How to Build Muscle Endurance

Muscle endurance is important for nearly any sport and many daily activities. Athletes must build muscle endurance if they wish to be successful. Muscular endurance is the ability to exert the maximum amount of force for the maximum amount of time.

In order to build muscle endurance, you have to push your body to new limits. There are several steps to doing this. It is important that while you are pushing yourself, that you do not push yourself too hard. You do not want to injure yourself. Listen to your body while you are going through your training to make sure you stop when you should.

The first thing you will want to do is increase the number of workouts you do each week. If you currently do three strength training workouts a week, increase it to four. When your body gets used to that, increase it to five. This will help your body get used to recovering more quickly from muscle fatigue.

The next thing you want to do is start building endurance by increasing the number of sets and repetitions you do in your workouts. Do not make a large jump in these numbers at one time. Build yourself up gradually or you will risk injury.

Once you can do many reps and sets in one workout, and you find yourself working out longer than before, it is time to take your training to the next level. You can begin working your muscles to the point of exhaustion. This is what really increases muscle endurance the most. The best way to do this is to start with a weight you are comfortable with, and lift until you reach a point of exhaustion. This does not mean that you continue reps until your arms cramp up and you risk dropping the weight on yourself. Lifting to the point of exhaustion means that you continue reps until you feel you can no longer safely continue. This is where listening to your body really comes into play.

After you hit the point of exhaustion, drop the amount of weight you are lifting by around twenty five to fifty pounds (depending on how much weight you’re up to) and immediately do another set to exhaustion. You can opt to drop the weight again for a third set to exhaustion before taking a rest. The reason this works is that when you are playing your sport you will exert maximum force for as long as you can. But as the clock ticks, you will be able to exert less and less force. If you train your body to continue at a lower amount of force for a longer period of time, you will find that you can continue in your sport for much longer. Thus, muscular endurance is achieved.

It is important to remember that you do not want to jump into working out to the point of exhaustion. You should work up to that point slowly and gradually. In fact, you should not hit this point in your training until you have been working toward muscle endurance for at least a month. This will ensure that you do not cause yourself injury by trying to do too much too quickly. Particularly, if your body is not used to recovering quickly, working to the point of exhaustion could deteriorate the muscle and cause you to lose strength.