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Endurance Training: Strength/resistance training
Strength/ resistance training has been demonstrated to have a positive impact on several key areas of endurance performance. It works primarily by increasing the strength of individual muscle fibres, making each contraction more forceful. One of the main benefits of strength training, for endurance athletes, is improved neuro-muscular co-ordination and hence improved economy. Research has been clear that strength training has a positive impact on endurance, and has demonstrated that resistance training improves: leg strength (Hickson et al., 1988; Marcinik et al., 1991); short term treadmill and cycling performance (Hickson et al., 1988); cycling time to exhaustion, blood lactate levels and lactate threshold at sub-maximal velocities (Marcinik et al., 1991). Research by Bishop et al. (1999) suggested that gains in strength may be movement and velocity specific. If this is the case it will have important implications for training in that the load must not be too high so as to significantly reduce the movement velocity of the activity. Martin and coe. (1997) suggest that endurance is best improved through the use of high repetition, submaximal workloads. They suggested that this is best performed through circuit training. Another form of strength training involves repeated repetitions up an incline. Incline running causes much higher levels of muscle activity than during normal running, and therefore represents and increased workload on the muscles. Because the muscle activity is very similar between both hill and normal running it is a very sport specific way to do resistance training for runners (Swanson and Caldwell, 2000). Incline running therefore serve as a sport specific means of increasing muscle strength and power. Martin and Coe, (1997) describe three types of hill training consisting of; 1) A undulating continuous run on road or cross country working hard up the hills, 2) A series of repeated long but manageable hills, 3) A series of repetitions up a short but steep hill. The authors suggest that long hill repetitions (800-1000m) with a moderate gradient (4degrees) run at level ground threshold pace may be equivalent to aerobic capacity training on level ground. They also speculate that this may be effective for improving both aerobic and anaerobic power. However, there is a much more effective means of performing hill training called hill tempo training. For a full description see the hill tempo section. In short, the idea of hill training is to maintain a high work rate throughout the hill session. Normally, with hill training, you would run a fast effort up a moderate incline, with a long slow recovery jog. In order to make the workout tougher you should run the efforts a bit slower than usual (around 10k race pace) but you run the recovery at a faster than normal pace (around marathon pace). This makes the average intensity of the workout far higher than during a normal workout. Research has also demonstrated that explosive strength training (such as plyometric training) can improve endurance performance despite having no impact onVO2max or LT (Paavolainen et al., 1999). In this research 5km race time improved through the use of explosive strength training consisting of sprints (20-100m) and jumping exercises. The reason for the improvement was due to the way that the explosive training led to an 8.1% improvement in the Economy of motion. through improved neuromuscular co-ordination and improved leg spring characteristics. Current research suggests therefore suggests that endurance athletes should include resistance training and/or explosive strength training into their training programmes. Although hill repetitions and plyometric training aid endurance performance. Endurance athletes may gain a greater benefit through the inclusion of strength training performed either on resistance machines or free weights. Because endurance athletes do not want to bulk up they would generally use a relatively light weight and perform a high number of repetitions (20+). In this way they are improving strength and muscular endurance with only minimal effects on muscular size. However, the low weight high repetition approach is not, necessarily, the best way for endurance athlete to perform strength training. In fact, better results are likely to be achieved through the use of different intensity levels through the training week. Research looking at the effect of different strength training intensities on performance in tennis players found that optimum results occurred when different training intensities were used in a periodized fashion. In this research, athletes performed strength training on three days a week and on each day used a different training intensity. On day one they performed sets consisting of 20-25 repetitions with a fairly light weight (so training endurance within the muscle), on strength training day two they performed sets consisting of 12-15 repetitions with a moderate weight (optimum intensity for developing muscle size and strength), and on strength training day 3 they performed sets consisting of 6-8 repetitions with a heavy weight (this would have a more of an effect on maximum strength and power development than the other two training levels). So by training at three different levels they are impacting on muscular endurance, muscular size, and muscular power. If you think about it for a minute, you perform your usual endurance training at different intensity levels (easy pace, steady/tempo pace, and fast interval pace), so surely it makes sense to perform strength training at different levels as well. When using strength training athletes should be sport specific and primarily train the muscles used in that activity (i.e. runners should primarily train: quads, hamstrings, glutes, gastrocnemius, and soleus muscles). The most sport specific way to perform strength training would be to do your normal sport but to apply increased resistance. Examples of sport specific training include: hill running for runners, the use of turbo trainers, or hill cycling, for cyclists; and the use of hand paddles in swimming.
Example of a periodized strength routine for a distance runner:
Skills Training This involves the use of specific drills to improve muscular co-ordination and efficiency. This is particularly important for swimmers who spend a large amount of their training volume using drills to improve the efficiency of their swimming stroke. The use of specific drills is also common with runners, particularly track runners, who aim to optimize their stride length. Cyclists also devote training time to optimizing their pedaling so as to apply equal force throughout each pedal cycle.
References Bishop, D., Jenkins, D.G., Mackinnon, L.T., McEniery, M. and Carey, M.F. (1999). The effects of strength training on endurance performance and muscle charachteristics. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 886-891. Hickson, R.C., Dvorak, B.A. and Gorostiaga, E.M.(1988). Pottential for strength and endurance training to amplify endurance performance. Journal of Applied Physiology, 65 (5), 2285-2290. Marcinik, E.J., Potts, J. and Schlabach, G. (1991). Effects of strength training on lactate threshold and endurance performance. Medicine of Science in Sports and Exercise, 23 (6), 739-743. Martin, D.E. and Coe, P.N. (1997). Better Training for Distance Runners (2nd edition). Human Kinetics: Champaign, IL, USA. Paavolainen, L., Hakkinen, K., Hamalainen, I., Nummela, A. and Rusko, H. (1999). Explosive-strength training improves 5-km running time by improving running economy and muscle power. Journal of Applied Physiology, 86 (5), 1527-1533. Swanson, S.C. and Caldwell, G.E. (2000). An integrated biomechanical analysis of high speed incline and level treadmill running. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 32 (6), 1146-1155. |
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