Sorry, forgot about that part of your question Iris:
Muscle Endurance vs Muscle Strength.
When we speak of
muscle endurance we are really talking about the body's capacity to stabilize itself for an extended period of time. Stabilization against gravity and movement. All core stabilization exercises such as plank, balanceing on a BOSU, kneeling on a Swiss ball, a lot of functional training type exercises are for the development of muscle endurance. The rep range, (if reps are being done i.e. standing on a dynadisc doing overhead presses) would be in a rep range of 12 to 25 reps. The purpose of Muscle Endurance is to promote better stabilization, correct alignment and posture for the next phase or level of training. Usually this is a phase that most people will be introduced when they first work with a trainer and they are deconditioned. I also think of cardio movements as muscle endurance because we are repeatedly calling upon the action of our muscles for a specific range of motion for an extended period of time.
Muscle Strength is the ability of the muscle to produce high levels of force for a rep range of of 6 to 12 reps with little rest between sets. Usually we are doing supersets while working on this phase as well.
In addition to Muscle Strength you may also hear reference to Max Strength. That's the maximum amount of force the muscle can exert in just one rep.
Muscle endurance sometimes can feel a little tedious when training it. Boring actually, at least to me but its importance should be understood. When we train muscle endurance we are actually improving the way the brain speaks to the muscle in a more efficient manner. This in turn allows our muscles to lift more weight with greater efficiency when we go back to training for muscle strength.
As a side note...I have also read somewhere...don't recall where so if someone else knows where it came from go ahead and let me know....most of the gains we get as new lifters is NOT from increase in muscle fibers or tissue...
I KNOW. Its actually from improving the way the brain delivers the message to contract to the individual muscle fibers.
Silver I don't know if this is any clearer but...well, I tried.
Muscle Endurance = planks, 50 to 70% of our 1 rep max
Muscle Strength = rep range of 8 -12 with supersets minimal rest 70 to 100% of our 1 rep max
Max Strength = Get a spotter, a belt and optimism.
1 Rep Max