I think that each of us who visits gyms visits them for a certain purpose. But in fact, there are several reasons why this is so… I dare say that each of us expects progress from it in the first place. Whether it’s getting rid of a certain problem, whether it’s about gaining muscle strength or volume, whether we want to strengthen our physical but also mental condition, at the end of each of our efforts, and you’ll surely agree with me , there should be an improvement. With this, I will bridge and point out that this is not always the case.

Everything that happens to us and around us, something or someone influences, and if we take it from the point of view of the muscular system, then the main “protagonists” are ourselves. The direction we take depends only on us and what impulse we can give to our body. This brings me to the explanation of my title, which includes a kind of stamina. But it will not be an encouragement to last as long as possible when visiting the gym, because this is the only way we can move forward. Which is true and not true, but I will rather point out a kind of endurance – technically speaking isometric – strength, which really hides many benefits for our body.

If we wanted to explain what kind of force it is, we could say that endurance, isometric force refers to exercises in which our muscles produce a certain force, without any movement. That is, our muscles do not change their length – they do not stretch or shorten. Isometric force can be used in exercises against resistance, by pushing against a stationary load or by holding, we can say by pulling in a certain position of an equally stationary load. In both cases, the intention is different, but the external result is the same. The effort to push a certain load that cannot be moved is called overcoming isometrics. We can say that this type of load will affect us more concentric force, i.e. the movement when the muscles shorten when overcoming a certain load. With this type of load, we use shorter and very intense efforts, which are transferred to us more in strength than in volume.

While the second way of loading, holding the isometrics, is transferred more to the eccentric force, i.e. to the movement when the muscles stretch when overcoming a certain load. And this is transferred to us more in volume than in strength.

There are several factors that affect our strength and volume, I will mention a few of them. If we talk about strength in a certain movement, we should know that the strength will depend on the amount of muscle mass we have, we can say that more muscles give us a greater potential for strength. It will also depend on the ability to activate muscle fibers. In short- these are the mechanical factors involved in producing force. Just as there are multiple factors that affect strength, there are multiple ways to stimulate volume. I don’t want to be very professional and I won’t explain and list professional instructions here, I’d rather summarize it – when it comes to volume, it is important to properly activate and “address” muscle fibers, which will lead to faster protein synthesis . Release of local growth hormones or achieving sufficient fatigue of muscle fibers. Stimulating muscle growth begins with the ability to “bend” a specific muscle while lifting a certain load.

And why am I mentioning all this here? Let me quote one wise person in the field of strength training, who said: “A muscle fiber that is addressed, but is not sufficiently depleted, is not actually trained!”

A sentence that describes everything. If from time to time we get into a state where we think that we are not progressing, let’s think about why this is so. Whether the impulses during exercise that we give to our body are sufficient. And if we were looking for a way to move it all forward, let’s try to include isometric training in our training and we can be pleasantly surprised where it can move us.

There are really many benefits of isometric training. Whether it is greater activation of muscle fibers, the rate of muscle fiber depletion, improvement of joint mobility and other stimulating effects, whether in terms of hormonal response, but also any motor patterns from everyday or sports life. In simple terms, we train the brain (nervous system) and muscles (muscular system) with one impulse. A simple and concise look at endurance training that is really worth trying.

The impulse of “overcoming” – against fixed immovable resistance – improving and influencing the concentric force.

The impulse to “hold” the load of one’s own weight or other external resistance – improving and influencing the eccentric force.