Strength vs Endurance: Understanding the Key Differences
Have you been training for a long time but still haven’t understood the difference between strength and endurance? Let’s find out in more detail what we are talking about.
In everyday life, especially with commitments always around the corner, it is very difficult to dedicate your time to physical exercise. Precisely for this reason, the little time we can dedicate to physical exercise must be quality time. We are often led to think that physical exercise is divided into aerobic and anaerobic.
In simpler words, you train resistance through sports such as running, elliptical, or swimming, or strength generically through weight lifting. But let’s find out in more detail what the difference is and what is the right training to do.
What is the difference between strength and endurance
Speaking more specifically, muscle strength can be defined as that force that is capable of overcoming resistance by lifting a weight. Precisely for this reason, there is both maximal strength, resistant strength, and agile strength.
Maximum strength is nothing other than the maximum weight capable of being supported by one’s muscles. It is nothing other than the maximum load to perform a repetition in the best way. As for resisting strength, it is the ability to resist 30% more than the maximum force.
Rapid strength, on the other hand, is the ability to overcome resistance in the fastest way possible. From all these concepts, it can be seen that aerobic and anaerobic training are very different from each other.
In fact, while the first draws energy from sugar reserves present in the body in the form of glycogen and which, once consumed, attack the adipose deposits, exploiting oxygen.
The other, however, does not use oxygen and needs a higher quantity of energy in the shortest possible time. From this, it can be deduced that, while for aerobic training you need to work for more minutes, in anaerobic training the training is much faster.
To train in the best way, you need to use both training systems. In fact, you can benefit if you start with a weight session, therefore an anaerobic workout that consumes excess glycogen stores, needing more energy in a short time.
The benefits of aerobic training
Then you can conclude the training aerobically through running or swimming or walking so that, since the glycogen reserves are now reduced to the bone by previous training, the organism is forced to attack the adipose deposits for obtain energy.
In this way, you will also lose weight, as well as performing an effective workout. If you want to gain muscle mass, the best training is certainly the anaerobic one which allows the muscle to develop through muscular effort.
However, these two workouts almost go hand in hand. Aerobic ones certainly improve resistance, therefore the cardiovascular system, which allows for better training than anaerobic training.
In fact, anaerobic training is training that, in a short time, exploits maximal strength. Precisely for this reason, you need to have a certain resistance to do it in the best way.