Are men stronger than women? What the research actually says

Are men stronger than women? On average, yes. The gap is biggest in the upper body, smaller in the legs, and it comes mostly from how much muscle people carry, not from some mystery quality of male muscle. That's the whole answer. The interesting part is what it does and doesn't mean for you.

Below: how much stronger men are, why the gap exists, where it shrinks, and why women respond to the same training just as well. None of it changes how you should lift. Whether you program it yourself or use a coach that adapts to your schedule and recovery, the plan for a woman and the plan for a man are built from the same parts.

Are men stronger than women? The short answer

Yes, on average, in absolute strength. A 2023 consensus statement for the American College of Sports Medicine put it plainly: adult men are typically stronger, more powerful and faster than women of similar age and training status, and in sports that rely on strength, speed, power or endurance, males typically outperform females by 10% to 30% depending on the event (Hunter et al., 2023).

Three things that sentence doesn't say:

• ›It's about averages. It describes groups, not the person next to you at the squat rack.
• ›It's about absolute strength. How much you lift, not how well your muscle works or how fast you improve.
• ›It's not a training prescription. Nothing about it means women need different exercises, lighter weights or a "toning" version of anything.

That last point is why a structured plan for women who lift looks almost exactly like a plan for men who lift. The broader case for that, with the research on how women respond to training, is in the hub guide to the best women's strength training app and program choices.

How much stronger are men than women?

It depends on which muscles you measure. The best-known data come from small lab studies and large body-composition scans, so treat the exact numbers as ballparks, not laws.

The pattern repeats across the research: the upper-body gap is larger than the lower-body gap. A 2023 narrative review summarized it the same way, noting that sex differences in strength are more pronounced in upper-body than lower-body muscles, and in concentric (lifting) than eccentric (lowering) contractions (Nuzzo, 2023).

In plain English: the difference you'd see on a bench press is bigger than the one you'd see on a leg press, and smaller still when lowering a weight under control.

Why are men stronger than women?

Mostly muscle size, and mostly because of what happens at puberty.

Puberty and testosterone

The gap opens up in adolescence. The ACSM consensus statement notes that sex differences in performance emerge with the onset of puberty, alongside testosterone in males, which increases 30-fold by adulthood while remaining low in females (Hunter et al., 2023). The 2023 review adds that males become notably stronger than females around age 15 (Nuzzo, 2023).

More muscle, bigger fibers

The strength gap follows the muscle gap. In the Miller study, women had smaller muscle cross-sections in both the arms and legs, and the authors concluded the men's greater strength was due primarily to larger muscle fibers (Miller et al., 1993).

Here's the part people miss: that same study found no significant sex difference in strength relative to muscle cross-sectional area. Gram for gram, the women's muscle produced similar force. The men simply had more of it.

Where the muscle sits

Why is the upper-body gap bigger? The Miller authors suggested it's because women tend to carry a lower proportion of their lean tissue in the upper body (Miller et al., 1993), which matches the MRI data showing a larger sex difference in upper-body muscle mass (Janssen et al., 2000).

Not effort, not "activation"

One explanation you can drop: that women can't "switch on" their muscles as well. The 2023 review concluded that greater male strength is not because of higher voluntary activation, but greater muscle mass and type II fiber areas (Nuzzo, 2023). Your nervous system isn't the problem. It never was.

Are men physically stronger than women at everything?

No. "Stronger" is several different things, and the gap varies a lot between them.

• ›Upper vs. lower body. The lower-body gap is consistently smaller, which is one reason the legs are often where women's numbers look most impressive relative to men's.
• ›Lifting vs. lowering. The difference is smaller in eccentric work than concentric work (Nuzzo, 2023).
• ›Fatigue. Women are usually less fatigable than men in sustained isometric contractions of similar intensity, though the difference is task-specific and depends on the type, intensity and speed of the effort (Hunter, 2014). Whether women have more endurance than men, explained with the full research, is a separate question with a more interesting answer than you'd expect.

And again: averages. Every one of these distributions overlaps. Knowing the average tells you nothing about what you, specifically, will lift in a year.

Do women gain strength as fast as men?

This is the question that actually matters for training, and the answer is good news.

A 2020 meta-analysis compared men and women on the same resistance training programs. It found similar effect sizes for muscle growth and lower-body strength, and a larger effect for women on relative upper-body strength. The authors suggested untrained women may have a higher capacity to increase upper-body strength than untrained men, while saying more research is needed to explain why (Roberts et al., 2020).

A 2025 Bayesian meta-analysis of 29 studies found men gained slightly more muscle in absolute terms, but relative increases in muscle size were similar between sexes (Refalo et al., 2025). And the 2023 review concluded that men and women both increase muscle size and strength after weeks of training, with women experiencing greater relative strength improvements depending on age and muscle group (Nuzzo, 2023).

So women start from a lower average baseline in absolute strength, then improve at a similar or faster relative rate. That's the opposite of "lifting isn't for women".

What this means for how you train

Short version: nothing changes. Long version:

Train the same lifts. Squat, hinge, push, pull, carry. If competition interests you, powerlifting for women uses separate women's weight classes precisely because absolute strength differs, so you're compared with women your size, not with men.

Don't skip the scary ones. The deadlift and the barbell squat are the lifts women are most often warned off, and there's no reason for it. Deadlifts for women are taught and programmed exactly like deadlifts for anyone. Same for squats: if you've ever looked up the women's squat world record, you've seen what happens when women train the squat seriously for years.

Train the upper body on purpose. The upper body is where the average gap is biggest, and, per the Roberts meta-analysis above, possibly where untrained women improve fastest relative to where they start. Rows, presses and pull-ups deserve as many sets as the glutes get. The women's gym workout guide has a full routine that balances both.

Compare yourself with the right reference. Strength standards are usually split by sex and bodyweight for this reason, and female deadlift average numbers will tell you far more about your progress than any comparison with the men in your gym.

Stop worrying about size. If the fear is getting "bulky", the research above cuts the other way: muscle grows at a similar relative rate for women, which means training works, not that it ambushes you. Building muscle as a woman takes years of deliberate effort and food to match.

What the average doesn't tell you

The sex gap in strength is real, it's measurable, and it's mostly about muscle mass. That's all it is. It's not a ranking of who should lift, who should lift heavy, or who gets to call themselves strong.

The useful number isn't the average gap between men and women. It's the gap between what you lift now and what you lift in twelve months. That one is mostly about consistency, sensible progression and enough hard sets, and every bit of it is in your control.

How exrsz fits in

exrsz builds a periodized plan from your goal, schedule, level and equipment. It programs lifting and running in one plan, adapts each week to how you actually trained, and reshuffles missed sessions. It doesn't have a women's version of a squat or a deadlift, because the research says you don't need one.

FAQ

Are men stronger than women on average?

Yes. Adult men are typically stronger than women of similar age and training status, and in strength, speed and power events men typically outperform women by 10% to 30% depending on the event (Hunter et al., 2023).

Why are men physically stronger than women?

Mainly because men carry more muscle and have larger muscle fibers, a difference that emerges at puberty as testosterone rises. One study found no significant sex difference in strength relative to muscle cross-sectional area (Miller et al., 1993).

How much stronger are men than women?

It varies by muscle group. In one small study, women were about 52% as strong as men in the upper body and 66% as strong in the lower body (Miller et al., 1993). The upper-body gap is consistently the larger one.

Do women build strength as fast as men?

Yes, relative to their starting point. A 2020 meta-analysis found similar gains in muscle size and lower-body strength, and a larger effect for women on relative upper-body strength (Roberts et al., 2020).

Should women train differently from men because of the strength gap?

No. The gap is in starting point and muscle mass, not in how muscle responds to training. The same lifts, sets and progression work for both.