Medical Xpress December 31, 2024
Men are dominant at most athletic events but ultra-endurance sports (exercising for six hours or more) represent a unique domain where the performance gap between men and women is narrowing significantly.
In traditional endurance events like marathons, men consistently outperform women by about 10%.
However, in ultra-distance competitions this disparity can be as small as 4%.
In some cases, women have even outpaced men.
What explains this shift? The answer lies in a combination of physiology, metabolism and strategy.
Fatigue resistance: An advantage for women
Women’s muscle composition is optimized for endurance. They have a higher proportion of type I (slow-twitch) muscle fibers, which are more efficient and resistant to fatigue during prolonged activity compared to type II (fast-twitch) fibers.
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