I realize that most of the strength and conditioning text books advise endurance athletes to use lighter weights and perform a high number of repetitions to build muscular endurance. However, there are two problems with this over simplified training advice.
The first is that no sport is exclusively “endurance-based”. Virtually, all sports require some intermittent bouts of explosive power. The majority of sports that people associate with “endurance” are more like 50-50 power-endurance based. These sports include all football codes, lacrosse, all triathlon events and martial arts disciplines.
Many athletes don’t realize that strength is an important variable to muscular endurance and explosive power. Power is a product of strength and speed over time. Therefore, strength enhances the capacity to become more powerful.
Max-OT creates very efficient motor-neural recruitment among muscles. After following Max-OT for a period of time your muscles will become more efficient in motor-neural recruitment and soon less muscle will be required to generate the same amount of power. This means that if all other factors are equal, stronger muscles have a greater capacity to work longer.
I recommend you try the following training approach. Test your self with a maximum rep test on the dips. Then give yourself 10 weeks of heavy training, Max-OT style. That is, make sure the majority of your resistance training consists of high overload with a low rep range. After this 10 weeks, retest your self on the dips.
I guarantee you will improve on your first endurance test – and you will have done so by performing very little traditional endurance-type resistance training. By concerning yourself with becoming stronger, you’ll gain tremendous endurance and pack on slabs of lean muscle in the process.
