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Resistance Training for Endurance Athletics

Posted By: Bart Onyszko on 03/30/2011

Resistance Training for Endurance Athletics

A lack of appropriate muscular balance is a significant factor (some would argue the most significant factor) in many musculoskeletal injuries. When muscles working in opposition to each other across a joint develop an inappropriate balance of strength and endurance, not only is the resting posture of the joint affected but its dynamic movement pattern is as well. This produces small but meaningful negative changes in movement over time. These postural changes not only impair performance ability but also often lead to chronic pain or injury as the joint is used at the limits of its normal tolerences. For example, runners inevitably develop the muscles that externally rotate and abduct their hips more so than those that internally rotate and adduct them. This is because the primary hip extensor, the gluteus maximus, is also an external rotator and abductor because of its angular alignment. This leads to an external rotation in the hip that you can observe in your feet pointing out from the midline when standing and running. Repositioning of the hip reduces running efficiency by directing forces laterally with each stride. An externally rotated hip creates a rotary movement in the knee, for which it is not designed, when you extend it under load, as with cycling or running.This may extend to the ankle and foot. Your joints can initially tolerate undue rotations , but over time problems begin to appear, which you might recognize initially as ankle pain, foot pain, knee pain, or hip pain.

Resistance training acts both as a “prehabilitaion” tool by mainting joint stability and muscular balance and as a plateau breaker/performance inhancer in endurance based programs by developing movement strength and peak movement power.

These are four primary objectives of a movement specific resistance training program for endurance athletics:

1. Develop basic strength, posture, and joint stability, thereby facilitating injury free endurance training. This occures by creating appropriate muscluar balance and increasing tolerance to stress in muscles used for support during endurance activity movements.

2. Build peak muscluar strength for force-producing and recovery phases of the endurance activity.

3. To increase the ability to apply high muscular forces at high rates of speed. In other words, you develop the ability to increase peak power.

4. To minimize the loss of muscle mass and power associated with endurance training as well as aging in genaral.

Incorporating resistance training into any endurance based program is essential for muscleskeletal injury prevention. It is also a great tool for breaking out of a plateau and decline of any endurance program. When you increase your strength for a movement related to locomotion, all other things being equal, you provide a platform for going faster and injury free.