Should We Use the Men Load-Velocity Profile for Women in Deadlift and Hip Thrust?

Abstract

Injuries are common in team sports and can impact both team and individual performance. In particular, hamstring strain injuries are some of the most common injuries. Furthermore, hamstring injury ratios, in number of injuries and total absence days, have doubled in the last 21 seasons in professional soccer. Weakness in hip extensor strength has been identified as a risk factor in elite-level sprinters. In addition, strength imbalances of the hamstring muscle group seem to be a common cause of hamstring strain injuries. In this regard, velocity-based training has been proposed to analyze deficits in the force-velocity profile. Previous studies have shown differences between men and women, since there are biomechanical and neuromuscular differences in the lower limbs between sexes. Therefore, the aim of this study was to compare the load-velocity profile between males and females during two of the most important hip extension exercises: the hip thrust and the deadlift. Sixteen men and sixteen women were measured in an incremental loading test following standard procedures for the hip thrust and deadlift exercises. Pearson's correlation (r) was used to measure the strength of the correlation between movement velocity and load (%1RM). The differences in the load-velocity relationship between the men and the women were assessed using a 2 (sex) × 15 (load) repeated-measures ANOVA. The main findings revealed that: (I) the load-velocity relationship was always strong and linear in both exercises (R² range: 0.88-0.94), (II) men showed higher velocities for light loads (30-50%1RM; effect size: 0.9-0.96) than women for the deadlift, but no significant differences were found for the hip thrust. Based on the results of this study, the load-velocity equations seem to be sex-specific. Therefore, we suggest that using sex-specific equations to analyze deficits in the force-velocity profile would be more effective to control intensity in the deadlift exercise.

Keywords: hamstrings; injuries; sex differences; velocity-based training.

Figure 1

Relationship between relative load (%1RM) and mean propulsive velocity (MPV) for women (filled dots and solid line) and men (open dots and dashed line) in hip thrust (a) and deadlift (b). R² = Pearson’s multivariate coefficient of determination. N = number of trials included in the regression analysis.

Figure 2

Relationship between relative load (%1RM) and mean propulsive velocity (MPV) for women (filled dots and solid line) and men (open dots and dashed line) in deadlift (a) and hip thrust (b) (data averaged across the participants). Significant differences between the sexes * p < 0.05.