Is a circuit routine be enough to get back what I have lost?

This is the third post in a series of posts meant to answer several questions that my little sister received on her facebook page from a fitness enthusiast whose primary interests include endurance competition such as 100m bike races and triathalons. To begin, we will answer the question as it has been asked with the intention of continuing the blogs into examining other methods of resistance training for everyone.

So, will a circuit routine be enough to get back what I have lost? This question stems from the individual suffering from an injury more than likely due to overuse in her endurance training which kept her from most physical activity. Because of this, she has lost muscle mass. We discussed how to begin addressing the injury in the last post. Now, we will assume that that injury is completely healed and we can move on to a more advanced resistance training routine.

Resistance training is recommended by several national health organizations as a part of a more comprehensive program. This is due to the many documented benefits of resistance training including reduced body fat, increased resting metabolic rate, decreased blood pressure, and an increase in insulin sensitivity to name a few (Kraemer, Ratamess, & French, 2002). There are 3 primary principles one must focus on in relation to resistance training.

The first is progressive overload, which refers to a gradual increase of stress placed on the body. The body adapts to everything we expose it to over time. Therefore an increase in the demand of the resistance training program must take place to allow for long term improvement. The second principle is the principle of specificity. This refers to the body's ability to adapt to specific stimuli based on program variables. So, to continue improvement we must progress a program through increases in intesity but to become better at a specific task, we must train for that task. For example, a body builder is generally lifting weights to increase muscle mass and definition, therefore they must dictate certain variables of their program to address that goal specifically in order to achieve it. The third principle is variation. Just as training must be progressive and specific, it must change over time to continue to force the body to adapt. Just as increasing intensity through progressive overload forces the body to change, altering other variables does so as well. You always hear P90X talking about "muscle confusion", the principle of variability is what they are actually discussing.

So our question came from someone who loves endurance training but feels that she has lost much muscle mass over the winter months. She wants to know if a simple circuit routine will help her with that. In all honesty, a circuit routine if executed correctly would most definetly help her to increase her muscle mass. This is also assuming that the proper amounts of nutrients are being coonsumed in her diet. As she is an endurance junkie, we will examine some research on resistance training in other endurance runners to figure out which type or method works best.

In one study by Mikkola, Rusko, Nummela, Pollari, and Hakkinen (2007), put a group of 13 runners aged 16-18 were put through an explosive resistance training program for 8 weeks. Normal endurance training was maintained however roughly 20% of it was replaced by the resistance training. There were significant improvements noted in 30m sprint times and strength. The aerobic capacity of the runners did not change. This is interesting because the runners put on some mass, got stronger, and faster in sprinting all while decreasing their endurance training and replacing it with resistance training. The actual resistance training itself took place 3x per week and consisted of some explosive sprint training and low load basic strength exercises such as half squats, knee extensions and curls, abdominal crunches, and calf raises (very basic).

From this small yet interesting study, we learn that in young women and men, it may be possible to decrease endurance training time as long as it is replaced by resistance training and maintain current levels of aerobic fitness.

This information could help our reader as she may be able to decrease her running time per week which may have lead to her overuse injury/IT band inflammation in the first place, and replace it with resistance training which will help her reach her goal of increasing her muscle mass and possibly improve her racing performance.

As I always state, this is not the only study on this subject however, this post is getting longer and longer. Because of this, I will have to continue examining the proper resistance training program for an endurance runner in our next post.

Until then, stay healthy!
Joe