Ok, so I admit that I’m a reality show junkie. On a recent episode of Big Brother Canada, they had a challenge where 4 contestants had to hold up a weight by holding onto one end of a rope while the weight was suspended at the other end. The contestants included two muscular males and two smaller-but still seemingly fit-females.
To my wife’s surprise, the two males were the first to be eliminated because they couldn’t hold up the weight any longer. I explained that muscular size doesn’t really have much to do with this particular challenge but rather the person with the best muscular endurance will be best suited to win. Of course, woman power being what it is, there was a female winner.
Your body will adapt differently depending on the type of training you do. Want muscular endurance? There’s a routine for that. Want big arms? There’s a routine for that. Want to build incredible strength? Well, there’s a routine for that too. And all routines will be very different.
If you look at the people pictured below, which one is the most atheltic? Answer-all of them! Each of these world-class athletes train very differently in order to get the results they need to do their specific sport. For instance, Tracey Bowers has a more muscular body and must train for explosive power in order to excel at the triple jump. Cheryl Haworth, an Olympic weightlifter, on the other hand must train for maximum strength.
So, getting back to our Big Brother challenge—the one where muscular endurance was required to win and not big biceps. What kind of training would be best suited to build that type of outcome?
A muscular endurance routine would concentrate on building a strong core, adapting your muscles to be able to exert force for longer periods of time and building up strong supporting structures like ligaments and tendons.
For the resistance part of the program, you would want to use lighter weights and use a rep range of 12-20. Not only that, there is a nuance to the way you should lift the weights. Instead of just lifting the weights up-down-up at a continuous pace, you want to slow down the eccentric (lowering) portion of the lift using a count of 4/2/1
Take the biceps curl as an example. You would curl the weight up for a count of 1; hold the weight at the top of the contraction for a second or 2; then lower the weight to a count of 4. Trust me, even though you are using light weight, this will be challenging.
Want to build muscular endurance so you can be the next Big Brother champ? Try out the following total-body routine over the course of 4 weeks, increasing the reps and sets as the weeks go on. You can download it right here: