Donovan Rebbechi wrote:
> On 2004-10-13, mareri <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>Anyone have a workout they have been using to help wit their running
>>endurance. Any suggestions would be great... I'm new at this!
>
>
> Weight training isn't going to help a whole lot. Doing "one leg in front of
> the other" tens of thousands of times a week makes more of a difference than
> anything else.
>
> My weights workout is very simple:
> Squats: five sets of 3
> Bench: 5 sets of 3
> Pullups: 5 sets of 3
>
> These are all submax weights -- light enough that I can do the reps reasonably
> quickly, and light enough that I could comfortably do the workout without
> needing a spotter.
Donovan, just curious, did you mean three sets of 5 reps? I find the
line between "too easy" and "too hard" too fine when I'm working with
sets with that few reps.
I prefer to do a warm-up set with just enough weight to feel the bar to
set my form, then do three or four work sets of 6 reps, (or so,
depending on the situation) with a weight that would be my rep max for 7
reps, i.e., I leave one rep on the hole.
"Reasonably quickly" isn't one of my criteria. Being pretty sure I
won't get in trouble and need a spotter IS a criteria. But because I
work out with heavy weights I can find myself prone to having a "gravity
attack" from time to time. Like one day I did a bunch of hedge trimming
all morning and later that afternoon at the gym I got under a normal
weight for my bench press and it dropped like a stone. I had forgotten
that I'd already blown my pecs with three hours of waving a hedge
trimmer around. That scenario would have been even worse if I were
using closer to my 4 rep max than my 7 rep max weight.
All that being said, I don't find that weight-lifting helps my endurance
one whit. Running for a long time helps my endurance. But
weight-lifting helps my power. I particularly like high bench step-ups
and sumo deadlifts for helping me "get my ass in gear."
I also believe (and this is just a matter of faith) that weightlifting -
particularly deep squats - makes me less prone to injury from running.
Dally