hehehaha said:
Oh man. Read the thread carefully. I said *lower body* (legs). Not upper body. How many times do I have to say that? Because some people say that women legs are strong than men's which is wrong.
I'm a little confused why you would ask this question and answer it yourself here.
I mean leg muscles (calves, thighs). What has squat to do with legs? Anyway squat also requires other than your leg like your back.
By strength, I assume that you mean absolute strength. Are you comparing a man and a woman that both have the same weight? Or are you comparing an average sized man and an average sized woman? Is there an age range for your test subjects? How much strength training exercises is in the test subjects' history? etc...
If you don't want to use squats to gauge lower body strength, then what are you going to use?
The squat has a LOT to do with legs (although I agree the back is a major supporting group) so it can DEFINITELY be used to gauge the strength of legs. HOWEVER, the barbell squat is just one of MANY variations of the squat. Other variations of the squat, such as dumbbell squats, have even more to do with legs than the typical barbell squat and less to do with the erector spinae. SO certainly, one could use a variation of the squat to gauge lower body strength.
One could use the leg press to gauge strength, and men can press more here also.
Another point I'd like to bring up is that the lower body is made up of many groups of muscles... the quads, the hamstrings, the calves (the 3 that immediately come to my mind, but there are many others). Is it possible that women have stronger muscles in some groups while weaker muscles in the other groups? I'm not sure.. but I don't think we can lump all those muscles into one group called "lower body" because it is too general.
Are women stronger in stiff-leg deadlifts (it works the hammies), or how about calf raises (works the calves)? I don't know... I don't know how one is defining the test subjects.
My point is... we have to know exactly what you are measuring, and how you are measuring before we can answer your question in a scientific way.
Nonetheless, if one were to have average-sized men and the average-sized women perform exercises that primarily target the lower body, then based on my experience, I would say the men would lift more.
