Thread: Does stamina/endurance help with strength training?

I am wondering how much stamina or endurance in terms of cardiovascular activity can benefit your strength training workouts? I haven't done a strict cardio workout for a long time, and thus I am quite out of shape compared to my basketball playing days. Lately I feel my workouts suffer because I simply get out of breath versus quitting due to muscle failure. This is mostly true in my higher rep workouts such as tricep work, bicep work, dips, and squats.

So, how much do you think this actually affects strength training workouts?

It can be a limiting factor. If your conditioning is so poor that you are incapable of using any rest intervals shorter than 2 minutes, then your workouts will probably be castrated in one form or another during your training career. It might be that the amount of volume you can perform is limited, you can't get your rest interval into the optimal hypertrophy range, you have to perform too many isolation movements to make up for your lack of conditioning, or whatever it may be.

There are plenty of possibilities for it to hold you back, but the level of conditioning necessary to maintain a good strength training career is much lower than what is necessary for most sports.