Endurance training

Endurance isn’t exclusive to cardio workouts like running or cycling. Endurance strength training is all about high reps, lower weights that require around 50% of your overall maximum effort. Sounds easy right? It might not require brutish strength but you often end up drenched in sweat within minutes of endurance training.

The point is to stretch how much work your muscles can take before reaching their lactic threshold. Our muscles produce lactic acid when they’re under pressure and eventually, they produce so much that they reach total fatigue. Endurance helps to increase how much lactate they can bear. Performing more reps at lower weights can also improve capillarisation.

Your capillaries are the smallest blood vessels in the body, bleeding through the muscle to form a network in the organs and tissues for exchanging oxygen, supplying nutrients and removing waste products. Endurance work increases the density of that capillary network - increasing the supply of nutrients and oxygen and making your waste disposal system more effective.

The more strength endurance you do, the more you’ll reap the benefits in everyday life – from climbing the stairs to carrying heavy loads.

Aim for rounds of 20 reps with a two-minute break in between.

Weightlifting: how long should a strength training session be?