Do You Become Weaker By Doing Endurance Training?
Ever heard the phrase, “Endurance training will make you weaker”? This misconception often makes people shy away from cardio or endurance training, fearing that their strength gains will simply vanish overnight. But does running a few miles or cycling really make you weaker?
The Truth About Endurance Training & Strength Loss
The idea that endurance training inherently makes you weaker is misleading. Sure, strength athletes often dread the thought of losing their hard-earned muscle mass to long runs or endless hours on the bike — but the reality is quite different. The reason why people believe endurance training makes you weaker is a by-product of what the body does when you run, cycle, or whatever. When you do such activities your body uses fuel causing you to burn calories. In other words, it is the calorie deficit that makes you weaker, not the endurance training in itself.
When you’re in a calorie deficit (eating fewer calories than you burn), your body uses stored energy to keep you going. This is often the reason why people feel weaker — not because they decided to lace up their running shoes. Endurance workouts are just another energy-demanding activity, and if you’re not fueling your body adequately, you’ll feel the effects on your lifts, sprints, and overall performance.
The problem arises when you’re pushing hard on the endurance front without matching your caloric intake. Without enough fuel, your body simply doesn’t have the energy to maintain strength, recover, and build muscle effectively.
So, unless you’re overdoing it and under-eating, endurance training won’t rob you of your gains. If anything, it helps build you into a more well-rounded athlete.
Finding the Right Balance
The key is balance. If you’re training for a marathon while trying to max out your bench press every other day, something’s gotta give. But strategically incorporating endurance work into your gym routine isn’t a problem as long as you compensate for the calories burned (during your endurance workout) with more calories.
Conclusion
To conclude, it’s safe to say that endurance training doesn’t make you weaker—being in a calorie deficit does. A great example of this is EPO, or erythropoietin, a hormone that boosts red blood cell production. These extra red blood cells improve your body’s ability to deliver oxygen to your muscles, which in turn enhances your endurance. While deliberately injecting EPO is illegal, it still works to showcase the main point here. EPO doping doesn’t make athletes lose muscle. Instead, it supercharges their endurance by increasing oxygen delivery (VO2), helping them perform longer without burning out.
Think of it this way: if Ronnie Coleman, at the peak of his bodybuilding career, took EPO, his endurance would improve, but his muscle mass and strength wouldn’t vanish or be affected. Why? Because EPO doesn’t force you into a calorie deficit. It simply ramps up your body’s efficiency without the metabolic costs of long cardio sessions. So, endurance doesn’t weaken you. Poor nutrition does.
If you’re fueling your body right, you can build endurance and keep your strength gains intact simultaneously. That being said, it’s important to note that it may be hard to master both endurance and strength simultaneously, much like trying to juggle both studying for exams and working a full-time job. They require different types of focus and effort.
However, just because it’s hard doesn’t mean they are mutually exclusive, as the myth suggests.
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