Strength Endurance Training Plan For High Quality Workouts At Home

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Follow this strength endurance training plan to improve muscular and aerobic performance with effective at home workouts.

Home workouts are perfect for improving strength endurance. Forget running a 5k, cycling thoughout town, or walking endless laps. Start incorporating strength endurance training into your fitness routine to maintain a lean and mean physique.

Strength endurance training will help you improve muscular definition and performance while boosting cardio and burning a lot of calories in one session.

Plus, it will help you build functional strength for your everyday life. Loading those heavy groceries into the car, carrying your dead-weight pouting toddler off the playground, lugging the heavy lawnmower around the yard, or playing piggy back with your pre-schooler.

What is strength endurance training?

Strength endurance training is a form of resistance training that improves a muscle’s ability to work for a longer duration before fatigue. Typically, this is done with high repetition, low weights, and short rest breaks.

Strength endurance training is a great method of resistance training for any level of fitness. Especially people that are inexperienced lifters, compete in endurance sports like marathons, or need to avoid heavy weight lifting workouts.

Is it possible to train for both strength and endurance?

It is absolutely possible to improve strength and endurance at the same time. Muscular endurance training is like a cheat code for improving both components of fitness. 

When looking for general strength improvements, you need to stimulate the muscle with more load over time. This can be done with heavier weight, higher volume, or both.

Keep in mind, strength endurance training is a very effective way to improve overall strength, as long as you gradually increase volume and/or intensity (weight/resistance).

This could look like completing 15 reps per set one week and increasing to 20 reps over the next couple of weeks. Or by using 10 lb dumbbells and gradually increasing to 12 lbs.

If you are looking to improve pure force output (like 1RM) or quickly gain muscle mass, strength endurance is not as an efficient way to train for those goals. Check out my post Get Strong At Home: Strength Training Plan For Women for an in depth breakdown of the different forms of strength training, and find what best suits your goals.

How do you improve strength endurance?

• High volume- Perform around 50+ reps per exercise to build endurance. This can be done with 3+ sets of 15+ reps each movement.
• Low weight- Use a sub max weight of 60% 1RM or less, or even bodyweight. (Pssst! For a killer all bodyweight workout challenge, check out my FREE 4-Week Calisthenics Workout Plan For Women designed with a new full-length workout video every day that you can do at home!)
• Short rest breaks- Keep your rest breaks short compared to your work time, typically 30 seconds or even less per set. If following a continuous circuit workout, keep a large work to rest ratio.
• Large total load- Keep your frequency of strength endurance workout to 2-4 sessions per week. You can do this with full body workouts or upper body / lower body split.

Strength endurance workout plan at home

Follow this 4 week strength endurance workout plan that you can do at home. All you need is a set of dumbbells to jump in. This workout plan consists of 4 different workouts per week that can be done in about 30 minutes or less!

For the first and third weeks, you will follow an upper body and lower body split designed with two different bodyweight workouts for each focus. For the second and fourth weeks, you will follow 4 different full body workouts that require dumbbells.

Each week will have 3 days designated to resting or stretching. If you choose to stretch, spend at least 10 minutes stretching the full body. You can follow any of my videos from my Stretching/Mobility Playlist on YouTube for some guidance!

I suggest using a set of dumbbells that are lightweight, you can use one dumbbell for the upper body exercise workouts and two for the lower body. Be sure to choose weights that allow you to complete the prescribed reps per set without compromising form or getting to failure. This will vary from person to person based on their experience and fitness level, but using 5 lb to 15 lb weights should be sufficient for most women.

Each day you will want to start with a full body warm-up and end with a cool-down. Continue below for the written warm-up, cool-down, and workouts for each week. You can also follow this warm up video or this cool down video instead!

• Daily Warm Up: Complete 2 Rounds (~5 minutes)
  • 10 Arm Circle
  • 10 Leg Lift each side
  • 10 Jumping Jack
  • 10 Walking High knee each side
  • 10 Walking Butt Kick
  • 5 Inchworm
  • 5 Superman

• Daily Cool-Down: Complete 2 Rounds (~5 minutes)
  • 20 second V-sit stretch
  • 20 second Quad stretch each side
  • 10 Arm Circle (slow)
  • 20 second Down Dog
  • 20 second Child Pose
  • 20 second Trapezius stretch each side

Weeks 1 & 3 Workouts: Upper/Lower Split

• Day 1 – Lower Body (bodyweight)
  • 20 squats
  • 20 alternating forward lunges
  • 20 glute bridge
  • 20 alternating step ups
  • 30s rest
  • Repeat for 20 Minutes

• Day 2- upper body (bodyweight)
  • 1 minute Hand Release Push up
  • 1 minute Sit ups
  • 1 minute High Plank
  • 1 minute Leg Lifts
  • 1 minute Inchworms
  • 1 minute REST
  • Repeat 3 Rounds

• Day 3- Rest or Stretch

• Day 4- Lower Body (bodyweight)
  • 40sec Alternating Lateral Lunges, 20sec rest
  • 40sec Sumo Squats, 20sec rest
  • 40sec Alternating Reverse Lunges, 20sec rest
  • 40sec Squats, 20sec rest
  • 40sec Glute Bridge, 20sec rest
  • Repeat 4 Rounds

• Day 5- Upper Body (Straight sets – 30s rest between sets)
  • 15 Superman x3
  • 15 Shoulder taps in plank x3
  • 15 Birddog x3
  • 15 Alternating bicycle crunches x3
  • 15 Scissor x3

• Day 6 & 7- Rest or Stretch

Weeks 2 & 4 Workouts: Full Body Dumbbell

• Day 1-
  • 1 minute Squat to Press
  • 1 minute Deadlift to upright row
  • 1 minute Alternating Lunge to curl
  • 1 minute Glute bridge to chest press
  • 1 minute rest
  • Repeat 4 Rounds 

• Day 2- Rest or Stretch

• Day 3-
  • 15 overhead press
  • 15 sumo squats
  • 15 tricep dips
  • 15 alternating step ups
  • 15 Bent over rows
  • Repeat 3 Rounds

• Day 4- Rest or Stretch

• Day 5-
  • 20 Squat x3
  • 15 hand release push up x3
  • 20 deadlift x3
  • 15 bent over row x3
  • 20 alternating lateral lunge x3
  • 15 overhead press x3

• Day 6- Rest or Stretch

• Day 7-
  • 40 seconds wall sit, 20 seconds rest
  • 40 seconds plank, 20 seconds rest
  • 40 seconds alternating Lunge, 20 seconds rest
  • 40 seconds chest press, 20 seconds rest
  • 40 seconds Lateral Squats, 20 seconds rest
  • 40 seconds 6-inch hold, 20 seconds rest
  • Repeat 4 Rounds

For easy access, click the link to download this printable PDF download of my free 4-Week Strength Endurance Workout Plan at home.

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