Can anyone give me advice on building both strength and endurance? Getting bigger isn’t really a concern. I’m a 17 year old male, 5"7, 135 pounds. I’m looking into joining the military within the next couple years so endurance is very important but my goal is to get stronger. I thought about doing 3 days strength training and 3 days bodyweight exercises. Any advice would be great.
Bodyweight exercises are important. Do a bodyweight circuit of pushups, suitups, chinups and bw squats. Do them every day. On workout days they can serve as your warmup. Keep it in the 10-20 minute range.
Do a general strength routine 3 days a week. Don’t worry about trying to get huge. You will get bigger but that shouldn’t be your goal. Getting too big will slow you down and lessen your effectiveness. Stay lean and work on relative strength.
On you non strength days, work on running. Short intense sessions with lots of 1/4 mile runs and weekly 2 mile runs. You don’t need longer runs than that. Swimming is also a good skill to have.
You need to gain weight. You can’t be strong without much muscle. Check out Westside for Skinny Bastards III. It also has a strength and speed template that has some conditioning work in it. http://www.defrancostraining.com/articles/articles.htm
What you suggested though great for general fitness, won’t do much for growing any appreciable muscle mass/strength.
[quote]stuward wrote:
Bodyweight exercises are important. Do a bodyweight circuit of pushups, suitups, chinups and bw squats. Do them every day. On workout days they can serve as your warmup. Keep it in the 10-20 minute range.[/quote]
If you do this as a warmup, you’ll most likely do a good job at depleting muscle glycogen to some degree, therefore making the subsequent strength training less effective due to a lack of cellular energy.
[quote]
Do a general strength routine 3 days a week. Don’t worry about trying to get huge. You will get bigger but that shouldn’t be your goal. Getting too big will slow you down and lessen your effectiveness. Stay lean and work on relative strength.[/quote]
I doubt it is possible that the OP will get so “huge” in a couple years that he’ll be completely unable to manage his own bodyweight.
OP, you only weight 135 lbs. My wife weighs more than that and she doesn’t weight train. No man should weigh 135 lbs. Gain some muscle. I guarantee that you will be able to run faster, do more pullups, pushups, etc. with another 20 lbs of muscle (at a similar BF %).
Though this would be effective in developing some endurance, and i do realize that is one of the OP’s goals, this will also force his body to “choose” between endurance and strength, and since he is a small slender guy, i’m going to assume that his body will choose endurance. (read one of CT’s recent physique clinic posts)
It may better benefit the OP to do some sort of HIIT on training days, after weight training. this way he will be strength training more volume than running, but the HIIT will help maintain cardiovascular endurance. Use this time of your life to increase strength and muscle size, then when you know what your deployment date is, start training more for endurance, but lift for muscle maintenance.
You don’t need 2 years to train for bootcamp. My brother is a Marine (and a big guy at that) and he trained for maybe 6 months prior, and was in great shape. Build muscle now, maintain endurance, but you’ll be a much better soldier/marine/seaman/etc. with another 20-30 lbs of muscle. muscle doesn’t slow you down it makes you stronger/faster.
My recommendation of body weight daily warmups is modeled after the Crossfit warmup. As Dan John said, “If something is important, do it every day” and “The warmup is the workout”. This is key to building endurance and work capacity.
In my opinion the most important physical attribute a soldier can bring, is his work capacity. He should be able to carry a heavy load a long distance and then still be able to unload a truck or run up a hill or whatever other task is given him.
I’m not a fan of running but the running I’ve prescribed will get him past the tests he will need to pass. The total amount of running will be about 1 hour a week over 3 days. Note that a 2 mile run is a speed run, not an endurance run.
With a general strength program like Starting Strength or WS4SB, the OP will be in good shape whenever he is ready to join up.
20-30 lbs of muscle will come anyway. That’s not something that needs to be worked on. No 20-30 lbs of muscle will not slow you down but I’ve enough big guys that take it too far.
In summary the priorities for the OP are:
1.Muscular endurance and work capacity
2.Strength
3.Short distance speed
Attributes that will naturally follow without specific training include:
1.hypertrophy
2.long distance endurance
Stu
[quote]stuward wrote:
My recommendation of body weight daily warmups is modeled after the Crossfit warmup. As Dan John said, “If something is important, do it every day” and “The warmup is the workout”. This is key to building endurance and work capacity.
In my opinion the most important physical attribute a soldier can bring, is his work capacity. He should be able to carry a heavy load a long distance and then still be able to unload a truck or run up a hill or whatever other task is given him.[/quote]
If carrying a heavy load long distances is his goal, the OP needs to be stronger and weight more (an 80lb pack is 60% of his bodyweight right now, if he weighed 165lbs then in would be less than half). The bigger he is and more he weighs is important in carrying heavy loads long distances (if the load is now 80% of his “max carry” he won’t be able to carry it as far, if the load becomes 60% of his “max carry” then he’ll be better off.)
[quote]
I’m not a fan of running but the running I’ve prescribed will get him past the tests he will need to pass. The total amount of running will be about 1 hour a week over 3 days. Note that a 2 mile run is a speed run, not an endurance run.[/quote]
Of course it will, but my point is that he doesn’t need to train for endurance for a whole two years, if he works on getting stronger and bigger (with less energy systems work) now, then several months before boot camp he works on maintaining weight and strength and increasing his “work capacity” (strength endurance) he’ll be better off. He’ll be a solid 20-40 lbs heavier (with proper diet and training), and have the strength endurance to match it.
[quote]
With a general strength program like Starting Strength or WS4SB, the OP will be in good shape whenever he is ready to join up. [/quote]
Definitely.
[quote]
20-30 lbs of muscle will come anyway. That’s not something that needs to be worked on.[/quote]
You’re absolutely right, everyone just gets hyuge when they train. That statement probably didn’t mean to come across that way, but you sound like you are saying he doesn’t need to try to gain weight, obviously he does at 135lbs.
Us big guys take what too far, that the OP is going to build so much muscle and “non fucntional” strength that he’ll be slow in two years. Gimme a break. If the OP wanted to only gain lean mass (keep his 6 pack for example) for two years, he wouldn’t be able to gain so much muscle that he was “slowed down” by it. If he gained 40 lbs in two years, he would be 175, not huge. My brother said his drill sergeants were about 180lbs, and short guys (5’6"-5’8", all under average height), and were the fastest and strongest guys there. The best PT scores in his group was a shorter guy 5’8" 180.
The OP would be better off with more weight and strength, train for endurance prior to deployment.