Why shouldn’t Endurance and Resistance be opposed?

Working with resistance to improve endurance performance may seem counterintuitive, but it can be more beneficial than you think.

For many years, endurance athletes avoided weight training. The idea was that the mass and bulk they gained would slow them down. But athletes and coaches now know that strength training is not only beneficial, but necessary.

Being powerful is one thing, but avoiding injury is another.

Weight training strengthens ligaments and tendons and creates new neural pathways. This can help you stay healthy.

Strengthening your body will also allow you to tolerate more training stress. These two elements contribute to consistency in training, and consistency leads to improved performance and race times.

Heavy lifting and endurance performance?

Strength and endurance are at opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to exercise duration and energy metabolism.

Maximum-strength and maximum-power training make the gap even greater. It may therefore seem counterintuitive that developing maximum strength could benefit endurance athletes. However, lifting heavy weights, sometimes explosively, could be the key to unlocking your endurance potential.

Why? Efficiency, strength, and resilience

The results of a meta-analysis published in the International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance demonstrated that endurance athletes, including runners, cyclists, cross-country skiers, and swimmers, benefit from adding a strength-training component. These athletes experienced improvements in locomotion energy cost, maximum power, and maximum strength. More specifically, the researchers found that heavy-weight, low-repetition sets provided endurance athletes with the greatest benefits.

Heavy lifting is directly correlated with endurance-performance markers such as time to exhaustion and time-trial times, thanks to increased resistance to muscle fatigue. It also gives athletes greater longevity in their respective sports.

To see performance results over time, athletes need resilient bodies. To continue going faster and longer season after season, your body must be able to handle increased loads without "breaking down." Lifting heavy weights acts as insurance for your body by strengthening the tendons, ligaments, collagen, and bone density.

How? Low repetitions and adequate rest between sets

The strength-training protocol consists of 3–6 sets of 4–8 repetitions per set, with 2–5 minutes of rest between sets. Advanced athletes should be able to lift 85% of their 1-repetition maximum. As a general rule, however, you should aim to lift the heaviest weight you can maintain throughout the sets without compromising your technique and/or range of motion.

If this happens, reduce the weight to a lighter load to get the most out of the exercise and prevent injuries.

The two "classic" weight-training mistakes are lifting too much weight and not resting enough between sets.

In other words, you need to rest sufficiently between sets so that your muscles recover enough to continue lifting at maximum strength. When you lift heavy weights, your body relies on the ATP energy-production cycle (adenosine triphosphate–phosphocreatine) for the highest-intensity muscle contractions, and once you have completed a set at maximum effort, this cycle does not regenerate for 2–5 minutes. Not only does your strength decrease if you shorten your rest interval, but your body also begins to rely on a different energy system to produce force, which has the side effect of increasing muscle size rather than strength.

When? Off-season to pre-season

Just as sport-specific training sessions should be distributed throughout the year, there is an appropriate time for heavy lifting. It is important to begin with an adaptation cycle focused on mobility and stability, preparing your body for increased loads. During this phase of the season, your overall training volume should be lower, making it the ideal time to begin your "lifting" program.

As you transition into the season, sport-specific training once again becomes the priority, and strength training should be used for maintenance to support your swimming, cycling, and running sessions. Research shows that, for endurance athletes, significant improvements in strength and related benefits come from strength programs lasting a minimum of 24 sessions. As with the other sessions in your training plan, consistency is essential.

After an adaptation cycle, this table presents some general guidelines for the first phase of building maximum strength and power. As additional phases are added, the focus should shift toward heavier weights, with additional sets and fewer repetitions per set.

Reference: Nicolas Berryman, Iñigo Mujika, Denis Arvisais, Marie Roubeix, Carl Binet, and Laurent Bosquet. International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance 2018 13:1, 57-64
Inspired by and translated from https://www.trainingpeaks.com

From a sports nutrition perspective, the focus will be on increasing or maintaining lean muscle mass and promoting rapid recovery after exercise.

An intake of protein is therefore highly recommended. Particular attention should be paid to BCAA (the branched-chain amino acids leucine, isoleucine, and valine). Supplementing with these amino acids promotes protein synthesis in the muscles and helps prevent muscle damage associated with intense and prolonged exercise.

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