Question from Nicolle K.: I am a fitness trainer and teach barbell strength endurance training, known as Body Pump, five times a week. Strength endurance should actually be good. Unfortunately, I realise that I can't use the strength that should actually be in my legs when cycling uphill. Is (too much) strength training not good after all?
Answer from Sebastian Weber: Recreational athletes often observe that intensive strength training reduces endurance performance. Although they refer to it as strength endurance training, the energy metabolism during body pumping is largely "endurance-hostile": by breaking down sugar without oxygen (anaerobic) by means of glycolysis. If you use this metabolic pathway, this means that you are also training it and increasing the maximum lactate production of your muscles. On the bike, this results in slightly better sprinting and acceleration ability.
What is more serious is that this metabolism, which is basically hostile to endurance, is also more strongly activated during less intensive and longer exercise: for the same performance, it uses the valuable carbohydrate reserves more quickly instead of burning fat first. The lactic acid produced also impairs performance at and below the anaerobic threshold.
My advice is to train with low weight for the legs when doing a body pump. When training on your bike, you should ride more hills. Before a competition, you need around three weeks with a total of around ten hill sessions (30 minutes each) to compensate for the "negative" effect of the Body Pump to some extent.
