When men and women who regularly lift weights perform bench presses until they can't complete another rep, men show 29% more short-term muscle fatigue than women. However, when they stop short of...

We analyzed the available evidence and found that men who regularly lift weights show 29% more short-term muscle fatigue than women when performing bench presses to failure [1]. This difference was only observed when participants pushed until they could no longer complete a repetition. When both men and women stopped one or three reps before failure, there was no noticeable difference in fatigue levels between the sexes [1]. The evidence we’ve reviewed so far leans toward this pattern, with no studies contradicting it. We don’t yet know why this difference appears only at failure—whether it’s related to muscle size, nervous system response, or other factors—but the data suggests the gap disappears before reaching complete exhaustion. This means that if you’re training with some reps left in the tank, fatigue levels between men and women may be very similar. If you’re pushing to absolute failure, men in this group showed higher fatigue, but that doesn’t mean women are stronger or men are weaker—it just shows a difference in how fatigue builds under extreme conditions. What we’ve found so far is limited to people who already lift weights regularly, and we don’t have data on beginners, older adults, or other populations. For now, the takeaway is simple: if you’re not training to complete failure, you likely won’t see this difference.