This Article is Sponsored by Studio 9 Fitness. The Premier Sports Performance Facility in Wokingham, Berkshire.
What is Muscular Endurance Training?
Muscular endurance is the ability of a muscle or group of muscles to sustain repeated contractions against a resistance for an extended period of time. It is one of the components of muscular fitness, along with muscular strength and power.
When you train for muscular endurance, you're building up the muscle differently from when you train for strength. With muscular endurance, you're building up capillaries in the muscle, which help get more blood in and out as you exercise.
There are different levels of muscular endurance. In the realm of weightlifting, muscular endurance means performing 10 to 25 reps of an exercise. In the world of endurance sports, a marathon is an extreme example of muscular endurance.
The specific type of muscular endurance used during cardiovascular fitness activities such as running, swimming, or cycling is usually called cardiovascular endurance or cardiorespiratory endurance and is different from the strength training definition. Endurance training for these types of physical activities builds the energy systems of the body, the muscle fibres, and capillaries that can sustain long periods of exercise, such as running a marathon or cycling 100 miles.
The difference between performing 20 squats and running a marathon is vast, which is why muscular endurance is a spectrum. The focus in this blog will be on the weightlifting side of the spectrum, because that's more convenient to train and doesn't take nearly as long as running, rowing or swimming for long distances.
Examples of muscular endurance tests:-
The push-up test is often performed as a measure of upper body muscular endurance. You complete as many push-ups as you can before your technique fails. There is a modified push-up test for women to perform on their knees. This may also be a timed test to see how many you can perform in a minute. You can compare how your performance matches up with others in your age and gender category. By tracking this number over time, you can see increases or decreases in upper body muscular endurance.
The same can be done with your lower body using the bodyweight squat test. How many squats can you do? Stand in front of a chair or bench with your feet shoulder width apart, facing away from the chair. Squat down and lightly touch the chair before standing back up. Use a chair that causes your knees to be at a 90 degree angle when you are squatting. Keep doing this until you're fatigued and your technique fails.
Your results for both bests and other muscular endurance tests can be found in the link below:
https://www.topendsports.com/testing/tests/home-pushup.htm
https://www.topendsports.com/testing/tests/home-squat.htm
Recommendations:-
The American College of Sports Medicine recommends using a programme of lower intensity strength training to improve muscular endurance. The weight load should be less than 50 percent of the repetition maximum (the maximum weight you could use for one repetition of the exercise). This is a light to moderate intensity load. You perform a relatively high number of repetitions, 15 to 25 per set, for one or two sets.
Resistance training with moderate to low weights and high repetitions appears to be the most effective method to improve local muscular endurance and high-intensity (or strength) endurance. (1)
The exercises you choose should work large muscle groups or multiple muscle groups to fatigue, which stimulates changes in the muscles that will build endurance. A muscular endurance programme can use a variety of exercises, including those using one or multiple limbs or one or multiple joints.
However, muscular endurance training makes up only one part of an overall strength programme – even for endurance athletes. It should follow a phase of maximal strength training. This makes sense because the greater an athlete’s maximal strength, the greater their potential for strength endurance – i.e. the more force they will be able to apply over a prolonged period. Heavy strength training has also been shown to improve exercise economy in endurance athletes. (2)
A muscular endurance programme has short rest periods, often less than 30 seconds. This restriction of the recovery time is purposeful; only a minimal amount of rest is allowed when light loads are being lifted for many repetitions. This type of programme is designed to meet the guidelines of the specificity principle for muscular endurance. Short rest periods are characteristic of circuit training programmes in which it is common to alternate exercises and limit rest period lengths to 30 seconds or less.
Different sports require different levels of muscular endurance. While each programme will vary according to the athlete’s needs, muscular endurance can be split into 3 groups:
1. Power Endurance
Athletes like baseball pitchers, sprinters, 50m freestyle swimmers, martial artists, wrestlers, fencers, tennis players and so on must produce powerful movements and repeat them several times with little or no rest. In order to maintain the same amount of power with each effort, a certain level of power endurance is required.
Power endurance is typically characterised by intense, repeated efforts for a relatively short period of time (less than 30 seconds). A tennis player for example, has to produce several powerful shots in quick succession during a rally that may only last 10 seconds. A 100m sprinter may take 48-54 powerful strides over a 10-12 second race and their success depends, in part, on maintaining a high power output in the last 20 metres.
Once maximal strength has been developed (earlier on in the overall strength programme) it can be converted into explosive power through various methods of power training. Now power endurance training can be used to train the fast twitch fibres to resist fatigue allowing explosive power to be maintained for longer.
Power endurance training uses moderate loads of 50-70% 1RM lifted for 15 to 30 repetitions. Because this can lead to a significant build up of lactic acid, rest periods between sets are long (5-7 minutes) and a minimum number of sport-specific exercises are used (about 3-4). Exercises may also be completed in a circuit training format i.e. one set of one exercise is completed, then one set of the next exercise and so on. Alternating exercises allows maximum recovery and sufficient time for lactic acid to disperse.
The research on rest interval length in relation to chronic muscular endurance adaptations is less clear. In a 2009 study, training with short rest intervals (e.g. 20 seconds to 1 minute) resulted in higher repetition velocities during repeated submaximal muscle actions and also greater total torque during a high-intensity cycle test. These findings indirectly demonstrated the benefits of utilising short rest intervals for gains in muscular endurance. (3)
2. Muscular Endurance – Short Term
When sports and events consist predominantly of bouts of exercise lasting between 30 seconds and 2 minutes, “short-term” muscular endurance training is advantageous. These could be continuous events such as the 800m or multi-sprint sports such as football.
Muscular endurance training helps athletes to cope with fatigue and tolerate high levels of lactic acid. It uses relatively light loads of 40-60% 1RM and they can be lifted for a set period of time or a target number of repetitions. Again, a circuit training set up is suitable for this type of resistance training.
3. Muscular Endurance – Long Term
“Long term” muscular endurance is suitable for continuous, steady-state events such as the marathon, triathlon and rowing that last beyond 2 minutes. Light loads are used so that exercises can be sustained for a prolonged period. Rest periods are kept to a minimum and ideally the athlete should progress so that the only rest between exercises is the time it takes to move between equipment.
Are you an endurance athlete? If so, you should be following a comprehensive muscular strength and endurance training programme! Don’t rely on talent – we are built, not born.
References:
1 Progression models in resistance training for healthy adults, Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2009
2 Maximal Strength Training Improves Running Economy in Distance Runners, Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 2008
3 Rest interval between sets in strength training, Sports Med, 2009