Static strength is often associated more with muscular endurance than strength because in order for a contraction to be static or isometric you usually have to hold the position for some amount of time.

When time or duration comes into play, you then need to start working on the level of your muscular endurance. Muscular endurance is the ability of a muscle or group of muscles to make repeated contractions while resisting fatigue. This ability is demonstrated repeatedly throughout your daily life.

The ability to keep going even though you feel completely fatigued is the main goal of endurance. Examples of this could be getting yourself through a long workday then taking your kids to soccer, doing laundry, washing dishes, going grocery shopping, and then ending it all by making sure that dinner is on the table. These are all things that require energy, large movements, and time. On top of that, if you're trying to fit that into one day you are probably moving fast the entire day. This pace can be exhausting and is one of the reasons why endurance training can be beneficial.

If you are a recreational athlete, it is important that you train for muscular endurance. This is due to the fact that your body needs to perform large muscle contractions over and over again in most sports and strenuous physical activities, and especially in Krav Maga. Repetitive punches and kicks require almost every muscle in the body, and the longer your training session, the more endurance you will start to develop.

In order to develop muscular endurance you need to use a moderate amount of weight and resistance and complete sets of slightly higher reps. For example, performing three sets of fifteen pushups will improve your muscular endurance more than doing three sets of five repetitions on a bench press with a significantly heavy load. It's still strength training, but you are creating a longer duration of resistance.

You may experience an increase in your heart rate, which is normal. However, it is important for you to realize that it is not the goal of strength training to get your heart rate up. As you learned in Chapter 4, there is a difference between cardio exercise and muscular endurance training, though the two are definitely linked.