Throughout October, Simply Gym polled its website visitors on their workout of choice and the results reveal that ladies idolise a flat stomach (28%) while men covet powerful pecks (29%).
According to Andy Tee, Simply Gym manager, “Our male visitors tend to gravitate towards the bench press and other equipment that works the chest and upper body. Of course our female visitors use this equipment too, but in general they are more likely to use exercise balls and ab crunchers than heavy weights.”
“Some women don’t like the idea of training with weights because they’re worried it will give them bulging muscles, but resistance training is not only great for toning up but will also boost your fat burning efforts.”
Bringing up the rear with just 3% of the male vote and 2% of the female vote were the glutes, or gluteus maximus – or the buttocks, to you and I. Are we neglecting our bottoms while aiming for Jessica Ennis abs or a Channing Tatum chest?
According to Andy, “The glutes often get ignored during workouts. If lunges, hip extensions and squats don’t appeal to you, classes such as Legs, Bums and Tums are a great way to target problem areas.”
Overall, the results revealed that male and female gym-goers have very similar workout priorities, with 19% (men) and 17% (women) choosing arms and 6% (men) and 8% (women) choosing shoulders.
Perhaps the most surprising result was that 8% of ladies focus on training their back muscles compared to just 5% of men. Andy suggests that female Olympians such as Rebecca Adlington, enviable for her powerful upper body, have inspired women to want stronger, more muscular physiques.
Results
Question: What are your favourite muscles to train at the gym?
Female:
Abs – 27.78%
Arms 16.67%
Back – 8.33%
Chest – 16.67%
Glutes – 2.78%
Legs – 19.44%
Shoulders – 8.33%
Male:
Abs – 18.75%
Arms – 18.75%
Back – 4.69%
Chest – 29.69%
Glutes – 1.56%
Legs – 20.31%
Shoulders – 6.25%
(In the article, we rounded decimals to the nearest whole number.)