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Women beat men on muscle endurance

Men may have strength, but women beat them hands down for endurance when doing certain exercises, a US study has found.

The University of Colorado reports at a meeting of the American Physiological Society on the results of a study that compared men and women doing two low-force exercises using the elbow flexor muscles.

In the first exercise, participants had to hold their arm rigid for as long as possible. In the second task, a weight bag was added to the wrist and subjects were asked again to hold their arm in the same position for as long as possible.

The study found that women outlasted men by an average of 75 per cent for both tasks. But rather than some kind of motivational effect, the study found the difference was due to some feature of the muscles.

The authors suggest that, given that women are weaker than men, the difference may be due to some interaction between muscle strength and blood flow within the muscle. But it may also be due to the different types of muscle fibres in women and men, or even their different hormones.

Study coauthor Dr Sandra Hunter said while there was much known about the effects of oestrogen, there is just as much that is not known about how it affects women's bodies.