As trainers we see the overall picture. Endurance athletes hate to work on strength as a generality. But many of the aches and pains they experience can be improved by working on strength. Yes, we may add a couple of pounds to our body, but many times those added pounds of muscle and maybe even a little body fat can help us be healthier and have less injuries.
Strength and power athletes as a generality hate working on endurance. But their performance in long meets and life in general will improve with some endurance type work.
Both athletes have different goals and will be pushed in our gym. If you are an aging athlete we my lean more toward general physical preparedness rather than specializing. Say you are an extremely thin 48 year old endurance athlete, who competes occasionally just for fun. If this is your current state we may have you do more strength training than you would do on your own, Why? You are probably doing this type of training away from the gym, so you are missing out on strength and power work. Yes you will improve your endurance, but you will also improve your overall fitness, stay strong and healthy, and hopefully have fewer injuries.
Say your are a high school football player who would like to add 20-30 pounds and still keep his quickness. You will spend more time on lifting heavy and performing power exercises. We will also do some endurance work but it will have some heavy weight moving exercises thrown in to ask you to use your strength in a productive way. The endurance portion will help you during the 4th quarter of a game not get pushed around.
