icb wrote:The answer depends on how you are defining/measuring strength.
If you are interested in the maximal contractile force that an individual muscle can produce for a brief isometric contraction, then all that basically matters is the muscle bulk, or more precisely the average cross-sectional area of the muscle. So if a female's muscle is the same size as a male's it will be able to produce the same maximal isometric force.
That is not entirely true. While indeed muscle cross-sectional area is important, the maximal contractile force is not a passive process. You are describing anatomical differences, but muscle strength is not merely a function of anatomical structure or a passive process. Two muscles of the same size are definitely not able to produce the same strength. Muscle strength is a function of physiological, neurological and hormononal processes in addition to the anatomical processes.
In fact, it is so that prepubertal children who do weightlifting increase strength without any gain in muscle size. Why, because that gain is achieved merely through neurological processes. If over many weeks you do extensive exercise with just a single arm and afterwards measure the strength in both arms, strength will have increased in both arms, though obviously by far not as much in the one you did not exercise. That is through neurological processes.
In terms of size, hypertrophy of a muscle is just part of the picture, with hyperplasia (the increase in number of fibers) being the other half. The only thing is that hyperplasia is difficult to achieve after puberty, although through careful use of hormonal stimulants (popularly referred to as 'doping') if integrated into a scientifically crafted strength program satellite cells are sometimes produced which in some cases may lead to new fibers.
Resulting strength moreover is also a function of the motor abilities, in particular the ability to simultaneously fire as many as possible motor units. While in the acute process of exerting strength rather than training or increasing strength, we are obviously not talking about anabolic steroids, but still acetylcholine as a neurotransmitter and the efficiency, promptness, and coordination of actin-myosin crossbridges plays a significant role. This certainly is not identical between two muscles of identical size.
At the end of the day, very much as Quicksilver comprehends, indeed a woman with muscle the same size as a man, will typically not be able to produce as much strength as man, and no woman will be able to run as fast as a man either. Why ? Because apart from what is described above, there are many other things that women cannot overcome. Women biomechanically run less efficient than males because the transfer of force is less efficient due to the much larger angle of femur to tibia and the width of their pelvis. Once in blue moon, you will have some freak of nature when coupled to "optimal scientific guidance ..." you can develop something to the extreme, like in the case of Flo Jo, who was both extremely muscular and had unusually straight legs for a woman. In the end though even though she eclipsed everything that women previously had done, she would still have not been party for a male at the same level.
Moreover, as much as you have such a "freak of nature" in women, they also happen at the male side, as for example, with Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps. Their size, leg length, arm length, relative body mass for such height, proportion of fast twitch fibers in Bolt due to ethnicity, etc. There are anatomical differences in terms of levers used which play out in the difference males/females, but also between ethnicities. That is also why an Olympic 100 m final will virtually always consist of African Americans, every so many years an exception when a similar "freak of nature" allows someone of other ethnicity to transgress the anatomo-physiological differences that are average in terms of specificity for that ethnicity. It is not only a matter of proportion of a certain type of fiber, but on the average the attachment of the tendon of the gastrocnemius muscle on the calcaneus is further in an African American than in a Caucasian hence creating a more powerful lever. We are not talking half a meter difference, but the difference becomes significant when push comes to shove and we are talking people who have pushed everything else to the maximum.
A woman is also not trainable to that extent no matter what she does, even if you give her as much doping as you want. Why is that ? Because muscle response to hormones is not solely determined by the amount of anabolic hormone, but by the free faction and the amount of available receptor for that hormone to bind to. In women saturation of receptors will occur much earlier than in males, and even between members of the same sex number of receptors is genetically determined. Upregulation of number of receptors is very difficult to achieve. It is also difficult to research and measure due to current ethical restrictions. Most of our knowledge in this area dates from the late 1960s and early 1970s when no such stringent ethics rules were in place and it was still much easier to conduct certain scientific experiments. Specifically, what I am talking about is that to measure these things you have to infuse hormones which you first radioactively label, which today is almost impossible to get through any ethics committee when you want to do this in health people for the mere interest of science rather than in a patient to improve his health.
As much as the strength gap male to female is unbridgeable for a woman, the reverse exists too depending on what we are talking about. When it comes to ultra-endurance which no longer is a matter of strength, but of other physiological parameters, males cannot bridge the gap with females. Virtually all endurance swimming records are health by women.
Such gender differences exist in many more disciplines. Deep sea diving without scuba gear is another one. Women have desperately attempted to match males there with as a result several fatalities. The ama or female pearl divers in Japan stay under water for many minutes without oxygen, thus it was tempting to try and match depth records set by males. Only it isn't that simple. The reason that those pearl divers are female and not male has more to do with anthropo-cultural history than with physiological qualities. However, in setting depth record it is a different matters. The maximal ventilation of a male is much larger than of a female, because VEmax is strongly determined by size of lungs and males are taller than females and size of lungs is linked to body height. In diving, the issue is more complex the maximal depth someone can dive is also determined by the relationship between the non-expirable air in the lungs and the expirable, and how the factor of compression resulting from increased pressure.
From personal and anecdotal memory, I did randori numerous times with one the most successful female elite judoka, who was the physically strongest woman I have met on a tatami and an Olympic gold and 6-fold judo world champion combination of -72kg and open classes. If you think you got your match there, forget it. When it comes to explosive force, speed, using that force optimally, breadth of techniques not a single male in the team or any male good enough for a national medal would have been threatened. This was not just one person, as over the years we had several female world and continental champions, and I can't imagine any of them ever being able to throw me or most male team members in randori. Now, I also vividly remember when I was a 2nd kyu and for the first time visited my club, I was like 14 years old or something, there was a female black belt and multiple national champion and European silver medalist -56 kg who made me see every corner of the dojo. By the time I had gained my 1st kyu though that had changed quite a bit. In other words, what was different and how did that female apparently bridge the gap ?
1. I was a 14-year old child and she was an adult in her prime, more than 10 years older than me.
2. She was technically far more skilled than me, as she was a celebrated champion and blackbelt.
Today, some of my male students sometimes visit places and work out with a few international female elite and getting their butts kicked. How is that possible ? It is possible because none of my current male students, black belt or other, has a noteworthy national or regional competitive career or has any exceptional judo talent. In other words, yes, in judo, women can bridge the gap female/male but not on strength but on technique, IF that technical gap between the woman and the man is sufficiently large and significant. This was exactly what happened to me when I had my butt kicked so many years ago, or what happened to my less experienced male students.
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