Power and Endurance Training Work Together More Than Previously Thought

The longstanding belief that resistance and endurance training produce fundamentally antagonistic adaptations has shaped exercise prescription for decades. This 2025 narrative review by Ferguson, Furrer, Murach, Hepple, and Rossiter systematically re-examines that assumption using mechanistic, clinical, and population-level evidence, concluding that peak neuromuscular power and endurance capacity are more complementary than contradictory.

The concept of the 'interference effect' originated with Hickson's 1980 study showing endurance training blunted strength gains in training-naïve individuals. The proposed mechanism centers on competing molecular signaling: resistance exercise activates the Akt–mTORC1 anabolic pathway, while endurance exercise activates AMPK–PGC-1α, with AMPK phosphorylating TSC2 to inhibit mTORC1. However, the authors argue this mechanistic model — derived largely from acute rat muscle electrical stimulation — is an oversimplification of in vivo human physiology. In reality, both exercise modalities acutely elevate catecholamines, cortisol, mechanical stress, intracellular calcium, and heat stress, and approximately 60% of genes upregulated 3 hours after endurance exercise are also elevated after resistance exercise.

Meta-analytic and review evidence from Murach and Bagley (2016) and Schumann et al. (2022) consistently shows that concurrent training does not impair muscle hypertrophy or strength gains in untrained or moderately trained individuals, regardless of endurance modality, training frequency, or age. The one persistent vulnerability is explosive peak neuromuscular power, which may be modestly attenuated — particularly relevant for elite athletics. Running-based endurance training may additionally blunt slow-twitch fiber hypertrophy more than cycling.

Critically, when the power–duration model parameters — critical power (CP) and W′ — are examined across a broad biological spectrum (young healthy, older healthy, chronic heart failure, COPD patients), a significant positive correlation emerges (r² = 0.589, P < 0.0001). This cross-population finding directly contradicts the dogma that high peak power and high endurance capacity are mutually exclusive traits. In aging, where both muscle power and aerobic capacity decline (the latter faster relative to VO₂max in later decades), concurrent training offers particular benefit for preserving functional capacity and 'healthspan.'

The authors introduce the musculo-cardio-pulmonary exercise test (mCPET) as an integrative assessment tool combining dynamometric peak power measurement with standard CPET variables (VO₂max, gas exchange threshold, critical power). This approach enables simultaneous characterization of neuromuscular and cardiopulmonary contributions to exercise performance — a framework with strong clinical utility for aging populations, cardiac and pulmonary disease patients, and rehabilitation settings. Current physical activity guidelines already endorse concurrent resistance and endurance training for health promotion, and this review provides a mechanistic rationale for that recommendation.