Female Training, Hormones & Nutrition: Fact vs. Fiction | Dr. Lauren Colenso-Semple

**Lauren Colenso-Semple** (0:00)
The most important element is your training is challenging enough, meaning you can do a set of six, you can do a set of 12, you can do a set of 15 or anything in between. But when you finish your last rep, that sixth rep or that 15th rep, you should feel like you could only do one, maybe two more.
If you're not there yet, the weight isn't heavy enough and you need to increase the load. There's no must do exercise, there's no must do rep range, there's no must do length of workout or days per week. The point is that it needs to be challenging, you need to stick with it and do it consistently, and you need progression over time. As you get stronger, we need more load.

**Andy Galpin** (0:53)
The science and practice of enhancing human performance for sport, play, and life.
Welcome to Perform.
I'm Andy Galpin, I'm the Executive Director of the Human Performance Center at Parker University. Today, I'm speaking with Dr. Lauren Colenso-Semple. Lauren has a PhD in Integrative Physiology, and her research focuses on questions related to female physiology, exercise, and nutrition. She's also a tremendous scientific communicator, as well as active practitioner, having coached hundreds of people successfully to their personal fitness goals. Because of that background, in today's episode, you're going to learn a tremendous amount about the bridge and the gap between science and application as it applies specifically to females and their unique physiology. You're going to learn what the true state of the literature actually is. And so I hope you enjoy this conversation today with my long friend, Dr. Lauren Colenso-Semple. Dr. Lauren Colenso-Semple, thank you for being here.

**Lauren Colenso-Semple** (1:51)
Thanks for having me.

**Andy Galpin** (1:52)
It's been a number of years since we've got to hang out in person.

**Lauren Colenso-Semple** (1:55)
It has.

**Andy Galpin** (1:56)
I thought it would be interesting, and I'll actually have to give you credit for this, because you brought this up this morning while we were eating breakfast that almost 10 years ago, you and I had an idea for a lit review paper.
And according to your memory, not mine, we at least mocked that thing up, got close to it, and I'm not sure where it went from there. So my first three questions, one, walk us through what the idea of that paper was, two, why were you even interested in it? Where did the idea come from? What was the love and support for it then? And then three, which one of us screwed it up and not getting it out? Whose fault was it that paper never got published? So you can take those in whatever order you'd like.

**Lauren Colenso-Semple** (2:38)
I think we share equal responsibility for number three.

**Andy Galpin** (2:42)
Oh, no chance, no chance.

**Lauren Colenso-Semple** (2:45)
I come from a background as a fitness professional. And so my interest in science was rooted in my background as a fitness professional. And at the time, looking at the literature and seeing there was an under-representation of female participants. And you'll hear a lot of people say that, you know, there's no data in women. But there is data in women. But at the time, it's true that it was very common to have at least an initial study conducted in young college-aged men.
And so I was really a proponent of, hey, let's try to replicate these studies in women. So the idea for the review was, what are these potential sex differences that maybe we have an inkling of a mechanism to generate a hypothesis to say, is it true or could it be true that maybe women can train more frequently? Could it be true that there is some protective effect of estrogen that would allow for faster recovery or less muscle damage in response to hard training? And is there something to be said for these hormones that fluctuate throughout the menstrual cycle? Because we know a ton about testosterone, we don't know much about estrogen and progesterone. And so, if it is the case that men and women are gaining muscle size and strength at similar relative rates, clearly testosterone is not the key that unlocks the strength and hypertrophy kingdom. So, at the time, there was enough to say, here's the list of the kind of could-be's, let's hash that out, because the purpose of a lit review is to say, here's the state of the evidence as it stands, and here's where we need to go.
So, that was the intention to kind of lay it out there. And what we were doing together at the time was exploring some of the sex differences in fiber type because that was another theory that was positive if there are these sex differences in fiber type distribution, could that fuel the different training recommendations or optimizations, if you will?