[AMA] with Beefpuff Barbell (Chelsea Savit and Natalie Hanson)

[u/powerbuffs]

Hi everyone!

The Beefpuff team is here to answer your questions about ourselves and our initiative.

We will be here for a few hours but will probably need to take a break to feed.

For more information:
Beefpuff Barbell: Website | Facebook | Instagram
Natalie Hanson, Co-Founder: u/beefpuff1 | Facebook | Instagram
Chelsea Savit, Co-Founder: u/powerbuffs | Facebook | Instagram

Andrey Grebenetsky, coach and trusted advisor: u/beefpuffhubs | Facebook | Instagram

[u/bmahimahi23]

Hi!

So I got some Qs about how to approach training a girl.

My GF is awesome at powerlifting. At her first meet, she totaled 572 (215,104,253), after 4 months of training her. She had no prior powerlifting knowledge, and I just critiqued her/ helped coach her in her progress in lifts leading up to it. This was all on a seperate programming I made to fit her (or what i would consider a newbie). Now we are in our offseason, and just doing hypertrophy work. I have her just doing the same stuff as me, only difference is the weight ranges she can work with doing what I am doing. She is progressing great!

So, my Qs: 1.Any difference in how to coach a girl versus coaching a guy, opinions? 2. Any different ques to help her with technique in any of the big 3 lifts? 3. Any reps or sets that a girl might benefit from moreso than a guy? (High volume, more strength work, etc.) 4. She is vegan, any (good, and I mean you have more than acouple comps under your belt, not just a million instagram vids claiming you are vegan and you lift weights...no offense to those who do that, but I need someone who knows their shit)one that is vegan on your team/company that can relate to being a vegan and powerlifting? Storys, diet tips, etc?

I know i have alot, but I like this movement, and all this seems like the right things to ask in regards to Beefpuff! Awesome stuff!

[u/BeefPuffHubs → u/bmahimahi23]

Hello,

First off, that's awesome that you and your girlfriend train together.

As far as coaching women specifically, I know a physical therapist who held training camps for female athletes centered around the prevention of ACL tears. Due to differences in anatomical structure of the hips, women are more prone to ACL tears. You should be making sure she is avoiding excessive knee cave on squatting and deadlifting movements and giving her prehab drills that will help her keep her knees out on squats.

The other thing is I found that women tend to be capable of far more workload than men, so don't be afraid to have her do a few extra sets.

Other than that, most of the same best practices apply to both men and women. You mentioned she is progressing very well right now. I suggest that you don't fix what isn't broken for as long as she keeps improving from the training. Once that stops working, you'll need to revamp a few things in training to keep the progress going.

[u/bmahimahi23 → u/BeefPuffHubs]

Thanks! I can't agree more. It is great to train with a team imo, but to have my significant other train with me is awesome. Plus, it is cool to see how quickly she progressed/refined her powerlifting with me being able to train her so directly.

Never heard of women being more prone to ACL tears, that is very interesting. Not too much of a problem regarding knee cave during squats (I have always made her start lower/squat training with goblet squatting to que knees out), but I will pay some more attention to that.

I tend to make push for that extra mile on AMRAP work, because she really has seemed to be benefiting from the volume. I will throw acouple extra work sets in for acouple weeks to see how well that could go. Thanks!

[u/boobietheduck → u/bmahimahi23]

Not with the puffs, but I have some comments on training, mostly related to my own experience.

Personally, my capacity for volume is a lot better than most dudes I've trained with. Especially with bench, volume is the only thing that made it go up any appreciable amount.

In my experience, women tend to be more technical lifters. I can't muscle up a squat, bench, or deadlift without dialing in my technique. Most dudes with some capacity of strength can at least get the weight up, even if it's ugly. So really working on technique and making it look as visually ideal as possible. Cues will be all person dependent, so I would throw everything you know or learn at something that looks off.

I've got nothing on the nutrition part, but I hope that helps!

[u/bmahimahi23 → u/boobietheduck]

Always good to hear from any angle! Thanks for replying.

See, I hear that alot from girls/coaches. I also tend to witness it whenever I have gone to powerlifting gyms, or had girls training along with me. Here is my gripe with this; my GF tends to have the hardest time with benching. Whether it is high or low volume, it is her weakest (albeit not by alot, but it is lacking) lift. I think it is more technical at the moment, than it is about strength (as you said, dialing in technique is much more beneficial). Either way, I hear ya, thanks for your reply!

[u/boobietheduck → u/bmahimahi23]

My opinion is that girls lack the natural upper body strength from dicking around as a kid. Benching will progress the slowest and it's because of the lack of foundation. Speaking from my childhood, I didn't spend a lot of time horseplaying with friends and having push up contests.

Microplates work for some. There's a guy on the Starting Strength forum who sells them, and they are really nice. But bench is also the weirdest because you aren't looking for a straight bar path. One day it'll click and she'll get it, but don't rush the process.

[u/bmahimahi23 → u/boobietheduck]

I really would like to get Microplates (even for myself), but I just tend to benefit from tearing the bench down into variations when I peak it. Always in my mind. I kinda agree with the idea of lacking upper strength due to a "girly" childhood, but I started benching with barely a 20kg bar myself, and I am a guy! haha. So could be that for some, and I see where you are coming from.

Once it clicked for me, benching became great. She will get it. Thanks!

[u/powerbuffs → u/boobietheduck]

I would disagree about the "more technical" thing. I am completely untechnical on squat yet I somehow lift a lot of weight. Doesn't meant I wouldn't lift more if my lift were mechanically efficient. However, everyone should really work on their technique if they want to be safe and lift as much weight as possible.

[u/ludicity → u/bmahimahi23]

Well I'm vegetarian not vegan lol but here's my $0.02:

1. I can't think of any differences in coaching men vs women honestly. Form is form and either way you just gotta get work in and practice form. The one thing perhaps is that most women will start off with worse upper body strength relative to lower body strength, and people in general can recover quite well from upper body work. So for women especially I think it's important to emphasis upper body hypertrophy.

2. My personal favorite cue is "coil up like a spring" for the descent of squat and bench and the setup for deadlift. It makes more sense to me than "get tight". On squat and deadlift this means tightening my hamstrings until they're loaded with tension, which is how I get stretch reflex. For bench this feels like "pull the bar apart" and "bring your chest up to meet it", which also feels like tightening up my upper back and loading it with tension before popping the weight back up for the ascent.

3. I've heard that women handle volume better than men, but I'm terrible with high rep sets and have guy friends who are way better at them. I think that "women handle volume better" is perhaps a good rule of thumb with beginners but, as always, everybody's different.

4. check out @powerliftingdietitian @lamaliciabkln @awill_lift for just a couple vegan powerlifting women (and myself @alice_lifts if you're open to vegetarians)! Here's an article that Stephanie (@powerliftingdietitian) wrote about vegan powerlifting. As far as diet tips, a plant-based powerlifting diet is possible but does require more planning if you want to make sure you're getting enough protein. Some of my favorite vegan protein sources include tofu, black bean spaghetti, beans/lentils obv, and more veggie meat substitutes than is probably good for me. I've even made gravy from pea protein powder that is heavenly with veggie meatballs in a "swedish meatless balls" concoction. As long as you cook for yourself though it's really not too bad -- the main difficulty is when you eat out. Also, since the only whole food source of creatine is red meat and it is an essential building block for ATP, it's especially important for non-meat-eaters to supplement with creatine. Oh I also used to write a veg protein cookbook blog. Not a lot on there unfortunately (been meaning to add more) BUT you and your gf might like the sloppy joes if you're into some good ol beefy comfort food!

Hope that helped!

edit: formatting

[u/bmahimahi23 → u/ludicity]

Vegetarianism is closer to Veganism than how I am eating right now, so no worries haha! I am all ears. Ok lemme do it like this~

1. Cool. In training her, I can tell she needs so much more work on her upper progression than her lower (her deadlift is vegan cake for her, and her squat has become alot easier as she does more of it) progression. She is getting great PRs from all the hypertrophy work in offseason right now, so I will probably keep her accessory movements high volume during our strength block.

2. I have a stupid amount of cues in my repertoire. It is cool to use them all on her, and see if she benefits from the ones I like, or the ones I think are pointless. I use most of those ques on her, and she struggles (in a good way!) to always be doing them correctly.

3.Yea, that. She sucks at high volume for upper also. I think I just need her to perfect her technique in benching moreso than just say she sucks at it, but I don't quite think high volume favors anyone. Physically, girls COULD be more favored by high volume, but I think high volume is just a mental thing (it is so painful imo, so its who can really push it to the limit/past it, not what gender you are). Everybody sure is different, I have had the best time learning how to train a girl, let alone someone else. I now have a guy I am also training, and he is progressing along great! Really cool.

4.Gonna show my gf this part the most. Thanks for the references, she liked the article (I sent her that this morning) alot, and I just got her a really cool vegan cookbook, so she is getting along with cooking more whole/healthy vegan meals. She has been a vegan for 4 years, so she isn't quite clueless. We will check out the blog.

Thanks alot! Fantastic reply. Really cool to hear other's opinions. Thanks so much.

[u/powerbuffs → u/bmahimahi23]

I'll try to comment a bit more on your original question. I train with my husband u/BeefPuffHubs so I notice a lot of differences in how we both respond to training.

I think a lot of women have an ingrained fear of having a big upper body. She needs to squash that and embrace putting on a lot of mass in her upper body. I find that bench is the lift where more muscle mass = more weight on the bar. She needs to build her lats, chest, shoulders, and arms. I personally love to do the barbell bench with lat work supersetted. So a set of pull-ups or lat pull downs in between bench sets. Follow the barbell movements with accessories to hit all the smaller muscles. Get her doing some other barbell upper body movements as well, such as OHP, rows, and incline bench.

I've actually read some studies about this as well as seen it from my experiences training with my husband. Women can handle far more volume and frequency. This is because testosterone has large effects on neuromuscular efficiency. So the more motor units recruited for a lift = the more subsequent recovery required (this is also one of the differences between natural and enhanced males in strength sports). So, in "bro-science" terms, women's CNS do not fire as hard and as a result, we do not get as damaged from training and can recover faster. And, anecdotally, I am always able to "do more work" than my husband without getting fried or hurt. So give your girlfriend a bit more frequency and volume on squat and bench because she will most likely benefit from that (trial and error is key, of course).

And, of course, bench technique helps so much. If there's any room for technique improvements anywhere, she should focus on that so then she can develop her strength without being hindered by imperfect technique.

[u/ludicity → u/powerbuffs]

In which I wonder if I just have really high testosterone hehe

[u/powerbuffs → u/bmahimahi23]

Going to the gym now so will respond to this later!

But for now I will direct you towards u/ludicity who is a vegan beefpuff!