I have mentioned in some of my past articles that the body makes adaptive choices according to what it thinks will make an exercise stress easier. If a strength adaptation is the best way to make an exercise stress easier, then the body will choose strength. If your body thinks that endurance, or speed, or flexibility, or staying at the same strength level, or getting weaker is the best way to make an exercise stress as easy as possible, then it will choose whichever option is best for making the exercise stress the easiest. I have also said to avoid giving your body the option of an endurance adaptation because it often nullifies a strength adaptation. However, there is what I refer to as a strength specific endurance adaptation. It’s the type of endurance that will help your body get stronger.
Most endurance training is focused on helping a person’s body to get better at training longer instead of stronger. Of course for strength training, we want stronger, not just longer. But there is the right type of longer that will help your body get stronger. Training longer in the lactate system or aerobic system is the wrong type of longer. Training longer within the phosphocreatine system is the right kind of longer that leads to strength specific endurance. Clarification and explanation are needed at this point.
There are two ways to train the ATP creatine phosphate system for endurance. One way is to give your body the maximum level of endurance within the ATP creatine phosphate system that it can handle within a set of an exercise. This amounts to stopping at the limit rep or the marker rep, which is the point in a set where rep speed begins to decrease. If you gain strength by doing this, it will help you train one rep longer without transitioning into an emphasis on the lactate system. I know that one rep longer is only a slight improvement in endurance, but it is one type of strength specific endurance that leads to stronger.
A second way to maximize endurance within the ATP creatine phosphate system is to employ a strategy that I have not discussed in any of my articles yet. This strategy is employed by using relatively light weights with forceful lifting for as many sets as possible before strength diminishes. The weights used for this type of training definitely need to be less than 50% of your one rep max and as low as 35% to 40%; and even lower than that when doing the squat or dead lift. The weights need to be light enough to allow you to do at least 60 reps during a workout without producing fatigue. Of course this is impossible if you try to squeeze all 60 or more reps into one or two sets. However, if you spread the 60 or more reps across many sets by limiting the number of reps to no more than ten per set, you can stay within the ATP creatine phosphate system. You can keep repeating sets until you feel yourself weaken, or you reach a set where the last rep of your set slows down in comparison to the previous reps.
When you train in the manner just described, you may find that as you improve, you are able to add on sets without losing strength during your workout. In addition, you may find that one of the reasons you can add on sets without weakening is that you have become stronger, which is strength specific endurance.
At this point, I must issue a word of caution in regard to using light weights for building strength: the misuse of light weights can kill your strength training progress as fast as anything. Going for the burn and training to failure on a regular basis with light weights can cause a training disaster if your goal is to gain strength. It is also important to understand that light weights work much better when medium and heavy weights are used as well.
There are strong people out there who incorporate the use of light weights into their training. The great Serge Nubret was a bodybuilder who built a fantastic body of just over 200 pounds and he was also capable of a 500 pound raw bench press. He accomplished this by training primarily with light weights and a small amount of heavy weights. Some of the West Side Barbell powerlifters include the use of light weights in their workouts by using what they refer to as the repetition method. Bud Jeffries is an enormously strong strongman competitor who often incorporates the use of light weights into his workouts. So if you are looking for something new to try in your training, you can try implementing light weights in a strength specific manner into your workouts. Best of training to you.