Muscular Endurance
Is Muscular Endurance a Benefit of Physical Fitness?
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Muscular endurance is the ability to sustain muscle contraction over a period of time without undue fatigue and should be a integral part of any well-planned fitness training program. Muscular endurance is trained in more of an aerobic and oxygenated pathway, whereas muscular strength is trained in an anaerobic ATP-CP and Glycolytic pathway. Unlike muscular strength, which involves using heavier weights for a shorter periods of time, muscular endurance involves using a moderate weight for a longer periods of time. Increasing muscular endurance will enhance the body’s function similarly to increasing muscle strength, but it adds to the body’s ability to perform tasks longer, more efficiently, while reducing the possibility of premature fatigue and injury.
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The success of many athletes lies in their endurance. The longer they are able to perform at an optimum level without exhaustion, the higher the level of success they attain. However, you don’t need to be an athlete to benefit from muscular endurance. The fast paced lives most of us live require our bodies to be more efficient, stronger, and better equipped to complete our daily tasks if we are to remain functioning and disease free. Developing muscle endurance will ensure that we are equipped to handle activities requiring longer time to complete without injury or negative side effects.
While there is a relationship between muscular strength and muscular endurance, it is important to not focus on one without the other. If a person only trains to improve strength, then that person is not improving his muscular endurance by much, thus limiting their overall strength potential as well. Remember that muscular strength is the ability of your body’s muscle to generate force in a short period of time, in other words, what it takes to lift a heavy dumbbell. One of the principles of fitness training, in order to develop muscular endurance you must repeat an action for longer periods of time. Any exercise performed to improve muscular endurance should be repeated 12 times or more in a set.
