Why endurance athletes should do strength training

Strength training is not particularly popular with many endurance athletes. But if you want to improve your endurance skills, you can’t avoid strength training. The break schedule is significant. A new study has shown this. Because if you work out again too quickly after strength training, you risk overtraining and a drop in performance.

Why endurance athletes benefit

What Australian scientists have now found out in a study should be quite interesting for many endurance athletes. Those who train in a performance-oriented way must not only run but also do strength training. But they have to take this into account when designing their training. Because even with short strength units, there are signs of fatigue. They also have an effect on the next day and lead to a significant reduction in performance. Endurance athletes need more than 24 hours to recover after strength training. This is what researchers from Down Under have found out.

The best tips from the scientists

• If you do performance-oriented endurance sports, you should definitely also do regular strength training. The core area is vital, but legs, shoulders, and arms are also necessary.

• However, after intensive strength training, the body of an endurance athlete needs more than 24 hours to regenerate or, even better, to achieve a higher level of performance. The keyword here is supercompensation.

• If you train several times a week, daily, or even twice a day, you should consider this when planning your training.

• As an endurance athlete, two units of strength training per week are sufficient. However, after a strength training session, the next intensive running session should take place at an appropriate interval.

• According to Australian scientists, it is better to do a less intensive running program the day after an intensive strength training session. Training in the aerobic range or in the field of the aerobic-anaerobic threshold is ideal.

Train better with more muscle strength

Hopefully, if you’ve been training for a while, you know your body well enough to assess yourself. Even if it sounds like a cliché, listening to your body is a pretty good idea for successful training. Typical symptoms of too little recovery time are:

• Circulatory problems and dizziness

• Increased susceptibility to infections

• Loss of appetite and unwanted weight loss

• Mood swings and lack of motivation

• Concentration problems and sleep disturbances

• Muscles and joints suddenly ache even during light exercise

Power assessment with heart rate variability

If you do it with exercise, you may also experience the following symptoms: For some, resting heart rate and blood pressure are higher than usual. Blood levels such as urea, creatine kinase, uric acid, and ammonia may also be elevated. A relatively new way to better assess training is heart rate variability. What it is can be found here.