Repetition Choices for Endurance Events

Repetition Choices for Endurance Events

Success follows doing what you want to do. There is no other way to be successful.
--Malcolm Forbes

By Fitness Scientist


Two types of physical endurance compared to physical exercise are (1) muscle endurance, meaning the ability of the muscle fibers to produce contractions for several repetitions, and (2) cardio-endurance action of the heart, lungs, and circulatory system.

Simply put, these events are continuous movements lasting several minutes. Most often, they are clearly define as any event lasting over two minutes in time. Events like running, swimming, cross-country skiing, and competitions, such as kayaking and rowing, can be endurance events when properly performed.

Like all sports, these call for skill training, and one must diligently practice these activities, except for the exercise program. It is possible to design a fitness program that enhances your endurance in muscle endurance and cardio-endurance.

Most fitness-minded people, when thinking of building endurance, assume that running is the only way to improve endurance.

This is true in one way, but not in another different way. Running, from my point of view, will upgrade the endurance of the lower body muscles, but not drastically improve any muscle groups in the upper body.

Having adequately worked with many “long distance runners,” I was astonished that although runners did improve the muscle endurance in their leg muscles, the leg muscles actually got weaker in the strength component unless he or she exercised and enhanced the strength of the leg and hip muscles.

Because I constantly tested clients for their Baseline Fitness Index before working with them, I discovered the following:

When I first met with a client, whose only exercise consisted of running, I tested them for their present day, one repetition maximum strength level, range-of-motion (flexibility), and muscle endurance level.

The cardio-endurance, previously established by the running, did not need testing.

Those who refused to believe that their running abilities would benefit from resistance training did not successfully adapt resistance exercise to their training program. Since I had already gathered their baseline information, I pressed whether they would submit to a follow-up testing six months later. Most agreed to do so.

Six months later, when retested in the same process, their strength level of the lower body muscles was weaker.

The endurance level has corrected marginally, and the flexibility was about the same as before. However, those clients who combined some resistance exercises using high-tech machines, improved in all areas, including a reduction in their running time, over the typical distance they ran.

What you will find interesting is that runners do not need physical exercise programs that are much different that a standard, well-designed fitness program.

Of the components involved in exercise, runners have a need only to perform higher repetitions, and to adapt to fewer rest periods between sets each set of an exercise.

For instance, you may technically perform a similar leg or hip exercise that are similar to a bodybuilder program. All you need to do is use a repetition system that uses more repetitions in each set of exercise, and you will reduce the rest time between each set.

Repetition speed controlled by your chosen rhythm of movement, and performed in a high number, such as 13, 21 or 34 reps, is high enough to cause an endurance\aerobic effect. Especially, if you lower the rest periods between the exercises.

If you are totally conditioned, you may be able to move from one exercise to the next with little rest. A 34-second rest period is an average rest period for those with excellent endurance.

If you maintain you have endurance that is superior to excellent, then pick a lower Fibonacci number, such as 13 or 21 seconds of rest. When linked with a certain number of sets, which automatically bring the total workout into a specific time [considered as an aerobic time], you will get the best of all possibilities.

Your goal should be to use repetition numbers of 21, or 34, and to choose an exercise time from within the Fibonacci numbers that will equate with what you feel is a reasonable, aerobic conditioning program.

A number, such as 34 minutes or 55 minutes, is an aerobic equivalent. Within that time, choose a certain number of exercises and sets that will equal the intended aerobic time.

“All that is necessary is to accept the impossible, do without the indispensable, and bear the intolerable.”
---Kathleen Norris

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