The Principles behind Strength Training and Achieving Endurance

If you come up with the decision to start weight training, you also have to consider your primary objective. Is this for body weight? Is this for improving muscle mass, or is this for getting a toned physique? Or, could this be for endurance?

Determination of your main goal is crucial because all of these goals necessitate varying workout strategies and training. By knowing what your specific objective is, you can modify the kind of technique that best suits your aim.

This article will focus on weight training for the purpose of endurance. Endurance training is ideal for athletes in sports that require swiftness in their movements such as in baseball, football, soccer, and hockey, among others.

In addition, training your body for long-lasting strength will also enhance your overall fitness, as well as allow you to easily perform chores like carrying groceries, mowing the lawn, and others that you originally consider to be tedious tasks, but still need completing nevertheless.

To better understand it, strength training for endurance allows you to be strong for a prolonged duration. When you’re stronger for an extended period of time, you’re enabled to be more productive with your trainings, workouts, and even in your daily, personal life. With this endurance is built on a single motion, which is forward.

When you train for endurance, you also get to work on VO2 max and your lactate threshold. These are functions in your body that are simultaneously exercised as a result of your strength endurance training. The former is how efficient your body uses the oxygen it preserves and the latter is how fast your body can eliminate lactic acid.

Below are the things you need to remember when strength training for endurance:

Lifting heavy weights

preview-full-shutterstock_256985293Getting stronger means getting yourself to lift heavy weights. You can do this using either of these two different means: compound lifts, also called multi-joint lifts, or individual lifts. For the purpose of saving time, compound lifts are recommended as individual lift takes a more significant period of time. In terms of strength endurance, these are the kinds of lifts you need to put your attention to: deadlifts, squats, bench presses, kettlebell clean and jerks, kettlebell swings or snatches, and upper body lifts.

Strength training will help you in multiple ways, such as securing a stable core and maintaining better posture. Training in a particular sport of your selection will also help you improve your speed and stamina. For endurance athletes, cycling, running, and swimming to name a few are part of your overall training. Given this, bear in mind that strength training shouldn’t be considered as a replacement for biking or your swimming sessions in the pool. Still, it can definitely help you fortify the muscles that need strengthening.

Imposing shorter breaks

Mostly sports and other physical activities that need endurance entail reduced break time or sometimes even no rest periods at all. When training for endurance, it is recommended to lift a heavier weight for 2-4 repetitions, but only taking a 30-second break. This is in contrast to lifting a lighter weight for 8-12 repetitions and taking a break for 60 seconds or longer.  Trust that as your body adapts to this, you will want to either augment the amount of weight lifted or reduce the rest period, but never both simultaneously. When you opt for shorter break times, your body is pushed to exert force despite being fatigued. This will also promote faster recuperation period after phases of extreme muscle tension.

Increasing volume of work

preview-full-_main_runningStrength training for stamina is all about doing a lot of work and resting for shorter periods of time. This will help establish your endurance and guarantee that you’ll be working for longer durations. For this reason, it is recommended to concentrate on the degree of your workout around doing the uppermost quantity of repetitions of a workout with the use of a weight that corresponds to roughly 40-64 percent of your maximum weight threshold.

Treating the timing of crucial necessity

Timing is also vital when performing endurance training. In order to ensure that there’s proper timing, organize your workouts with the corresponding muscle groups suitably. If you’re targeting the same muscle group, make sure you give these 48 hours minimum to have a rest. To make this work, you can combine your weight training with your standard endurance exercises, such as swimming or cycling. In fact, the combination of strength and endurance training preceded by cardio has been shown to be effective in burning more calories.

Bottom Line

The suggested workouts and plans won’t be ideal for everybody, specifically if you’re a newbie who’s just getting started. If you are, you need to keep this in mind. Generally, it is useful to note of your progress over time, which means identifying what your objectives are and modifying your workouts to better suit your aims. Begin in moderate pace and gradually increase your repetitions and load as you feel at ease. This way you’re starting slow, but properly. Even if you’re not seeing results as fast as you’d expected, do not rush your training; being hasty about your training leads to slip-ups and poor form, thus, injury.