Myth-Busting: The Science Behind Strength Training for Endurance

Looking at the 'Why' of the science behind strength training for endurance will be the aim of this next article. I think a simple way to do this is by busting some of the common myths associated with strength training in the endurance world and applying a scientific approach to addressing these common misconceptions

Strength Training Will Make You Bulky

• Myth: Strength training can lead to excessive muscle growth, which adds weight and slows endurance athletes down.

• Reality:

  • Hypertrophy requires specific training (e.g., high volume, caloric surplus), which is different from strength training for endurance. This requires a lot of effort and a lot of food, both of which are typically challenging on top of an already demanding endurance training program.

  • Strength training for endurance focuses mainly on improving neuromuscular efficiency (producing force), not significant muscle mass.

  • Increased strength without excessive size improves power-to-weight ratio. As we aren't training to increase muscle mass directly but instead increase the force generating capabilities of the muscles we have already we are positively affecting the ability of the body to produce power without adding more weight.

Strength Training Is Only for Sprinters or Power Athletes

• Myth: Endurance athletes don’t need strength; it’s only beneficial for short, explosive efforts.

• Reality:

  • Strength training improves running and cycling economy by improving movement efficiency. We can maintain higher or the same outputs whilst expending less energy. Endurance is underpinned by energy expenditure as we have to fuel our performance. So spending less fuel for the same efforts makes us able to go further, faster, and longer.

  • It enhances fatigue resistance and helps maintain performance in long-duration activities by improving time to exhaustion. These come about due to the positive adaptations to the bodies tissues, the improvements to neuromuscular efficiency, and the benefits to muscle fibre recruitment.

Strength Training Will Make You Slower

• Myth: Weight training will slow you down by making your muscles tight and reducing flexibility.

• Reality:

  • Properly programmed and executed strength training improves mobility, stability, and movement efficiency. All exercises are just loaded stretching effectively if you are aiming to use full ranges of motion and lift technically well. This can significantly help in maintaining flexibility when complimenting the repetitive and often shortened ranges of motion in endurance sports.

  • Dynamic exercises, like squatting and hinging, enhance strength across full ranges of motion, which equates to increased flexibility and therefore lets you keep moving fast through greater ranges of motion rather than becoming chronically tight.

Strength Training Is a Waste of Time for Endurance Athletes

• Myth: Time spent strength training would be better spent doing more endurance training.

• Reality:

  • Strength training helps endurance training by improving performance metrics like power, movement economy, and durability. This can be achieved with relatively low volumes and without impacting endurance performance or training. For an equivalent time commitment or less, you are likely impacting performance more than adding additional endurance volume if you already have a relatively high training volume.

  • Additionally to the performance gains, strength training can reduce the risk of injury, allowing for more consistent and higher-quality endurance training over time. Being able to accumulate more quality training volume over time is a greater indicator of improvement than short term increases in volume.

Strength Training and Endurance Can’t Be Trained Simultaneously

• Myth: Combining strength and endurance training will lead to interference, reducing gains in both.

• Reality:

  • While interference effects can occur, they are minimal when training is properly planned. Typically, any interference is due to acute fatigue from doing too much or too intense strength or endurance training within a close proximity of each other in a training program. Much of this can be avoided by better planning training sessions in relation each other.

  • Where endurance training is the priority, 1-2 strength session per week can be enough to maintain and build strength without having an interference impact on the endurance training. Much of the observed and research interference was in individuals who were completing very high volume or intensity strength and endurance programs simultaneously which doesn't represent an appropriate strength training program for endurance performance.

You Need Heavy Weights or Gym Equipment for It to Be Effective

• Myth: Strength training is only effective with heavy weights and specialised gym equipment.

• Reality:

  • Progressive overload is the main principle driving strength progress with any resistance training. For beginners and even intermediate strength trained individuals, bodyweight or minimal kit training can still elicit great results. There will likely always be a point where in order to increase intensity of training stimuli additional load like barbells or gym based machines can be a useful addition, but it is definitely not compulsory.

  • Heavy weights and gym equipment just provide useful tools for increasing load in a safe and progressive way. This can be done to a degree with dumbbells, kettlebells or bodyweight exercises. The most optimal training tool are the ones you have access to as they are the ones you can consistently use to improve

Strength Training Should Mimic Sport Movements Exactly

• Myth: Strength exercises should replicate the motions of running or cycling to be effective eg: sport specific movements

• Reality:

  • Strength training doesn’t need to mimic endurance movements but should improve the general strength of key muscle groups. Strength training is best placed to improve the general fitness qualities (strength, power, speed) without getting caught up in trying to copy what we already get from sports training.

  • Focusing on the main movement patterns and progressively overloading them like squats, hinges, pushing, pulling, single leg, and core movements provide better overall adaptations than highly sport-specific exercises that likely are limited in capacity to be loaded and trained.

Strength Training Will Cause Excessive Fatigue

• Myth: Strength training will leave you too sore or tired for quality endurance sessions.

• Reality:

  • Proper programming (e.g., avoiding excessive volume and ensuring adequate recovery) minimises soreness and fatigue. We are looking to provide quality training stimulus to increases neuromuscular recruitment and force output. We aren't looking to do crazy volumes or intensities to elicit excessive soreness and fatigue.

  • Relatively low-rep, high-intensity strength work is typically less fatiguing than high-rep hypertrophy or circuit training. The difference is also that we are building strength for any fatigue we gain as opposed to just adding more training volume for relatively low strength return with higher-rep, lower-intensity training.

Strength Training Benefits Are Only for Beginners

• Myth: Experienced endurance athletes won’t gain performance benefits from strength training.

• Reality:

  • Even advanced athletes can improve economy, durability, and fatigue resistance through ongoing strength work. There are many examples of high level endurance athletes using strength training even once they have reached advanced levels of performance. Often, strength training is where the most relative improvements can be made compared with the much more incremental gains seen in advanced endurance training once you've reached that level.

  • Well planned strength training can help in overcoming plateaus and maintain long-term adaptations. Much like endurance training, there are many different methods and options with strength training to keep adapting and overcoming any plateaus. It can often be the missing piece that helps in developing increased endurance performance through power, economy and resilience improvements.

Strength Training Isn’t Backed by Science

• Myth: There’s no evidence that strength training benefits endurance performance.

• Reality:

  • Numerous studies show that strength training improves running economy, cycling power, and overall performance. it is well established in the training literature that strength training when combined with endurance training can lead to greater improvements than with endurance training alone. This has been replicated in studies using relative beginners up to elite athletes. Outside of the scientific research, many of the top endurance athletes in the world use strength training to enhance their performance.

  • Meta-analyses confirm that strength training reduces injury risk and enhances endurance capacity by leading to more consistent training over time. If you are injured, you cant train to a full capacity meaning you are potentially limited in the progress you can make. Strength training has the potential to reduce injury risk and prolong your ability to actively train.