Strength vs Endurance Training

I'm considering starting the new year with a routine adjustment. I'm considering training my legs for endurance (Hindu Squats), rather than strength (Squats) for a while.

Questions: 1. Any concerns with training upper body for strength, and lower body for endurance?

2. For endurance training, do the recovery time rules still apply as much as in strength training? In other words, can I train daily for endurance, as opposed to training a muscle once or twice a week for

Hindu squats rawk. However, you will be training yourself to do high reps of squats. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, and actually, I have found there to be pretty good crossover from an injury prevention standpoint (DAUR[1]), but my point is: if you are training for a specific endurance goal, this may not necessarily get you there. For example, if you're thinking this will help on the ski slopes or basketball court, it may not. OTOH, if you just want to impress your friends and neighbors with multi-hindus, noble goal and carry-on.

The only thing I [2] can think of is that your upper body strength gains may be somewhat reduced because of your lower body endurance training. But I'm thinking that the effect will be minimal and, for you, insignificant, since you're looking for some endurance training anyway.

RheQ: I think this is semantics, but isn't your second question the opposite of the first? Is that permissable from a grammatical standpoint? Where is Lisa when you need her?

Anyway, MY experience with endurance training (which doesn't have to apply to you, but may) is that you have to build your endurance for endurance. By this I mean, you will start off not being able to do so many reps, and the high reps will give you a new kind of DOMS, and then after awhile you be able to do more reps more frequently. My physical therapist (who's a crazy tri-athlete - or is that redundant?) recommended 2 sets of 50-rep back extensions 2-4 times per week. At first I couldn't get close to that. After awhile it got easy, so then he made them more difficult!

As some other points of reference: Long distance cyclists train...errr, long distances. As I recall, they do not do it two days in a row, but they do do it more than once per week. Perhaps Kirk or Lyle could comment here. This is certainly endurance training.

Runners I think run varying amounts for endurance, but may only run one really long distance per week (Steve F?).

Swimmers I think can do more frequent endurance work (Tom M?)

Maybe frequency and recovery from endurance work is as much about impact loading as muscle recovery? Clearly I'm speculating at this point, so I'll just shut up now.

Selene bandwidth waster

[1] I made that up, but I think it's a good acronym = Details Available Upon Request [2] which is not to say that I have any particular experience or expertise, but I'll comment anyway

I suppose it comes down to what: a. endurance athlets should do versus b. what they actually do

Swimmers do absurd distances mostly out of tradition, even though studies show no decrement (and frequently) improved performance when total yardage is cut by up to half. They keep doing it becuase that's what their coaches did, and that's what their coaches did.

However, swimming is technically far more complicated than something like running or cycling. There is much to be said for regular technical practice in this regards. The lack of impact probably allows greater training volume/frequency but that doesn't mean it's necessairly ideal. And problems with shoulders are very, very common from overuse.

The common trend in distance running (for a while, haven't kept up with it) was one long run per week of increasing distance (a marathon training program might build you to a 20 mile run a few weeks out from the race). Along with that comes a couple of shorter runs and some interval work. But running distance puts one hell of a pounding on the body and joints, so recovery from impact loading is part of the overall picture (one study I recall showed more injuries when daily training was done compared to every other day training even though volume was identical; the joints weren't recovering with daily running). Runners used to do distance daily but it wasn't helping performance necessarily and folks were getting injured a lot.

I haven't kept up with cycling training but the lack of impact loading probably allows relatively more frequent of training. As well, bike races are frequently ass long (100+ miles) which necessistates more distance training. Also, multi stage races (the Tour being the extremest example) frequently have races back to back to back with no day's off. So you have to train for it.

but, in the most general of terms, you can usually do lower intensity/endurance stuff relatively more frequently. May even be better in some ways in terms of the biological mechanisms of adaptation (i.e. 'telling' the muscle that it needs to improve endurance through various biochemical signals). I'd probably say every other day training of some sort, any less frequent and you're probably not going to get much in the way of adaptation. Many rehab programs start with endurance stuff and near daily work. As intensity increases, frequency has to decrease to some degree.

Lyle's Ghost bored in the afterlife, being wordy

One long ass day for endurance, two days of interval work, and the rest short warmups or off. Just the general trend I've been noticing. Right now I'm doing:

Sat: speed bench/long ass endurance day Sun: off Mon: ME squat Tue: intervals Wed: ME bench Thurspeed squat with intervals later Fri: off

I've kind of been slacking off on the cycling though because I have a meet coming up.

-Scott Johnson 'be a man ,stop looking for handouts , eat ,lift and shut your mouth' -John Carlo