Strengthen your endurance

MANY EVERYDAY ENDURANCE athletes do little S&C, after all it’s often argued why should they lift weights, do plyometrics (jump exercises) and other types of resistance-based S&C, when you’re going to be running for three hours plus, for example. Then there are endurance types who do a little. However, if weights are used they’re often light, and the emphasis is placed on performing many repetitions. Now, this really turns strength training into another form of endurance training. To many it seems logical that if you are to determine performance in your sport by the ability to keep going for a long time, engaging in strength training may be a pointless and possibly even detrimental pursuit. And if we consider how traditionally society has dichotomised “weight training” and “cardio” it’s unsurprising that people often look at strength and endurance as separate and distinct components of fitness. We have long conceptualised endurance sport and fitness as being only about the heart, lungs and circulatory system, and strength training as being purely about the development of our muscles. So with this perception prevailing, why would anyone logically see getting stronger as important to the development of endurance? Societal assumptions regarding what strength training is have also exacerbated this. For many, it conjures up images of musclebound bodybuilders and weightlifters - the polar opposite of the sinewy endurance athlete. Thus the belief that resistance training may even be detrimental to endurance athletes has permeated through a number of endurance sports. In recent times, however, there has been a bit of a sea change in thought regarding the role of strength training for endurance sports and activities. Supported by strong academic, peer- reviewed evidence some of the leading lights in the fields of S&C have promoted the benefits of strength training to performance in endurance sports. Michael Winch’s very good book, Strength Training for Athletes, for example, has a wonderful picture on the cover of Paula Radcliffe squatting with 80-100kg.

TRAIN STRENGTHEN ENDURANCE

“Endurance athletes spend so much time engaging in endurance training, what is the point of just doing even more endurance training in the gym?”

SO SHOULD ENDURANCE ATHLETES AVOID STRENGTH TRAINING? My answer would be absolutely not. There are so many potential benefits, which I’ll indicate later. In fact I’d argue that to not strength train is almost definitely a mistake that no endurance athlete can afford to make. Can strength training be in any way detrimental to an endurance athlete? If applied incorrectly then of course it can but I believe if done correctly and relevantly strength training can be potentially hugely beneficial. So should strength training be structured with a focus on endurance? No, and I hope to build a convincing argument that in fact, an endurance athlete should approach strength training with a focus upon the development of, perhaps shockingly to many Outdoor Fitness readers thoughts, strength (as opposed to just more endurance). Permit me to pose you a conundrum. We have two athletes, “A” & “B”, and we ask them to perform as many repetitions of the bench press as possible with 30kgs. Athlete A has a one repetition maximum (1RM) bench press of 150kgs whilst athlete B is much weaker with a maximum bench press of only 60kgs. Which do we think will perform more repetitions, i.e. have the best endurance, with the 30kgs? Well, my money is firmly on athlete A. They only have to lift 20 percent of their maximum and thus will fatigue far less quickly than athlete B who is contending with fifty percent of their’s. That one example alone clearly illustrates how being maximally stronger can have a significant impact upon endurance ability and why we need to work with heavier loads for fewer repetitions, trying to build real strength. Endurance athletes spend so much time engaging in endurance training, what is the point of just doing even more endurance training in the gym? And non-specific endurance work at that. What you do on the bike, on the roads, in the boat, or in the water is what develops your endurance; the gym is for getting strong, and I must add specifically strong. So whether we’re pushing a pedal; decelerating and accelerating our entire body mass through one leg when running; pulling ourselves up a wall doing an OCR; or propelling ourselves through water with every leg kick and arm stroke, if we are stronger, every single one of those actions (and more) will be at a lower percentage of our maximum strength and therefore, all else being equal, we will fatigue less quickly. Make no mistake, whenever we are executing those sporting movements we are performing repetition after repetition of resistance exercise, and whether that resistance is provided by inanimate weight, or water resistance, or our body mass and gravity, or friction and gearing in cycling, it makes zero difference. Resistance is resistance is resistance, and the more easily we are able to overcome it, the less quickly we’ll fatigue. Notable evidence suggests that strength training improves endurance by improving “work/ performance economy”. You will probably of heard of the terms “running economy”, “cycling economy”. You can parallel these to fuel economy in your car, i.e. if, you boost your running economy, less fuel will be required at any given performance level and thus your endurance capacity is greater. A 1999 study from Finland took two groups of endurance runners and strength trained one using a variety of explosive strength exercises and jumping activities. The strength exercises used were loaded jump squats, leg presses and leg curls and extensions. After 9 weeks of training the strength trained group significantly improved their 5km time. This improvement in performance was concurrent with and correlated to a significant improvement in running economy. In layman’s terms they were stronger and thus more efficient runners. Every single step, with each associated deceleration and acceleration of their body weight, was easier to perform and they used less energy. A comparable study from France, published in 2002 found corroborative outcomes in regard to running economy. And in 2002 and 2007 similar studies showed endurance performance and work economy increases in cross-country skiers following strength training. Interestingly, a Canadian research paper from 2000 also showed an increase in capillarisation of skeletal muscle. Capillaries are the tiniest blood vessels that supply oxygen and nutrients to working muscle tissue and remove waste products. The more you have the more oxygen carrying highways you have. A 1988 study involved cycling and running trained endurance athletes. Half were heavily strength trained three times per week for 10 weeks in addition to their usual training. As before, significant benefits to short (4-8min) and long term (10km cycle) endurance resulted. Across the 10 weeks an increase in leg strength of 30 percent was also recorded yet interestingly zero increase in muscle bulk was observed, which may be contrary to the perceptions many people hold regarding strength training. This led these researchers to conclude: “These data do not demonstrate any negative performance effects of adding heavy-resistance training to ongoing endurance training regimens. They indicate that certain types of endurance performance, particularly those requiring fast-twitch fibre recruitment, can be improved by strength training supplementation.” In 2010 Danish researchers published a review paper in which they meticulous collated, compared and summarised all of the research in this area, they concluded that “strength training can lead to enhanced long-term (>30 min) and short-term (<15 min) endurance capacity both in welltrained individuals and highly trained top-level endurance athletes, especially with the use of high-volume, heavy-resistance strength training protocols.” Hopefully this far from exhaustive selection of peer reviewed, published, academic studies effectively illustrates that strength training has the potential to be beneficial to endurance performance and that if applied correctly there are no detrimental effects. IT’S NOT JUST PERFORMANCE BENEFITS Performance is however not the only benefit to endurance athletes of strength training. If we take running, the impact forces experienced during each and every foot strike are between two and three times bodyweight. So if you have a mass of 70kgs you could potentially have to cope with instantaneous forces, through one leg, equivalent to over 200kgs! Now if you weigh 70kg, imagine trying to stand on one leg with a 130kg bar on your shoulders whilst hopping up and down! It’s no easy task but this is what your lower limbs are being subjected to with each and every running stride. Is it any surprise then that in those new to endurance sport or those who have done little to no heavy strength training to condition themselves to contend with these forces, that the knees, hips and ankles struggle to cope? The IT band (illiotibial) and TFL (tensor fasciae latae) have become buzz words in sport, fitness and strength and conditioning, and foam rolling of this connective tissue, that laterally supports the knees and hips, is commonplace. However, simply rolling tension out of the connective tissue is just like taking a Paracetamol for a headache; all you’re doing is treating symptoms, not addressing the root cause. When endurance athletes who are not strength trained are forced to contend with these repetitive impact forces they often struggle to cope. The muscles which stabilise the hip, knee and ankle are simply not strong enough, nor have they been “educated” as to how to engage to stabilise a joint under significant force loading. More volume of endurance exercise simply exacerbates the problem. Under these conditions the body’s response is often to “emergency brace” these joints and it does this by tightening up the IT band and TFL. By, in effect, locking off these joints the body prevents the immediate injury risks presented by weakness but what results is pain in the connective tissues themselves and chronic dysfunction and imbalance in movement and thus joint pain. The closest analogy I can think of uses a car again this time with damaged suspension. Sure you could simply lock the suspension up so it wouldn’t move, but in the long run the car would be shaken to bits. The most effective way to protect yourself from IT band and TFL tightness and the subsequent dysfunction is to get strong. If applied inappropriately of course strength training can be detrimental to endurance performance but so can endurance training if employed equally poorly. Of course the focus for endurance athletes should be their endurance training. There is no need to employ excessive volume or frequency, nor to attempt absolute maximum effort lifts or even attempt to totally maximise strength. I will discuss potential best practice in part two of this article but it’s suffice to say for now that you can significantly improve your strength, performance and injury resistance without excessive effort or commitment of time.