How To Up Your Muscular Endurance

Article by Mr Get Fit

All sports athletes need this key quality to compete on a professional, competitive level in their specialist sport. The definition of Muscular Endurance is being able to make the largest force for the longest possible time. As time goes on, its only natural that one would only be able to produce a smaller and smaller amount of force compared to the initial force produced. There are two different muscular endurances; Anaerobic and Aerobic. Anaerobic is over a small time scale, while aerobic is over a large time scale.

Now onto how you can increase your endurance. Strength can be split into three primary energy systems:

The first one is called the ATP-PC Energy System which is anaerobic based. ATP is the main source of energy your muscles will use. The amount of ATP your muscles contain can decrease to zero very quickly. Infact, it can take just 3 seconds! To make up for this, Phosphate-Creatine (PC) returns ATP levels to its original until all PC is used up. Because of PC you can actually receive 10 seconds altogether ATP usage.

The second one is called The Glycolytic System which is also anaerobic based. This system comes into play after the main ATP-PC system is used up. The process of glycosis lets carbohydrates be broken down without the help of oxygen. This is a nice method to bringing ATP back to its original amount, although the bad thing is that there are byproducts called hydrogen ions that will give you a burning feeling when theions become greater in quantity. The lactic acid is not the reason for the burning feeling, lactic acid actually converts to energy and also protein.

The third one is called the Aerobic System. Ofcourse, this is aerobic based, duh! This system uses a fixed value supply of oxygen to stop glycosis from producing lactic acid. Since its source is oxygen, activity can keep going for as long as possible at a lesser speed. The bad thing about this system, however, is the fact that a lot of the procedures used to train it have shown strength/ speed decreases.

The secret to this is to train the required systems for you and your sport. It is always good to train the aerobic system, however, so please don’t neglect this one!

Exercise Examples for each systems:

1. ATP-PC System – 30-70-yard Sprints.

2. Lactic Acid System – Bike Work, Squats/ Bench for as many repetitions as possible.

3. Aerobic System – Long distance/ long time scale exercises work well for this system. Also when you are doing any of the other exercises for the other systems they also all work this system too!

Remember, you have to make a specialized training program for your specific needs and for your specific sport you are training for. One thing wont work for everyone so make sure you put together a training program yourself instead of using someone elses. Time to increase your muscular endurance!

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