How to Build Strength That Lasts

Weight Training: Endurance

By: Randy Goodman, BA Kinesiology

In continuing on with my “weightlifting protocols explained” series, I’m going to cover endurance next. This type of training, like hypertrophy training, is implemented early on in the off-season of an athlete helping them establish an endurance base and high level of recoverability. I personally use this type of training more than any other type year round simply because I feel it is so applicable to my active lifestyle.

When we talk about weight training for endurance, what we’re really talking about is strength-endurance or muscular endurance. Strength-endurance refers to maintaining high force outputs (strength) over long periods of time (endurance) and increased subsequent recovery ability. You may have heard or seen people in the training community use the term METCON, which refers to metabolic conditioning. METCON can be used in reference to conditioning of aerobic (with oxygen) and anaerobic (glycolytic, or without oxygen) metabolic systems. Strength-Endurance weight training protocols are very much associated with anaerobic METCON. CrossFit® athletes are very well known for strength-endurance. Their sport calls for the need to be able to do heavy lifts for long periods of time, recover quickly and move onto the next station or event. Strength-endurance training sessions that last over 30 minutes will also yield aerobic benefits.

Crossfit athletes digging deep.

Strength-Endurance is what is going to let a distance runner keep a fast pace while climbing a hill, allow a college wrestler to throw or pin an opponent near the end of a grueling round, or allow a hockey player to effectively kill a penalty and permit the athlete to recover quickly in order to continue on with the race or match without being “gassed.”

The Strength Endurance Equation = Heavy Weights + Short Rest + High Training Volume

A refresher on what the weight training variables are:

Load- Amount of weight lifted in lbs or kgs

Load Volume- Total Amount of weight lifted in a training session

Rep- Lift weight one time up and down

Set- A given number of reps done at once without a break

Duration- Estimate of set duration in seconds

Speed per rep- Tempo of one lift. Time up, time at top, time down, time at bottom of lift

Rest- Between sets and between workouts

Let’s refer to the chart and break down the variables:

How much weight should be used?

When we look at this particular chart, it calls for 40-60% or your one rep-max (RM). These numbers vary depending on which literature you read or expert you talk to, but I’ll break it down for you. Basically, what 40-60% RM is telling you is you don’t want to lift a weight that is so heavy you can only move it for a few reps, which doesn’t correlate with endurance, or a weight that is so light that the strength part of the equation goes out the window. The amount of weight you choose to lift for strength-endurance is very much determined by the length of time or number of reps you want your set to last. For example, a hockey player wants their set to last around 40-60 seconds. If we are using a squat as a hockey player’s strength-endurance exercise, they would lift an amount of weight that has them “failing” within the 40-60 second range.

Henrik Lundqvist relies heavily on strength-endurance.

How many times should the weight be lifted?

The chart says 25-60 reps per set. Again, these numbers will vary according to what you read or who you talk to. If we look at strength-endurance on a spectrum where at one end is strength (closer to 15 reps) and the other end is endurance (closer to 60 reps), we can decide according to our desired goal which part of the spectrum we want to be on. Remember, once you are reaching rep ranges of 60 or more, you begin to lose the strength component of the equation. Personally, because I’m not an athlete that needs to train for any particular sport or movement, I train all over this rep range. Some days I’m closer to the strength part of the spectrum and others I’m at the endurance part of the spectrum. The idea behind this approach is that life can throw a variety of situations at you and it’s nice to stay ready for anything.

How many sets should be done per exercise?

The chart says 2-4 sets per exercise. The key with choosing the number of sets is that you want to keep the load volume (weight x reps) for the workout in check. Do more sets if you are lifting heavier and the sets are shorter, consisting of a low number of reps. Do less sets if you are lifting lighter and the sets are longer, consisting of a high number of reps. The load volume should be similar whether you have chosen a workout that is at the strength end of the spectrum or the endurance end of the spectrum.

How long should the rest be between sets?

In a word, short! This chart says 1-2 minutes. I would say often the rest period for muscular endurance weight training will be less than 30 seconds. The short rest period is purposeful. As I mentioned earlier, we are training the anaerobic energy system. We trying to increase our ability to maintain high levels of force for significant periods of time, recover quickly, and do it again, repeatedly. You won’t always be allotted the luxury of a two + minute rest period during your game or race. Bottom line; keep your rest periods short and get to the next set before you have fully recovered. Focus on large, deep belly breaths, activating your diaphragm, during and in between sets and keep moving around during recovery periods. The goal is to get your HR to drop as much as possible and get the muscles to stop burning during your short rest period.

How fast should I lift the weight?

To me, tempo in strength-endurance is not as important as when you are training for size, where you lift the weight slow, or power, where you lift the weight fast. In training for muscular endurance, it is common to use a tempo that matches the cadence of the sport or activity you are training for. For example, a skier may need use a lift tempo to match the cadence of navigating moguls, but also do static squats, where they hold the weight in a static position, to match the long turns of a Super G.

Long static holds during Super G turns.

Mix it up by ending a set with a static hold or varying the speed of the lifts from workout to workout. To get a deep, meaningful burn I’ll often do 45 seconds to a minute of a given lift at a steady or mixed tempo and, if it is safe, end the set with a static hold until I’m shaking profusely and ultimately failing. Obviously, you don’t do this if failure means your spine or sternum is going to be crushed.

How long is each workout and how many workouts per week?

The short answer on this one is that it will vary depending on how your muscular endurance program is designed. That’s not a very helpful answer, is it? So, I’ll give you some general guidelines to get you started. Load volume is your friend for building up muscular endurance. Train each muscle group at least twice a week. If you are going to isolate one muscle group per workout, your workout length will be shorter (20-30 minutes). If you are combining muscle groups into a single workout, the workout should be longer (45-90 minutes). I’m a big proponent of doing at least one isolation workout and one full body workout per week. It’s nice to focus in on, say, legs and get really deep into the fibers of a localized group of muscles, but our bodies need to be able to move efficiently as a complete unit so I do muscular endurance workouts that have multi-joint, functional, full-body movements as well. As you become more efficient moving like a human in the way that our ancestors evolved, you inherently use less energy which contributes to how long you are able to sustain high levels of force output.

Progression in Overload

As you move through your strength-endurance program, you want to begin to manipulate the training variables I’ve outlined above. For example, in week three of your program, you want to lift more weight or do more reps in the same amount of time as week one or complete the same amount of total reps in less time. Essentially, you want to increase the training load volume from week to week so you force your body to continue to adapt to the new stressors. There are many ways to progress your overload, just make sure you're making your workouts harder and pushing to beat what you did in weeks previous.

HIIT Weight Training for Strength-Endurance

HIIT it to Win it!

Anyone that knows me knows that my love affair with HIIT (high intensity interval training) echoes that of the love affair ‘Mercans have with the Kardashians. I’m a little obsessed. When I get down with the iron, I’m most likely on a timer. The timer is my god and I must obey it. No stopping until I hear the beep. Some days it’s TABATA- 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off, some days it’s two minutes on 30 seconds off. I’m past my days of being a big muscle donkey and I’m very strapped for time, so the majority of my training is now whole body functional movement, muscular endurance interval training. I feel this type of training is the most applicable to my everyday life. If I need to lift something that weighs 300 lbs, I’ll use a machine. On the other hand, I’d be able to carry an injured toddler off a mountain to safety like a champ if needed. There are several interval timer apps you can use to set up custom interval programs for yourself. An interval app and a couple sets of dumbbells- one light, one heavy- is the simplest, cheapest way to get started in muscular endurance training.

Summary

Remember the strength-endurance equation! Heavy weight + short rest + high training volume. You lift enough weight to preserve the strength component, but not so much you don’t dip into the endurance component. Take short rest periods so your body becomes efficient at recovering quickly from sustained high force output and keep your training volume high to inherit the endurance benefits of this style of weight training.

Keep in mind what you’re training for; what sport you play or activity you want to excel at. Strive for variety in the way you manipulate the weight training variables as well as the movements themselves. Use a combination of basic isolated movements and complex whole body human movements. Human movement efficiency is just as important for acquiring muscular endurance as training the energy systems.

The mental rewards are very real.

Embrace the burn, kids! Once it begins to burn, that’s when the real work begins. Dig on the pain because it lets you know you’re alive. Eventually, the endorphin high you get from grinding out a strength-endurance workout will have you addicted. Seriously, just like you can get addicted to sitting on your ass, eating chips and drinking beer, while watching others expend energy and move their bodies, you can get addicted to moving your own body. The anticipation leading up to the training session will make you giddy and amped up. The strength-endurance training session, itself, will teach you things about yourself that you won’t learn any other way. The back end of the session, when there is a puddle of sweat on the floor, will be more rewarding for your brain than anything you can stuff into your face! Trust me. If you have a physical event coming up, if you’re an athlete that is tired of gassing, or if you want to give up the meathead bodybuilder thing for a bit, give strength-endurance weight training a go.

See you under the iron!

RG

Asics Gel-FujiRunnegade 2 Review

Solomon Speedcross 3. Whether you're into hiking, OCR, trail running or bright colored shoes, the Speedcross 3 has been THE dominant go-to shoe for outdoorsy folks looking for a durable, water resistant runner that keeps you velcroed to the side of the mountain. I loved my Speedcross 3s and at one point I thought I'd never move away from them. But times have changed and I've had a chance to peek over the other side of the fence.

Before putting them through the grinder.

Enter the Asics Gel-FujiRunnegade 2! I fricken loved this shoe from the moment I slipped it on my foot. My feet had been in all sorts of trail runners shopping that day- Solomon, Columbia, Adidas, Nike- but none of them felt like the FujiRunnegade 2.

I digress. Here are the deets on why I love this shoe:

THE TREAD

They offer the same grip, if not better, as the Speedcross 3. The tread lugs are burly and they performed exceptional during a 24 km Spartan Beast. They dig in like a cleat and allow you to scramble up and down the steepest trails without slipping. Unlike other shoes, all of the lugs were intact after throwing everything I had at these FujiRunnegade 2s. None of them were cut, chewed up or missing. This shoe's performance on wet surfaces also gets an A in my opinion. Never slipped on wet rocks or logs.

THE FEATURES

Look how clean the interior of these babies stayed!

If you're looking for a shoe that keeps all things uncomfortable from snuggling up with your feet, then look no further. They offer a water repellent upper that minimizes water entering the shoe, but if water does enter it doesn't get stuck, making your shoes feel like they weight two pounds each- a problem I had with my Solomon Speedcross 3s. Asics has branded this shoe's water resistant upper material which allows water to drain as Plasma Guard.

The second feature that keeps your tootsies from getting intimate with sticks and grit is the sock-like fit. They don't have a tongue like most shoes. They are built more like a wet suit for your foot. Your foot enters what feels like a neoprene sock that seals up against your ankle, minimizing the chances of any foreign material entering the shoe. After running and crawling through knee deep water, not a single grain was to be found in my shoes at the end of my race!

THE FIT

Like I said, my feet and these shoes got along from the start. They don't have a huge heel drop (6 mm) like the Speedcross 3 (11 mm) I used last season which is important for me as I've moved away from a heel strike running style toward a mid-foot strike. That being said, they didn't feel like they lacked cushion or comfort. Because this shoe has such large lugs, you can feel them when you are on hard surfaces, but that feeling goes away once you step on a trail.

Muddy, but still intact.

The one concern I had when I was breaking these shoes in was the stiffness of the upper's Plasma Guard material. Where the shoe bends when your walk, I felt like it was digging into my foot beside the knuckle of my big toe. After a week of wearing the shoes, the stiff wrinkle in the upper softened up and stopped pestering my foot. It became a non-issue and unnoticeable during my race. To my delight, my feet came out the the 24 km race blister free and feeling great!

THE DURABILITY

After one Spartan Beast, there are no rips, tears or delaminations to report. Looking at the upper on this shoe going into my race I had my doubts that is would be able to stand up to all the pokers and sticks my feet would be acquainted with. There were a few instances where I distinctly felt a stick stab the side of my foot and after I washed all the mud off these shoes, there were no holes to be found. It'll be interesting to see if that durability holds up over a full season.

So there's my hot take on my new favorite trail runners. The price point is right in the ballpark with the other big players in the trail runner game. They outperformed my previous trail runner during obstacle course racing, which is about as hard as you can be on a pair of runners, and so far they haven't fallen apart. I know I kind of sound like a shill, but if you're in the market for a new pair of trail runners, the Asics Fuji-Runnegade 2 needs to be given serious consideration. See you on the trails!!!

All cleaned up looking like new!!!

Do you even Beast Mode, Brah? My Top Five Spartan Beast Tips for Noobs.

Those of you who I’ve pissed off or annoyed enough to want me to have keeled over and died on the side of Sun Peaks are going to have to wait until I find some other “fun” activity that 99% of the population thinks is “stupid.” Accompanied by my lovely support staff, Coach Evelyn, I drove my sorry ass out to Sun Peaks and completely surpassed any expectation of what kind of effort I’d be able to put forth in a 24 + km, 34 obstacle race on a ski hill and I completed the race in under 3 hours and 47 minutes.  Not only that, I managed to maneuver my pile of meat and bones through the unforgiving course injury free!

Now that I’m done (for now) fulfilling the competitive urges that boiled to the surface after having children, focusing on my career and rehabbing debilitating injuries, I’m ready to return to practicing fitness and nutrition more in the vane of health and longevity rather than performance. I plan on steering away from the kind and amount of workouts that cause excessive oxidative stress and get back to enjoyable short workouts that optimize my chances of staying disease free and living forever. Coach Evelyn has giant stack of custom workouts that I’ve got my eye on at the moment, so I think I’ll delve into those over the next little while. I hear good things about them.

 

So how did a big 200 lb buffoon like me manage to haul his bulbous ass, at a sub-four hour pace, around a course like the Sun Peaks Beast and bounce back feeling like he just did a heavy leg day a couple days ago? Here are my top five tips on how to conquer a Beast and not feel like a bag of dicks during or after the race:

 

1.       Have an established health and fitness practice. These are your day-to-day habits that you have formed over the course of months and even years. This is your foundation and it’s what all of your race preparation is based on. If you don’t have big biceps and eat 300 grams of protein a day, you aren’t going to be able to run a Spartan Beast! Wait, that’s my tip for picking up chicks at the beach like a boss. My day-to-day practice (not my performance practice) includes a high variety, plant-biased diet that that works for my body and a physical practice that develops my strength, power, cardio, balance, mobility and mind. Remember, this is a practice, not an end goal. Your practice is there to allow you to not only be as functional, long-lasting and disease free as possible, but to also put you in a position to reach goals you establish throughout your lifetime. Keep your practice variable, fun and sustainable! Eating the same foods and working out “till the blackness” every day isn’t a sustainable practice. We are looking for adventure, variety and enjoyment, not burnout and monotony when it comes to adopting a proactive health practice.

In the pain cave! My calf was cramping on an over/under log obstacle.

2.       Prepare yourself mentally and physically. This is such an obvious thing to say, but these races are going to mess with you. They are going to beat you down, scrape the shit out of your luscious skin, freeze your nips off and blister the feet you keep so cozy in your $200 loafers everybody at the office makes fun of behind your back. Precisely the reasons why we sign up for these events! We want to interact with some real-as-it-gets shit that makes us feel alive!

You are going to have to put yourself through a 6-8 week camp that is structured to beat you down, recover stronger, beat you down again and so on until you reach a crescendo of a bulletproof you that you step to the starting line with. Most strength and conditioning coaches agree that six weeks is a minimum starting point where you start to see real physiological adaptation to a training protocol. Start pounding pavement and get your ass over to your local Crossfit and let the coaches coax you into sweaty state of black-out a couple times a week. The workout I used to accomplish this is my own version of a hurricane workout (10 sets that consist of a 30 second max effort incline sprint followed by two 12 rep compound lifts). When you are out in the elements on the course grinding away, your muscles are going to rebel and cramp, your lungs are going to leave a taste of blood in your mouth and your vision is going to blacken around the edges. It is best you go through that in a controlled environment and learn to adapt to it so it doesn’t happen so readily on the course. I'm nowhere near considered a runner and I didn’t run more than 10 km at a time during training due to the time constraints of being a Dad, but be able to sustain locomotion for long periods of time and make sure your work that grip strength because it comes in real handy (cheesy pun intended) during OCR. Find ways to train that mimic obstacles you are going to face. There are 5 km OCRs almost every weekend during the summer, so grab some friends on get out for a “Spartan Spa” treatment once or twice to get a little taste of what OCR is all about. If you skip your race specific preparation and you attempt a Spartan Beast, your 4-6 hour race can easily turn into an 8-12 hour experience and, unless you planned on doing an OCR for that long, you are going to be one miserable little mud monster!

3.       Get your nutrition on point. Two words: whole foods. Don’t even take your grocery cart down the middle isles of the store. Stick to the perimeter and fill your cart with plants and dead animals that haven’t be fucked with. You get what the difference is between and leaf of kale and a “gluten free” bag of veggie chips is, right? Yeah, more of the former and less of the latter is what we’re going for here. Get yourself a good blender and start pouring copious amounts of blended plants down your gullet. A good spice rack and some dope recipes can really make a nutritious, whole food diet sustainable and enjoyable. Coach Evelyn is starting to become quite the whole foods chef, so I get some killer healthy meals these days. Everything you put in your body is to fuel your next workout or recover from the one you just did. Pizza Pops do not accomplish this even though they are delicious and make me nostalgic. Fluid intake should almost double when you are training for performance. Another reason why smoothies are so rad is that they contribute to your fluid intake. Your dopamine hits come from crushing burpees now, not buckets of ice cream!

In the three days before the race, when you have tapered back your training, this is your time to not worry about your sexy figure and pack glycogen (energy storage molecules) into your muscles. Basically, you’re going to eat your balls off during this time. Low glycemic index (GI) carbs should be consumed liberally at a ratio of 4:1 with protein. If you aren’t drinking at least 4 liters of water a day at this time, you’re missing the boat. Geek tip number one; the day before the race a five minute, high intensity workout has been shown in studies to allow more muscle glycogen to be stored, so get up and get moving before you start eating.

In race nutrition is not something you want to overlook. Your body is going to cramp, you are going to run out of energy and you can become severely dehydrated if you go out there without proper hydration and nutrition. I know some people can do these races without bringing nutrition because they are gritty as eff, but I also watched several people fall, writhing in agony on the side of the mountain because their muscles were involuntarily spasming and balling up from not being fueled properly. The research shows to optimize performance for events lasting longer than an hour (provided you aren’t a fat adapted athlete), you should be taking in simple sugars about every 45 minutes or so. Hammer or Clif gels will do the trick. Muscles will begin to spasm when pushing them to repeat high demand movements for hours on end. You want them cooperating with your nervous system as efficiently as possible. In your hydration pack you should be carrying an electrolyte mixture that is going to help you regulate intracellular hydration and keep your synapses firing efficiently. My second geek tip for you is if it’s too late and your calf or hammy is cramping, you can release the cramp by simply tasting salt. Crack open a high quality salt tab and put it under your tongue then rinse it out.

After the race, you won’t have much of an appetite, but it’s paramount that you get some food back in you to start your recovery and prevent injuries in the coming days. A ratio of 4:1 carbs to protein is ideal for replenishing glycogen stores and promoting tissue repair. My brother managed to have a pizza lined up for him at the finish line while I opted for fruit and milk.

4.       Geek out on gear. Get on the Google box and see what people are using for gear when they run a Spartan Beast. At a minimum you will need to find some compression gear (I wear full body compression), anti-chafe stick or rub, a hydration pack, merino wool or synthetic socks (no cotton!), trail runners with good drainage and grippy gloves if it’s cold out. I recently switched up my trail runners and tried a new minimalist hydration pack so look out for my reviews on those products in the near future.

Your choice of gear has the ability to make or break your race. A big part of your experience is going to be related to how comfortable you are on the course. One blister, rash or cut could completely occupy your mind and make life a living hell. So lube up those tootsies, pits, and gouch with anti-chafe and choose high-end gear that you have gotten used to by using it during training.

Me and my bro with our first green medal. It hurts so good!

5.       Have a support staff and get in touch with the online OCR community. My support was my amazing wife, Coach Evelyn. Preparing properly for an event like this can become a selfish endeavor and it’s going to take up a good chunk of your time and energy. Queue awesome, wonderful wife! She picked up slack with the kids, she prepped nutrient dense meals and she put up with me when I was grumpy and tired from training. Surround yourself with people that are going to have a positive impact on the outcome of your OCR success.When I got word that my younger, Crossfit kid, brother was going to run the race with me I got a huge mental boost. I was able to push harder during my last two weeks of workouts and on the course he definitely pushed me, especially on the way up the mountain. 

 

      If you got’em, use your kids as motivation to push through any adversity that you face in training and on the course. If you’re anything like me, you feel like a damn freight train when you think about your kids. My pain tolerance goes up and my willingness to quit goes down. Must be some sort of instinctual monkey genetics left in me or something.

 

Finally, the OCR community is growing at a rapid pace. There are online websites and courses, like Obstacle Dominator, on how to do each obstacle. The Spartan Race website has training and nutrition tips and most of the athletes, pro and amateur, are on social media spreading the mud-bro propaganda. Take advantage of it because you’re going to learn a crap load and it just gets you jacked up about OCR!

 

There you have it! My two cents on how to feel good going into, competing in, and coming out the ass end of your first Spartan Beast. Remember, you don't have to be a top level athlete to challenge yourself with something like this. You just have to have it in your mind that you can do it and then embrace the grind. I guarantee when you cross your first OCR finish line you are going to be hooked. I know it's got me! Hope to see some of you freaks out there next summer!