Strength Endurance

Elevating Human Performance through Proper Nutrition and Resistance Training

This blog is to discuss the specific weight training technique that has been coined as “strength endurance”. What exactly is strength endurance? What makes it different than just regular strength training? The textbook definition of strength training is as follows: “A hybrid form of training that promotes increased stabilization endurance, hypertrophy, and strength.”1 Strength endurance is a form of weight training resistance that caters to both the idea of increasing the strength of one’s musculature while also increasing the intermuscular stability of the body overall.

A common method of applying strength endurance into one’s programming is by the use of supersets. Instead of using traditional superset techniques however, this form entails the use of one stable exercise (such as bench press) and pairing it with a stability exercise with similar biomechanical principles (like a stability ball push-up). There are three key components when strength-endurance training that one must utilize in order to reap the maximum results: near maximal weight, volume, shortened rest periods.2 Strength endurance not only has the potential to substantially increase one’s intramuscular and intermuscular (depending on what movements you incorporate) strength, but the hypertrophy aspect of this type of training is second to none. One can expect to shed body fat like they’re taking a blowtorch to their body composition. The key with decreasing body fat is to KEEP REST TIME TO A MINIMUM so that the parasympathetic nervous system of the body gets put under brutal stress factors that it must adapt to overcome.

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As with all training protocols, the key to designing an effective strength endurance program is: 1) keep it simple and 2) change up the routine after 4-6 weeks because that is generally the amount of time it takes for the human body to adapt to the stress put on it by weight resistance training. When used properly, strength endurance training will not only increase one’s strength and cardiovascular capacity but also change one’s body composition make-up for the better.

1 Clark, M., Lucett, S., & Corn, R. J. (2008). NASM Essentials of Personal Fitness Training. Philadelphia: Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

2 Wiggins, M. (2015). Strength-Endurance Training: Be Stronger... Longer. Retrieved November 03, 2016, from http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/wiggy1.htm