Muscle strength and endurance are two different ways of categorizing the health and vitality of muscles throughout your body. Together, they form key components of your overall physical fitness. Coaches and fitness instructors typically measure your muscular strength and endurance by asking you to perform a set number of exercises that emphasize these qualities.
Basics
The President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports defines muscular strength as your relative ability to efficiently use any given muscle for a brief period of time. Muscular endurance is defined as your relative ability to use a single muscle or muscle group in sustained repetitions of an exercise or while applying continual force to a stationary object. Exercises that help you build these qualities are commonly known as strength-training or muscle-building exercises. They include weightlifting, calisthenics or body-weight exercises and resistance band exercises, which you perform with specialized lengths of rubber tubing.
Measuring Strength
To measure your muscle strength, coaches and fitness specialists use a concept called one-repetition maximum, which represents the maximum amount of weight you can lift in a single repetition of a given exercise, the Personal Training Programs website explains. Exercises used to test this value include the bench press for your upper body and the leg press for your lower body. In some cases, your coach or fitness instructor may ask you to gauge your muscle strength by lifting a lighter weight for a limited amount of repetitions. This method allows you to get a relatively accurate strength estimate while protecting your body from injury risks associated with working at maximum levels of exertion.
Measuring Endurance
Muscle endurance comes in three basic forms: power endurance, which requires roughly 30 seconds of effort; short-term endurance, which requires 30 to 120 seconds of effort; and long-term endurance, which requires effort lasting more than 120 seconds. To measure your muscle endurance, your coach or fitness instructor will ask you to perform a relatively high number of exercise repetitions at a fixed percentage of your one-repetition maximum. The exact percentage required depends on your training goals and type of endurance you're seeking to improve, the Sports Fitness Advisor website notes. Exercises used for this purpose include push-ups, sit-ups and curl-ups.
Considerations
Muscle strength and endurance comprise only part of your overall fitness, the President's Council notes. Additional fitness components include your cardiorespiratory or aerobic endurance, the flexibility of your muscles and joints and your relative body composition, or fat-to-weight ratio. To improve your fitness in any of these areas, you must pick goals that fit your specific exercise needs and work both hard and long enough to achieve these goals. Consult your doctor for a clean bill of health and your fitness instructor for specific recommendations.
References
- The President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports: Fitness Fundamentals; Guidelines for Personal Exercise Programs
- Poudre High School, Fort Collins, Colorado: Concepts of Fitness; Muscular Strength and Endurance (Pages 18 and 19); Dr. Judith Flohr, James Madison University; 2005
- Personal Training Programs: Maximum Calculator
- Sports Fitness Advisor: Muscular Endurance Training
- Mayo Clinic: Strength Training; Get Stronger, Leaner, Healthier
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