Strength, Endurance, or Both: Keys to Optimize Your Training

Damect Dominguez

Strength vs. Endurance: Keys to Optimize Your Training

When it comes to fitness, training for strength and training for endurance are often seen as two distinct paths. While they may seem opposites, both are crucial for achieving balanced physical performance. Let’s explore the physiological differences, the muscle and body parts involved, and the strategies for optimizing both individually and simultaneously.

Key Differences

Strength Training

Strength training focuses on increasing the maximal force a muscle can produce. It primarily engages the fast-twitch (Type II) muscle fibers, which are capable of generating high force but fatigue quickly. The primary pathways involved are anaerobic, particularly the ATP-PC (adenosine triphosphate-phosphocreatine) system, which provides energy for short bursts of intense activity.

Muscles and body parts:

Primary movers: Quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes, pectorals, deltoids, and trapezius.
Supportive muscles: Core stabilizers, such as the rectus abdominis, obliques, and erector spinae.

Endurance Training

Endurance training emphasizes the ability of muscles to sustain effort over extended periods. This type of training recruits slow-twitch (Type I) muscle fibers, which are resistant to fatigue and rely on aerobic energy systems for sustained performance.

Muscles and body parts:

Primary movers: Similar to strength training, but endurance training focuses on muscular efficiency and fatigue resistance.
Cardiovascular system: Heart and lungs play a critical role in delivering oxygen to working muscles.

Why Train Them Individually?

Maximizing Strength

Focusing solely on strength allows for the progressive overload required to build muscle mass and increase neuromuscular efficiency. Specific adaptations include:

Increased muscle fiber recruitment.
Enhanced connective tissue strength.
Greater force production and power.

Strength training is best achieved through low-repetition, high-intensity exercises like squats, deadlifts, and presses, with long rest periods.

Maximizing Endurance

Training for endurance enhances your body’s aerobic capacity, improving oxygen delivery and utilization. Key adaptations include:

Increased mitochondrial density.
Improved capillarization (blood supply to muscles).
Enhanced cardiovascular efficiency.

Endurance training typically involves low-intensity, high-repetition activities such as running, cycling, or rowing, with shorter rest periods or continuous effort.

How to Train Them Together

Combining strength and endurance training can be challenging due to the potential for interference—a phenomenon where adaptations to one type of training hinder the other. However, with strategic planning, it’s possible to minimize this interference and reap the benefits of both.

1. Prioritize Based on Goals

Strength-focused: Limit endurance training to low-intensity sessions performed after strength workouts or on separate days.
Endurance-focused: Incorporate lighter strength training sessions to support muscular resilience without compromising endurance.

2. Use Complementary Modalities

Concurrent training: Combine moderate-intensity cardio with functional strength movements (e.g., kettlebell circuits or CrossFit-style workouts).
Hybrid workouts: Alternate between heavy lifts and cardio bursts within the same session.

3. Optimize Recovery

Recovery is crucial to mitigate fatigue and prevent overtraining. Key strategies include:

Adequate nutrition, with a focus on protein and carbohydrates.
Sufficient sleep and hydration.
Active recovery sessions, such as yoga or low-intensity mobility work.

4. Periodization

Periodize your training by alternating strength and endurance focus over weeks or months. For example:

Strength phase: 4-10 weeks of high-intensity strength training, with minimal endurance work.
Endurance phase: 4-10 weeks emphasizing aerobic conditioning, with lighter strength maintenance.

The Bottom Line

Both strength and endurance are vital components of a well-rounded fitness regimen. Training them individually allows for maximal adaptations in each domain, but they can also be effectively combined with thoughtful planning. Whether your goal is to lift heavier, run farther, or achieve a balanced physique, understanding these principles will help you get there faster and more efficiently.

Check out one of my favorite hybrid programs, Rx Strong, linked below. This 8-week program emphasizes strength while incorporating 2-3 high-intensity aerobic workouts each week to build your endurance. Learn more below!

Rx Strong: An 8-Week Strength Program Specifically Designed for the CrossFit Athlete

$40.00

In my opinion, if you want to get better as a CrossFit athlete, get stronger! Everything else equal, a stronger athlete is a better athlete - and not just when it comes to lifting weights. Increased endurance, improved coordination, and a decreased risk of injury are just some of the additional benefits of getting stronger.

Rx Strong is a strength-focused program specifically developed for the needs of the CrossFit athlete. This is our most proven program to date - with our 20-athlete test group seeing significant gains in their squat, deadlift, and pressing movements. Oh, and let's not forget to mention their strict pull-ups and handstand push-ups.

Although the focus of this program is to get you stronger, we will still be doing, on average, between two and three high-intensity and aerobic conditioning workouts per week – just enough to maintain your current level of fitness in that realm. Usually, these workouts will have a strength bias and include accessory exercises for whatever was trained that day.

More Details About the Program

Squatting workouts will focus (in this order) on the back squat, front squat, and overhead squat. Pressing workouts will focus (in this order) on the push press, strict press, and bench press. Pulling workouts will have the most variety. However, the most common pulling exercises will include wide and close grip pull-ups, conventional; Romanian and deficit deadlifts; and clean and snatch pulls. The Olympic lifts (snatch and clean & jerk) are programmed sparingly and appear more often in the second half of the program than in the first. However, you should finish this program with a much stronger base that will allow you to set new personal records in those lifts.

The 8-weeks in this program are broken up into two four-week cycles. Volume and intensity will steadily increase during the first three weeks before pulling back on week four. Weeks one and two will be the easiest weeks (but not easy), as the goal is to introduce you to the program gradually. By week three, you'll be fully emerged in the program - with volume and intensity hitting new highs. Week four will be your first deload – this should allow you to recover from the previous three weeks of training while priming your body for the final four weeks. In weeks five through seven, we will once again begin to increase volume and intensity before pulling back for a final deload on week eight.

Aside from these week-to-week fluctuations in volume and intensity, you will also notice the same thing happen day-to-day. Depending on several factors, volume and intensity may be high on Monday, low on Tuesday, and moderate on Wednesday, for example. The goal of these fluctuations is to put your body in the most optimal state possible during each workout session.