Thursday, July 9, 2009

Key Principles of Building Strength and Endurance

Increased muscular endurance can only be achieved by combining strength and endurance activities, and following a sound nutrition program. When you want to increase muscle size and mass, you’ll need to incorporate several strength-training and cardiovascular routines into your workout routine and maintain consistency over several weeks in order to see and feel the results. Different sports require various levels of flexibility, and the best way to increase strength in a short period of time is to invest the effort and energy into trying new sports and optimizing your form and performance in each; this allows you to avoid a workout ‘rut’ and also experience significant muscle gains in a short period of time.

Michael Carrera and Tudor Bompa, authors of the book “Periodization Training for Sports” advise athletes who want to develop muscular endurance to perform many repetitions against a specific resistance for a long period. But if you want to develop strength and stamina, you should do explosive movements that work up several core muscle groups at once and push your muscles at their limits. Tudor and Michael add that athletes should focus on these critical training elements: agility, flexibility, aerobic endurance and coordination.

Building up agility will help improve the overall motion range of core muscle groups and joints. An increase in agility will help a bodybuilder do cardiovascular exercises aimed at building endurance. Some sports that increase agility are basketball, football, soccer, gymnastics and figure skating. These sports involve irregular bursts of movements that require a combination of strength, speed and flexibility. These types of movements challenge the body and enhance heart and lung functions.

Consistent high intensity movements build up endurance. Rowing, cycling, sprinting and boxing are examples of sports that induce endurance build up. These sports also provide a good heart and lung workout but these involve strength bursts at regular intervals. Bodybuilders usually try out these sports to complement their normal weight training routine.

You need to perform intensive stretching activities using both small and large muscle groups in short spurts to increase flexibility. Many bodybuilders have poor flexibility since their primary focus is to lift weights. Flexibility training should result in an increase in the core muscle groups’ range of motion. Flexibility exercises help increase strength over the long term because a flexible body will find it easier to flow energy throughout the body during workouts.

Like flexibility, most bodybuilders find it hard to develop coordination. Most bodybuilders can easily coordinate their body movements during a lifting routine but cannot display the same level of coordination in other activities such as aerobic workouts and simple dance routines. Coordination helps in improving flexibility, agility and strength. A bodybuilder with good coordination can easily perform different activities to achieve training goals faster.

If you’ve enjoyed this article, you can find many more articles on personal fitness and related topics like exercise, workouts, wellness, and body building supplements on this fitness blog. 

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