Increasing Muscular Power for Endurance Athletes

Many endurance athletes sacrifice muscle power, and maximum strength in order to keep their weight down, but this doesn't have to be the case. The main problem with this type of thinking lies in a total misunderstanding of the principles of weight training. It is commonly believed that the heavier the weight lifted, the bigger that the muscles will become. In actuality the magnitude of the resistance is not really a factor in hypertrophy (increase in muscle mass from resistance training). The most important factor in bulking up is actually the number of repetitions of the exercise.

Common practice in training endurance athletes is to have them lift light weights at a high number of repetitions such as 15-20. The theory is that the high number of repetitions will increase the endurance properties of the muscles, resulting in greater muscular endurance. While there may be a small gain in endurance, training this way does nothing to increase maximal muscular power.

To increase maximal muscular power the resistance must be high and the repetitions must be low. This may sound like the training of a body builder, but it's not. As long as you keep the number of repetitions at 4 or below, the training will increase maximal muscular power, without significant change in muscle size.

This type of weight training doesn't train your muscles as much as it trains your central nervous system. Your central nervous system learns to control your muscles in a more efficient way, creating better muscular power without the draw-back of too much bulk.

Increasing muscle power, without increasing muscle mass is a win-win situation for the endurance athlete. The increase of muscle power will mean that less muscles fibers will have to be recruited for lower intensity exertion. This will result in lower energy costs, less muscular fatigue, and most importantly better performances in competition.

When setting up your weight training program make sure to remember that your end goal is a not a beautiful beach body, but better performance on race day. Do three sets of four repetitions of each exercise. The weight should be heavy enough that if you only had to do one set you would not be able to do more than eight repetitions.

Also consider using Olympic lifts. Olympic lifts do a great job of taxing the central nervous and will skyrocket your explosion and power without sacrificing endurance.

Good luck with your weight training program. You'll thank me when you are blowing by your competitors during your finishing kick!