject? Let us know, please. thomasDec 23 2008 2:19pm 12/23/08 AnonymousDec 23 2008 2:21pm Denise (after the Magan post) I just got to this board and I wanted to tell you how cool your story was. I hope your still around. What got you started weight lifting or bodybuilding? It sounds like your able to outmuscle your husband convinvingly now. Was this your goal when you started? MikeDec 26 2008 2:57pm Since it's almost 2009 what are the goals for the women on the board? Are you going to pass your boyfriend/ husband in muscle this year? AnonymousDec 30 2008 4:20pm I will try to work out harder to be able to beat my girfriend both in armwrestling, leg wrestling and wrestling. Right now she is too strong for me. 62 kgs of bonesDec 31 2008 4:52am It will be tough though, she is 15 kgs heavier at the same height, 174 cm. She can lift me over her head, she has done that once in a swimming pool, everybody around us laughed at me and congratulater her to her strength. Embarrassing as hell. 62 kgs of bonesDec 31 2008 4:55am I got extremely upset with my new boyfriends the other day. I am 183 cm and 87 kgs, very strong with an athletic background as basket player. My bf is 185 cm and 71 kgs, very slim with a nice hard body but no big muscles. We talked about strength and he surprised me when he thought he was stronger than me, just because he was a man! I showed him just how strong I am when we armrestled, I am probably twice as strong as him. He got really upset when he realized that I was so much stronger and I got upset because he got upset. I understood that I was stronger than him the first time I saw him. I have always liked boyish slim men, I have never liked big, burly muscular men. My bf now avoids playwrestling with me, he is actually ashamed of being weaker, something I have diffculties to understand. I hope he will change his attitude. Men has to learn that women can be strong and sometimes stronger than them. YolandaJan 08 2009 2:16am Don't worry Yolanda for some guys it takes time for him to understand that he is no longer the strongest in the relationship MikeJan 08 2009 2:39pm Yolanda, We are going through some changes in society and any time one person, or group, or whatever loses a higher position and falls a little lower, there tends to be some people who struggle with this. It seems you new boyfriend is one of those people. Maybe he will see the light and delight in your strength. Maybe he won't and you will have to find another boyfriend. Either way, know that you are part of a trend of women who are stronger than their men and enjoy the new found position. thomasJan 11 2009 8:53pm average male is stronger than 2 women. in most cases even 3. this poll is a joke. i wrestle my wife..and i let her win. jdsJan 22 2009 5:30am average is average but exceptions are many. Compare a man and a woman of equal size and the difference is smaller, if the woman works out and the man douesn't my money is on the woman. Compare a big, muscular let's say Nigerian woman that carries heavy buckets of water, wood, fruit etc. every day to a let's say Indonesian small man that is sitting in his office 6 days a week is not fair either. I have been to Nigeria and seen woman carrying loads I can't lift and of course cannot carry. I was living there for some years and had a Nigerian woman taking care of my cooking and cleaning. She was about 170 cm and probably over 80 kgs. And she was very muscular, strong wide shoulders, big biceps and triceps, very strong hands (I can tell you later how I found out) and big strong legs. Then I was living in Indonosia. Most people are really small in this country. Strong for their size yes but nevertheless weaker than a big person from the west. In Indonesia I didn't have anybody cooking for me from the start so I had my Nigerian lady coming over to cook and clean for me the year I should work in Indonesia. I also had an Indonesian assistant. We often lauged at the size difference between the cook and assistant. He was perhaps 157-158 cm and not more than 49-50 kgs. I don't want to publish photos on the net but I have a very funny photo where the Nigerian woman and Indonesian are flexing their muscles. She is just so much bigger it is funny. Well many men are stronger but there are many exceptions as I started, this was just one example. By the way, the Nigerian woman was probably twice as strong as me and 3 times stronger than the Indonesian man. International KimJan 23 2009 12:11am I have been working out for over a year. When I could see that my muscles were larger than my husband's, I decided to armwrestle and finally wrestle him! I beat him at both and he wears out faster than me, so on a rematch I finish him faster. I can wear him down until he's weak and pin his arms and legs with lots of strength to spare. I enjoy it. KateJan 28 2009 12:56am Do you compare muscles with him? What does he say? CraigJan 29 2009 3:30am I would love to see the photo of your Nigerian housekeeper and Indonesian assistant. You are right of course, size makes a big difference when it comes to strength. That is why men on average are stronger than women. BeethovenJan 30 2009 12:44am Graig, I do compare muscles with my husband. When it became obvious that mine had become bigger than his, he became nervous and now the difference has increased. Just the other day after a workout and pumped I compared my self to him and asked him to flex. When he saw that the difference had grown in the last month, he just kept repeating himself with "Oh my god" and even "Oh no" when he could see his muscles were smaller. There's a big difference in our legs but even our arms proves he's smaller now. With the back sides of our arms in front and curled flexing, he has no bicep peak, just a small amount of muscle shown. It messed with his mind when I rolled my bicep up and down my upper arm by turning my wrist and then pushing the muscle out into a peak like a baseball. By comparrison, it's like he has no muscles. In the front during a bicep flex, his looks like mine when my arm is almost relaxed and arm extended only shorter than my muscle and that's when he's flexing! His muscles aren't as thick or round. So when I flex and squeeze my bicep into a big round muscle, it looks as if you could fit two of his biceps into the area of one of mine, if that makes sense. The cross section of muscle is a lot larger. I can tell he is afraid when he sees the difference, he's afraid about me being stronger than him and knows that I'm getting stronger as time goes by. When I put my calf, quad, or bicep next to his and compare, he gets uneasy and even turns a little red in the face. I shouldn't have said it but I laughed and said that "it almost looks like your muscles are shrinking" because as the weeks go by I can see it. He's not shrinking though, just seems like it. Anyway my husband doesn't really know what to think and he'll have to except it. I told him that what he believed about women and muscles probibly wasn't true and that I was proving his beliefs false. I've also told him that from what I believe is that he wouldn't stand a very good chance of catching up or matching me because of genetics and body type, my muscles respond to weights very fast while his do not and point out the muscle length in my legs and arms compared to his being shorter along with muscle fiber difference we seem to have. So there's little chance of he getting the same results that I do while doing the same workout and to prove it he hasn't So that's my point to him, look at the difference already, he doesn't have muscles like mine and never will. Working out together hasn't made him more muscular or stronger than me, it's the other way around. I now have muscles in places he has none visible! KateJan 31 2009 3:43pm Very interesting and cool stories from both Kat and International Kim. I would love to see pictures of some female-male muscles comparisons. I know it's lot to ask, but you could blur out your faces. Good luck with your training anyway, kate, i'm sure your husband will love it. DeepFeb 01 2009 5:43am Great post,Kate. Do other people notice you're stronger and more musclar than him now? If so, how do they react? NickFeb 01 2009 7:09am Kate, do you know other women who are stronger then their man? How do you feel about it? thomasFeb 02 2009 8:22pm Mary Anne, Yes, I have shown off a bit to some of the guys at work. When I wear a short sleeve shirt, my arms get a lot of attention. I have been challenged to armwrestle a few times and win a lot more than I lose. My favorite thing is to leg wrestle with anybody, guys or girls, and watch them squirm. We sit face to face in chairs and try to hold the opponets legs together and then reverse and try to split the opponets legs apart. I have never been beaten. d.j.Feb 08 2009 8:58pm The kind of leg wrestling you describe is a game where women have a great advantage. I have never been able to beat a woman at that and I have tried hundreds of times. It all started when I was at school. Our gym teacher, a female one, suggested we had a test who was the strongest in class. This was a mixed class. We had a series of tests including arm wrestling, rope, leg wrestling indian style, and leg wrestling the way you describe d.j. Jumping up and down on a bench and see how many jumps you could do on a certain time and many other tests, both strength and endurance. Since we were in our late teens the guys dominated the arm wrestling. I think the 3 or 4 strongest were guys, but several girls did well, better than we thought, I lost to three out of seven girls. Leg wrestling though was a completely different story. For the leg wrestling where you lie down on the floor the 4 strongest were girls and for the one where you sit face to face in chairs, no girl lost to a guy! Later in life, perhaps 10 years later, I was at a party with old school friends and the ladies at the party wanted to try this leg wrestling when they heard about the outcome. And again, not one of the 12 men at the party could beat any of the 10 women. I have after that tried to win against girlfriends, friends and nowadays wife, but sorry, I haven't yet been close to win. I even lost to a 16 year old girl recently. Chicken legsFeb 09 2009 10:57pm Have all the wrestling matches stopped, Kim, Cathy, Mary Anne, Kate and other? LeneFeb 15 2009 11:09pm Chicken legs. You are not alone, looking at the legs of men and women on a beach makes you realize that men quite often are outmuscled. Women very often have very powerful thighs. I have also tried the leg wrestling that d.j. and you write about and lost big time agains more than one woman. AnonymousFeb 16 2009 7:43am Wow..the coolest chicks on the internet are on this board! MikeFeb 16 2009 12:33pm 2009-02-17 TimerFeb 17 2009 10:36am Hi all. Interesting stories here. I work since a year back as a gym instructor in a gym in our swim hall. It's a small standard gym, with lots of nautilus machines, and I instruct new members how to use them. This fall there is two new "teams" who regularly book up the gym. One is a girl ice hockey-team, and the other is a nearby company who?s boss have decided all employees gonna work out together twice a week in our gym. I don't know exactly that the company do, they are some consultants, but they are 10-12 guys there, between 25 and 50 years, and they are all guys. The head of the company was very used to gym and a heath-nut, and wanted this gym times to support both his employees? health and make it an social break from work. But almost everyone of his employees was not very used to training and I must say i was surprised how little weight they could lift. First timed I instructed them I had to decrease the weight many times when i saw how they struggle with their reps. Many of these guys around 30 looks strong with their business suit on, but have quite skinny arms then they take off their shirts. I can lift more on the machines than all of them except their boss and one other guy, but they seems to be cool about it and says it's natural since I?m a "pro" in the gym. Before i started as gym instructor, i guess i had this picture of men?s natural strength, that 99% of adult men over 25y, had this "manly" natural strength that was far greater than the average female. But i must say that the picture has change a lot for me since i started working as gym instructor. The average guy is not as strong as i thought at all. We have many couples working out here where the wife lifts heavier on every machine than her husband. And this was even clearer then i started to instruct the men from this company. Even if the guys where manly, successful and good looking, many of them could lift even less than i did then i started training in the gym a few years ago. I must say i am a bit intrigued by this fact. But what fascinating me the most is to compare them with the girl ice hockey team. It's very easy to compare them for me, because twice a week, they have the gym right before the male company. They are around 15-18 girls, in the ages of 16 to 19 years old, and seems to take on the gym training seriously. When these teen girls work out almost everyone works out with heavier weights than the men, who use the gym after them. Then they are done training i have to move down the weights on every machine so the guys can getting started faster. I was very surprised by this, i had never thought that teen girls could lift as much or even more than adult men, and i was thinking that the guys where so untrained in the beginning, and when the men started to work out here regularly, they would all pretty quick surpass the stats of the young girls. But now, after six month, i can see how the girls had actually increased their lead, and increased their strength faster then the men. I guess they are just more serious with their training, while many of the guys are more lazy and sits around and chats in the gym. I have notice a big difference in attitude here in Sweden over the last years, about woman and gym training. First, there is a big trend of going to the gym, especially among younger woman. Almost every woman in my age now trains at gym, and there is today more woman than men that trains in gym. In our gym 75% of our members is females. And the attitudes in the gym have also clearly changed. Before the woman was in the gym to lose weight, and where often afraid to gain muscles. Now, most woman train in gym to be stronger or to complement their aerobic training with some strength-training. 10 years ago, one of the most common question to gyms instructors from woman, was how they should train to get slim but not to get "manly" muscles. Today, many woman complains they can?t "see" any result of their training and ask me how to get more visible muscles in their legs, abs but also their arms. They often say they spend a lot of time and money in the gym and they want to "see" some result of it. I encourage them to lift heavier with fewer reps. I think this trend is very interesting and i wonder what will happen in the future if this trend continues. Last week i sat at the cafeteria after the guys had finished their hour and saw how the group of around 10 men from the company where talking, waiting for someone. The girl ice hockey-team had celebrated someone in the cafeteria and was also standing there waiting for something, talking and laughing out loud as teen girls do. When I was studying these two groups, one with serious adult men with ties and one with giggly teenaged girls who dressed very girly now, with makeup and so on, and it struck me it was very hard to believe that the group of girly-girls there where actually physically stronger than the group of important looking men, and the fact was fascinating me. I have more stories to tell on topic, if you want to hear. Trainer Camilla Trainer CamillaFeb 23 2009 9:29am Please share Camilla. Of course the comparison between young atheletes and office men can be argued against, but it does show that gender alone does not make a man stronger than a woman. So that myth should be completely gone now. Lets hear some more as I find the situation common in my part of the world as well. thomasFeb 23 2009 12:28pm I have similar experiences as Camilla. I am a man that started to work out some years ago as a rehab because of a traffic accident. I have kept on working out twice a week, the same days and time every week. You get to know the people around you working out. The first weeks I realised that I couldn't lift that much at all, I had never been to a gym before and since I was injured I had to use the lowest weights. After a year I had recovered and could increase the weights. 75% of the people that work out at the same time as me are women. I started to check the weights that other people around me used for their work outs. I could see that most of the women outlifted me on almost every machine. And of course the men as well. But I also noticed that many women were stronger than the men. I now work out at the same time as 4 women my age (late 40s). All 4 of them are quite a bit stronger than my in their upper bodies and a hell of a lot stronger in their lower bodies. They don't find this strange at all. They complement me when I can increase any weight, still lower then their's. I have a thin body type, I am getting stronger little by little but I will never catch up with these women. 3-4 men at the gym are really big guys that work out mainly with free weights, they are way stronger than anybody else at the gym but the rest of us are more equal. "My" 4 ladies can outlift most of the normal guys. We nowadays go to the pub together after our workouts on Fridays to have a beer. The ladies quite often armwrestle each other and they have all beaten me as well as other curious men. Camilla, I am from Sweden as well and I have also seen the changes for women here, many women now work out in front of mirrors and look at their growing muscles. That would never have happaned 20 years ago. I will end this saying that I think it is healthy that women can show their strength openly. RobbanFeb 23 2009 11:18pm And Camilla, please tell more about your experiences RobbanFeb 23 2009 11:20pm Hi Robban. Nice to hear more from Sweden here. Your gym sounds similar to the gym i work in. There is a few very big men who are gymrats and are stronger than the others, but the rest is pretty close, both female and male. I know it may not be "fair" to compare the two groups, as i know the girl icehockey team is much tougher and stronger than the average girl in their age. But it's still interesting for me to see how athletic girls can get such a clear advantage, even if their still in their teens. Funny you mention armwrestling. There is one guy I this group, he is just a few years older than me (I'm 27). He is always funny, and chats a lot. I had to help him a lot in the beginning since he was very untrained. He had done progress but still uses low weighs, and he and his friend often jokes about it, and ask me jokingly if i ever have taken as big weights in the machine as he uses and want too see me prove it. When I do so easily he goofs around about i must be cheating and so on. I told him then I have teen girls after him who lifts a lot more than him he just says "noo way". It may not sound so here but he is actually a nice guy and often gives me compliments, both about my body and my looks, and it makes me feel good. A few weeks ago he and a friend of his, sat down in the cafe when I was going home. I sat down and smalltalked a little, and he challenge me to an armwrestle. I asked if he was sure, and he answered he was feeling strong today. I giggled a little and accepted the match. I must say i enjoyed the feeling of pinning down his shaking arm without much trouble. I saw how two girls from the icehockeyteam were watching us from behind. He didn't seem too surprised by his loss, but told me it was no strange he lost since I?m a professional gymrat who spends all my time in the gym. He annoyed me a little now and told him " So you think you would have a better chance against Jenny here?" And pointed at one of the hockeygirls who had been watching us. " Her? I think i would not have any trouble at all with her, but she is a little too young for me." " Too young? I wouldn?t be soo c*cky if i was you." i told him and turned to Jenny "Jenny, this guy thinks he can beat you in armwrestling, do you take his challenge?" " Yes i do!" Jenny said eagerly and sat down in front of him. I knew Jenny pretty well from the gym, and she was a big and strong girl at 18 year, taller than both me and this guy. He seemed to hesitate a little then he saw how eager she was, but she grabbed his and put it to position. I started them and she took down his arm with one smooth motion all the way down. Both the guy and his friend looked surprised, but the two girls beamed with joy and her friend said " Wow, Jenny. you really smoked him, he had not a chance." And turned to the guy " Can i have a try also?" when he hesitated she almost pleaded him and he said "OK, that the f-ck...". This other girl was smaller and had big curly hair. This match was closer, but after a while, his arm began to shake and i head him shout out "no way!" as she pushed his hand down. His friend said he was an embarrassment to himself, with ended with new challenges and soon his friend, who is around 40 y, had also lost against both the hockeygirls. During the last match, 5 more girls came from the dressing room and began cheering for the smaller Sara. When more girls wanted to join in, the two guys said they where sore and had to hurry, and quickly left the cafe. The girls giggled and had i few more matches against each others. I must say I thought it was fun to see these two guys getting beaten by the hockeygirls, but at the same time, I felt a little bad for the guy, and that i had started the matches. This guy has always been nice to be, and I hoped he wasn?t mad at me. But the next week we met again he just joked about it and said it was just good for a guy to be put in his place by a female sometime, and he said he actually thought it was a good lesson for his friend, who can be a jerk sometimes and needed a more humble attitude. I must say I was relieved about his cool attitude and happy he wasn't a bad loser. I have more to tell about this guy but I have to go now, I didn?t think this post would be so long? Trainer CamillaFeb 26 2009 6:22am Tack Camilla for din berattelse, I think that many men are in for a surprise. I realize I will never be as strong as some of the big women at the gym I go to. But I have also seen rather thin girls move rather heavy weights, they say that female muscles are of better quality than male, recovering a lot faster and better endurance. This means that if a man and a woman are of similar build the women will become stronger if they have the same weight lifting program, after a while the woman will be able to do more reps than the man, she will be able to lift her maximum weight more often than the man. Interesting. I still believe that men in average will be stronger then women, mainly because we are bigger and also because we are more physically active already from childhood. Compare small boys with small girls, teenage girls with teenage boys. BUT this is changing as well. Nowadays many girls work out as hard as the guys. So the change is here already. I still think it is a bit embarrassing to be quite a lot weaker than some of the women, even women older than me and girls younger, but I am getting more and more used to it. And they seem to think it is the most normal thing in the world. RobbanFeb 26 2009 11:20pm Camilla... great story about the Girls hockey team being stronger than the 'manly' males at the gym. Too bad that they don't work out side by side so the men can see how outclassed they are by these stronger Girls. I'll bet the men don't have a clue that their muscles are actually inferior to the Female's. wmnpwrMar 14 2009 10:43am Robban, Girls and Women are realizing that They are often stronger than even larger males because of Their better muscle quality - especially when it comes to endurance. As you say, they think it is the most normal thing in the world - - - and it is. Male brutality has kept Women in a state of fear for a long time, Women are not naturally as violent and aggressive as males - but Women are actually the stronger sex pound for pound - and as They realize their natural superiority, They are less and less intimidated by males. AnonymousMar 14 2009 10:47am Love the stories Camilla. The defeated male sounds fairly typical - a nice guy by the sounds of it, but in the dark about how close the strength gap between men and women (or girls!) truly is. Question: Do the hockey girls see themselves as particularly strong or muscular? Or do they just see the weights they lift and think 'that's normal for a girl'? Now you just need to organise a session where both groups are lifting at the same time and see how the men and girls react when they see the girls are lifting more. That would be interesting to hear about. JasonMar 17 2009 2:50am Love the stories Camilla. The defeated male sounds fairly typical - a nice guy by the sounds of it, but in the dark about how close the strength gap between men and women (or girls!) truly is. Question: Do the hockey girls see themselves as particularly strong or muscular? Or do they just see the weights they lift and think 'that's normal for a girl'? Now you just need to organise a session where both groups are lifting at the same time and see how the men and girls react when they see the girls are lifting more. That would be interesting to hear about. JasonMar 17 2009 10:30am Trainer Camilla, we are longing for more... AnonymousMar 18 2009 12:23am It would indeed be interesting to know how the men reacted to realizing that they were so much weaker than the Girls. The gym would have to hire more janitors to sweep up the shattered pieces of all those fragile male egos. AnonymousMar 18 2009 3:57pm LOL, your right in many ways Anonymous. But in other ways, there are many males who have come to understand this and would only have small chuncks of our ego on the floor. thomasMar 22 2009 8:34pm When a male's ego is shattered by a strong Woman, only She can put the pieces back together. But when She does so, it will be to suit Her preferences. AnonymousApr 02 2009 1:09am this is very rare condition. i cant see any broad being ashamed of this. the story by maureen seems possible..but most of the other stories are fake. AnonymousApr 02 2009 10:45am I read along with much of this and get excited! You see, I have been working out for a year about twelve hours a week. My husband is an office man and when he comes homes he sometimes works out or goes on the treadmill in what might be two or three hours of exercise weekly! I don't tell him what to do. I found refuge in workouts. Anyway, I thought my husband's arms really didn't look as muscular as mine anymore. To my amazement I sweet talked him into flexing for my tape! I was really surprised, relaxed with arms straight his biceps measure 12 inches, with arms curled and muscle flexed it was only 12 1/2 inches! It had been hours since I worked out, I knew mine were bigger months ago I thought! I also thought his muscles were bigger than what I measured? With my husband using the tape, we measure my right arm relaxed at 13 inches and curled flexing I was over 14 1/2 inches! My husband's bicep looked barely visible next to mine! His bicep is a slight slope from the shoulder and abroptly falls short far from the forearm. It's like an inconspicuous change in shape but not a full on muscle like my arms! I was blown away by comparing! My biceps are bigger and more defined relaxed! I have never wrestled him or armwrestled at all! Not sure how or how to start? I haven't mentioned it to him but now I think about it day and night! I'm not afraid of him but I'm shy about really doing it. The other night in the mirror next to him I showed off for the first time! When I flexed I looked so big next to him like "muscle builder vs scrawny guy" I had to laugh but I stopped quickly and just wanted to flex next to my husband so I could compare! Seeing the changes more by comparing muscle to muscle with him is just the greatest feeling for me when I reach each goal. I'm the stronger sex in our relationship and I can't see that changing. My strength comparisons with him have just started and my curiosity only began about a month ago but from what I see I out muscle my husband by a lot! I would like to try my strength on him but don't know where to start? I think about using my muscles to wrestle him often and really want to feel that! I can be competitive and enjoy hard workouts so I should ejoy wrestling my husband I would think. Sitting next to him and comparing leg muscles I can't help but want to wrestle him! I have bigger muscles so I picture my legs crushing his when doing some kind of wrestling hold! Is that strange? LindaApr 08 2009 12:12am How did he react to the size of your biceps, and the comparison by tape and mirror? How do you think he'll react to further challenges Linda?? JasonApr 08 2009 4:33am Jason, to be honest I've never seen him like that and it makes me wonder how seeing my muscles and how they are bigger than his effects his mind. I'm not a man so I don't know. He does start shaking a little and keeps his eyes fixed on my muscles when I flex. He will mutter things like "Oh God" and all. I have experimented with virbal enforcement of what he sees to watch his reaction. I will tell him about my strength levels while he watches my muscles, I watch his face when I tell him things. When I finally let lose and compared several muscles to his he started to not cooperate and that kind of angered me. I told him he had to see this, that He can't hide from the truth. I said it would take him years of hard work in an attempt to catch up and he didn't have the muscle quality to do that anyway. I believe that. His muscles are squishy and over the years they haven't developed any. I don't think he could beat me at this if he wanted. Even I'm blown away by my body after one year and the thing is he's worked out but lacks the muscular endurance I have. If he can't show even a percentage of gain on me, there's no way he'll catch up. I think he's scared of me. When I told him I was still gaining and planed on increasing some of my workouts he looked uneasy. I told him I'd like to wrestle him and that he should workout harder for his own good, he just asked very uneasy - you want to wrestle? He stared at my shoulders & arms for awhile. I said that I wanted to test my muscles against his one way or another and that he should think about it and maybe workout. He looked pretty shocked and apprehensive. I've never done this but I feel compelled to follow through because it's a matter of hidden truth. I know this sounds odd but his biceps are so slight, I fantasize making a casting of my bicep and his to see how many of his biceps would fit inside of mine? I'm guessing three! Just the kind of things I think up! Any ideas? what should I do first? Should I start with armwrestling? Or some kind of weight lifting? I've thought about a private competition just me and him. What he can and can't do in the weight room I don't know yet. I'm open minded. LindaApr 08 2009 12:25pm Oh, when I told my husband about my fantasy "casting bicep size" he thought it was ridiculis and I asked why? I was surprised that it wasn't the concept he found ridiculis but he was in denial of the size difference. I explained that I wasn't talking about our whole "upper arm measurement" I was talking about the bicep muscle itself, showing him mine again and requesting to see his I told him to look at the size of my bicep, now look at yours. Your bicep is the size of three fingers layed out flat across the top of your upper arm. I compared my fingers to his muscle and it was the same size! When I showed him that my bicep was much bigger than his fist, I did a simple but effective comparison, I asked him to look at my muscle and his fist. Which is bigger I asked? He admitted it was my muscle so I then had him place his fist on the table and I laid my tree fingers flat on the table next to his fist. I asked him, was my fingers not the same size as your bicep? Agian he admitted it... reluctantly. I of course showed him how many stacks of finger would it take to match his fist, it took four! I reminded him that My bicep is actually larger than his fist and that "muscle to muscle" mine was at least FOUR TIMES the size of his. It was plain and simple that it couldn't be denied and I had proven it to him right in front of his face! How it all effects his mind and ego I'm not sure. I was even taken by such a comparison. LindaApr 08 2009 1:02pm Hmmm it's tough Linda - it sounds like he is just scared and shocked at the moment. Maybe back off the competition type stuff for the moment and just see if he likes your muscles. If he likes your muscles and their power, he will eventually want to see them in action and perhaps feel their power himself in combat or competition. I certainly would like that, but he may be totally freaked out about it right now. One thing you could do is find a fellow strong female that he could meet, a woman you know is of similar strength to you (as long as her arms are bigger and stronger than your husband). When they meet get her to mention how strong she is to him in passing or flex her biceps in front of him. Nothing too intense or intimidatory just a casual show of strength. Your husband may begin to realise that there are more strong women around than he thought and suddenly his wife won't seem so 'freaky'. That might help him to appreciate your strength rather than fear it. After that he may be keen to feel your power wrestling or arm wrestling. So my advice, be gentle with him. You may bruise his ego as well as his body! JasonApr 08 2009 1:46pm The subject of feminine strength has been a favorte of mine all my life. As a young girl my mother would bring home for my older brother and I "Super Hero Comics" with many of them showing muscular female heros who were exceedingly powerful. As a girl I wanted that! I saw the muscleman adds in the back of the comics and even for a young girl I had an understanding that if you worked your muscles by pumping them, they would get bigger and stronger! Simple. I did some silly things like pull my skirt up when on my tricycle so I could see my muscles! I used a heavy lamp in my room to lift and curl! squats with my backpack full of books and even bricks! I would even lift my bicycle over my head several times! The thing was it worked! I found and watched muscles develop. I wanted to be a super hero and visualized having great big muscles like in the comics! My biceps turned into round balls that really did get BIGGER fast. I had done countless pull-ups and everything I could think of. In our backyard was a tree with a long branch Parallel to the ground. I would grind out as many pull-ups as I could on many days. In the refridge one day I picked out a lemon to compare my biceps with, I was about ten years old. My muscles were the size of lemons like I thought! My biceps were big! My brother is one year older and expecting him to have even larger muscles, I asked him if his biceps were bigger then lemons? He was an inch taller and a boy! I really had to find out and expected my brother to have some serious muscle plus he was bossy with a "man's world" attitude! I made up some story about a "normal" boy's bicep should be the size of a lemon! My big brother took the bait! I went and got the lemon again and handed it to him, I was reflecting on the fact that my brother's upper arm never really showed much muscle otherwise. I hadn't seen him flex in a long long time, I was wondering who had better muscles...me or him? It was funny, I couldn't stop him now! I never said my bicep was as big as a lemon just that "a lemon was an average boy's bicep" well he handed me back the lemon and I almost died thinking he wouldn't do it! Then he said all COCKY like "You hold it...I want you to be the judge" very serious! My brother flexes and I'm looking at a one story flat! The bicep is above the dimple in his upper arm? Is that all you see? It's pretty smooth! I'm puzzled? I said the only thing that popped in my mind! "your biceps are squeezed lemons" he stood there for a bit and said "at least their not LIKE A GIRL" I had the lemon and showed my brother my bicep! I also rolled the lemon around in my hand and started squeezing it while I flexed and as it juiced on my arm I said "the lemon was HIS MUSCLE!" I did tease him. I spent part of my childhood swimming and part track and field. When I was twelve years of age my calves were 16 inches and my legs over all made my brother's look like noodles! By the time I was 13 my biceps were were bigger than tennis balls! Now with my husband, many years later and 15 years of marrage, Im much stronger than him. I have muscular thighs and 17 inch calves that make my husband's look like noodles. My legs made my brother's legs look like noddles long ago, now my legs are pretty big as they only got bigger through the years and next to my husband? I have individual muscles in my thighs that are so much larger then my old man's whole thigh! I have loved being the stronger sex all my life and was always stronger than boys. I knew I was stronger at a very early age because of countless interactions with boys it becomes obvious. NancyApr 08 2009 5:55pm My mother had me lift weights at an early age. At about eight she had me start with her little plastic weights and the thing is I got addicted! Before bed I'd always workout with my mother's weights and she encouraged it more and more. When I was twelve I had biceps that boys wanted, didn't have, and feared on me! It made it hard because boys were afraid until I found a man that melts when he's near me and not a chicken. Most were chickens. As a girl I enjoyed beating up boys! I later found out that mother didn't want me raped! Sadly she had been. It didn't take long to build more muscle than boys my age, after all my mother would talk about the "window of opportunity" and explained that a girl gets beat up out there in the world. She explained that girls mature and outgrow boys for several years and that it was my responsibility to take advantage of my hormones and build my muscles. My mother taught that during the early years when girls are physically larger and more powerful compared to boys, was when girls should work their muscles hard even with barbelles and weights. When they become women they are stronger than most men. That is how I was raised and find it to be true. I found it easy to dominate boys at strength early on and it really hasn't changed. My husband is "mush-muscles" next to me, he loves my muscles even though he can't come close by comparison but it's always fun to try! CharleneApr 08 2009 6:43pm Add a comment: Vote Results |
