By Team Beachbody
The Beachbody.com message boards have been full of misunderstandings on the difference between strength and endurance, especially when it comes to weight loss. The Power 90® program combines workouts that target these two energy systems concurrently, which is why it's such an effective weight loss (or fat loss, to be more specific) program.
What is strength? Strength can be defined as the application of muscular force in any endeavor, such as to a barbell, a ball, or to the ground. Strength training is the use of resistance (weights, etc.) to build maximum muscle force. Within strength training there is "hypertrophy," or muscle growth, and motor-unit recruitment, which is called power or strength training. The latter is very important for athletes because having ultimate use of their muscles is paramount. People more interested in body shape vs. strength are primarily interested in the effects of toning and growth (hypertrophy), because they are not as concerned with how (relatively) powerful or strong they are.
Endurance can be defined as the body's capacity to continue a physical performance over a period of time. Within this realm, we find both aerobic endurance and anaerobic endurance. Anaerobic endurance is, like power, extremely important to the performance of many athletes. But again, from a civilian point of view, most of us are primarily concerned with aerobic endurance, or the ability of our bodies to use oxygen efficiently for low-intensity prolonged activity.
Now that we have this straight, we should be able to understand some of the logistics behind fitness programs like Power 90®, where you alternate "Sculpt" days for strength training and "Sweat" days for endurance training. The reason that a body transformation program alternates both types of training is that for overall body fitness, it is best to focus on one benefit, while also maximizing calories burned. Since we are not as concerned with ultimate performance as we are with body transformation, combining some strength training and endurance training during the same cycle can make sense.
We get two questions on a consistent basis regarding Power 90®. The first is people who want to know why their heart rate is not peaking on "Sweat" days like it does on "Sculpt" days. Many people feel that a "Sweat" routine isn't hard enough if their heart isn't racing. When in fact, it isn't supposed to. "Sweat" is an aerobic day. Your heart rate should stay well under your lactate threshold (the level where lactic acid builds up - this term is unimportant but it's when you get "pumped"). "Sweat" should be a moderate-intensity day (this doesn't mean easy because the movements can still be hard) where your body can learn to utilize its stored body fat as fuel. That's why it is best if you don't eat for 3 hours prior to "Sweat" workouts! "Sculpt" days are much higher in intensity. You want to add resistance so that you "fail" at certain reps on these days. Because this failure comes during a max output, your heart should really race during parts of this workout and slow down during the transition periods. Because you can't push your body to its limit without fuel, it is now recommended to eat a "fuel" food (complex carbs) 1-2 hours before a "Sculpt" day workout.
The second question we get is on whether or not to add more strength training or more cardio to the program. A lot of this depends upon your background and how quickly you can recover. Remember that more is not always better. It's easy to overtrain yourself - you will do a lot of work for less progress. It is almost assured that you wouldn't want to add any more weight training to Power 90®. If you do the "Sculpt" tapes at high enough intensity, then you will need the off days to recover. If you add anything, it could be some cardio. Since it is lower intensity, the better shape you are in, the more your body can handle with less rest. However, the most time efficient thing to do would be to concentrate on eating properly; then you won't have the need for so much extra exercise. As we say in all our materials, you need to gauge what you can handle, and pace yourself so that you complete the 90-day program.
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