Building muscle is challenging and complicated. You need to exert that extra effort if you want to look firmer, gain more muscle strength, and develop muscle endurance. Understanding the difference between muscular strength and muscular endurance helps you to devise a strength training plan to meet your fitness goals. Doing less repetitions with more weight will help you increase your strength. Doing more repetitions with lighter weights will help you build up endurance.
What is muscular strength?
Muscular strength is the maximal force a muscle or muscle group can exert during a contraction. The size of your muscle fibers and the ability of nerves to activate muscle fibers are related to muscle strength. Building muscle strength helps with body alignment, makes performing everyday actions easier, increases metabolism, and relieves stress.
What is Muscular endurance?
Muscular endurance is the ability of a muscle or group of muscles to sustain repeated contractions against a resistance for an extended period of time. In strength training, muscular endurance refers to the number of repetitions of a single exercise you can do without needing to stop and rest. Examples include how many times you can do a full squat, a sit-up, or a bicep curl with a light-to-moderate weight before breaking form.
What’s the difference?
The application of either muscle strength or endurance is based on your individual goals. Muscular strength should be the focus of bodybuilders who want to build bigger and stronger muscles. Certain athletes, such as like power lifters, football players need strength and bulk to perform their sports. Other areas like basketball, tennis, and even martial arts need both strength and endurance training. Endurance is the top concern for triathletes, rowers, and runners in general.
With regard to muscle composition or type, there are two kinds of muscles. The first type is called type 1 which is the slow-twitch muscle, and the second is called type 2 or fast-twitch. Muscle strength is related to fast-twitch fibers whereas slow-twitch fibers are associated with muscle endurance.
Muscle strength is useful for exerting yourself for a brief period of time, such as lifting heavy objects; muscle endurance will help you do something repeatedly over a long period of time, such as a daily commute on your bike to work. In everyday life, you’re likely to meet a variety of physical demands; working on both muscle strength and muscle endurance will help you become both stronger and more resistant.
By enhancing both muscular strength and muscular endurance, you will gain many health benefits. You will increase your athletic performance measures. Your muscle mass will gain duration and size to provide protection from weight gain, illnesses, and injuries. And you will totally change your body composition.
There are many health benefits that come when you have an exercise program that includes both muscular strength and muscular endurance work. Other than reshaping and sculpting your entire body, you also gain leaner and more powerful muscles along with more profound athletic performance overall.
Building muscle mass is a great way to increase your self-image and your overall quality of life. And it is extremely beneficial to your health and wellness to include both strength and endurance in your muscle building exercise program.
