Training Principles Of Muscular Endurance

Muscular endurance is defined as the ability of muscles to sustain work over time. To assure that you increase muscular endurance instead of strength or muscle size, use the principles of strength training including frequency, intensity, time, type, overload and progression.

Frequency

To improve muscular endurance, perform strength training three or four days a week. Strength training should not be every day though. Give yourself 48 to 72 hours between workouts to rest your muscles. Working out creates small tears in your muscle tissue that your body patches up when you rest. Without taking time off between workouts, you won't get results. If your goal is just to maintain your muscular endurance, only work out your muscles twice a week.

Intensity

The intensity of your muscular endurance training is a percentage of your one-rep maximum. Your one-rep maximum is the heaviest amount of weight you can lift one time, for each strength training exercise. Start with 65 percent of your one-rep maximum.

Time

Time as it relates to muscular endurance training means how many repetitions and sets you do per workout. A minimum of 12 reps increases muscular endurance, though you can build up to 25. More reps lead to greater muscular endurance benefits. Start with one set and increase gradually to avoid injury or strain.

Type

You have many options to choose from when picking a type of resistance to use for muscular endurance training. Weight machines, dumbbells, barbells, kettlebells, resistance bands and even bodyweight-only exercises such as pull-ups and pushups improve muscular endurance, as long as you reach muscle fatigue. Yoga and Pilates also improve muscular endurance.

Overload and Progression

Without overloading your muscles, your endurance won't improve. Overload simply means to place more stress onto your muscles than you are used to. If you try to improve muscular endurance by doing bicep curls with a pencil, for example, you probably won't achieve overload. Also, if you stick to the same exercise amounts that you've been using, your muscles will have adapted and overload won't happen either, so use more weight as you progress. Increasing resistance isn't the only way to cause overload. Adding sets, reps and speed also produces overload. Decreasing your rest time works too. If you continually overload your muscles, you'll generally see results in three to four weeks.