The Top Muscular Endurance Exercises

Many sports and daily activities require you to use your muscles repeatedly over a long period of time, or even to hold a muscle contraction for a prolonged period of time.

The ability to sustain muscle strength over time in functional or athletic activities is key for being able to enjoy life and leisure. For instance, you can’t spend a day skiing or riding bikes with your family if you don’t have the muscular endurance to carry you through.

Improving muscular endurance has many benefits. It’s important to understand what muscular endurance actually is, why it’s important, and how to improve it.

Here are the answers to these questions, as well as some exercises to work on improving your muscular endurance.

What is muscular endurance?

Muscular endurance refers to the ability of a given muscle to exert force, consistently and repetitively, over a period of time (1Trusted Source).

It plays a big role in almost every athletic endeavor. You might think of muscular endurance as stamina.

Long-distance running is a sport that requires muscular endurance. During a race, a marathon runner’s body performs the same movement and stride, over and over again. This requires their muscles to have an advanced level of endurance to avoid injury or extreme fatigue.

But it’s not just elite athletes that benefit from good muscular endurance. There are many other real-life instances when you need your muscles to function well for a long time — like holding a small child as you rock them to sleep or walking up and down stairs carrying groceries.

Why is muscular endurance important?

Muscular endurance has been associated with a decreased risk of multiple health issues.

For instance, a 2014 study found that greater levels of muscular endurance were associated with a decreased risk of cardiovascular disease. Higher muscular endurance correlated with lower levels of triglycerides, serum blood sugar, and decreased blood pressure (2

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In a 2017 clinical review, higher levels of muscular endurance were associated with lower risk of musculoskeletal injuries. There was strong to moderate evidence that lower levels of muscular endurance in pushups and situps were correlated with a higher level of injury (3

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How to improve muscular endurance

Improving muscular endurance involves increasing the total time a muscle is contracted during an exercise. This can involve increasing the number of reps you perform of a specific exercise or for a specific muscle group (4

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A study that aimed to test and improve the muscular endurance of cross-country skiers suggested that an effective muscular endurance training session would include more than 20 reps, but less than 100 (4)

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Similarly, when you try to improve your muscular endurance, completing high-volume sets may be an effective training strategy. Just remember that you may need to adjust the load.

For example, if you normally bench press for 3 sets of 8–10 reps, then you may change to 2 sets of 25–30 reps.

The caveat is that you will likely have to decrease the amount of weight you’re using. For example, if you use 155 pounds for 10 reps to failure, you might decrease to 110 pounds for a higher volume set.

Another option is to increase the amount of time you hold a contraction. By nature, isometric contractions will train your muscles for endurance (6,7).

For example, karate practitioners will squat in a horse stance (a squat position) for multiple minutes at a time. This works on the endurance of the hips and thighs.

The same idea can be performed with a plank, as described below. This will primarily work the abs and other core muscles. In fact, a 2014 study found maximum improvements in ab endurance when performing the plank 5 or more times per week (6).

The main goal, regardless of the method, is to constantly challenge your muscles as you progress — either by striving to perform more reps or to hold a position longer.