Endurance

[GorG]

I have a question its been really bugging the hell out of me, when ever I work out I’ll do a certain weight, and I’ll be maxing my self out, I’ll do a full set and the on my second set I’ll do around 4, after which I have to move down, but once I move down a weight I can only do a couple reps and then I’ll have to move down again and so on and so on, I was wondering how I can bring up my endurance, so that I don’t plummet down after moving down a weight. Any help would be great....

[davidI]

What are you trying to achieve?

[GorG]

endurance wise i want to "hold my ground" because once i drop down a wieght i wont be able tos tay at it long, may be 2-3 reps at the most and i'll need to drop down more, you know what i'm trying to say

[1badPT]

do you do any cardio work or just resistance training?

[davidI]

Originally posted by GorG
endurance wise i want to "hold my ground" because once i drop down a wieght i wont be able tos tay at it long, may be 2-3 reps at the most and i'll need to drop down more, you know what i'm trying to say

I meant what are you trying to achieve as far as fitness goals. If you're trying to gain some muscle then I'd say you're achieving your goal as you're obviously training to failure with heavy weights. If your goal is to have more endurance then you're going to have to drop down the weight to increase the reps.

Maybe I'm just completely not understanding your question but I've never heard of a person lifting for the purpose of being able to do more reps?

Usually goals are defined as strength, size or endurance. Endurance being the ability to bike for a long time or have powerful skating strides for an entire game, not to do 12 reps 5 times.

[GorG]

Fitness goals, I am trying to gain muscle, I didn’t understand what you meant by goals before, I know endurance is usually related to biking skating or running, basically anything that is more active, its just I realized this. When ever I work out with friends I can see that they'll go down a weight and hold their ground were as myself as soon as I drop down a weight I’ll continue to do so, here is a diagram of what happens tome and what I would like to happen to me, at the very least.
----EDIT---- weight is on the side, reps are on the bottom ----

[grocko]

Try starting a lower weight and working your way up....once you start feeling conforable at one weight move up to the next one and so on. And honestly, don't even bother looking at others and how much weight they do, it gets people thinking that they are weaker and such but yet everyone has different bodies meaning everyone is going to develop differently. I started to do weights with my track team (compete with a club) a few years ago and started off at 90 pounds on bench. By mid-season the same year I was benching 160 consistently and maxing out at about 200. Not bad for a small little runner who only weighs 140...

[grocko]

From the looks of your graph..start around 70-ish....

[GorG]

Thanks for the advice, I never think of what other people think of me or anything, I’ve done some pretty stupid things in the past to prove that, but if that’s the only thing I could basically do to increase my endurance then that’s what I’m going to have to do because up to this point, I’ve just been trying to build up as much mass as possible, by maxing myself out every work out, and so far the results are well worth the pain. I right now I’m trying to figure out how to make my endurance rise, but that is a good way to look at it, I’ve never actually tried going down to a lower weight and slowly moving up, they've always been massive jumps, also it only really happens when I max my self out that I lose power after around 10-12 reps, I can do around 90-1000, for 30 reps easily, I just kind of find that strange how much of a difference there is when I max it out, I don’t really like it to much and that’s what I really want to change.