Most people, when hoping to increase their endurance and stamina while working out, will often focus on cardio activities like running or cycling, but in truth this is only a small part of the endurance-building recipe. What most don’t realise is that it’s also necessary to increase strength, but these 7 training techniques will significantly boost your endurance and stamina.
1. Combine Strength Training with Cardio
In order to best challenge your heart and cardiovascular system, you should get as many muscles working as possible. Choosing cardio-only exercises will prevent you from building endurance, so it’s necessary to include strength days into your training. While most do cardio one day, and strength training on another, it’s a good idea to combine the two into one training day.
2. Reduce the Amount of Rest Time
While most men give themselves 30-90 seconds of recovery time between sets, if your goal is greater endurance and stamina, you will need to sacrifice some of this down time. Your muscles should be burning by the end of your sets and you should be breathing heavily and sweating – only take a break if you physically cannot continue.
Do a series of movements such as 10 each of pull-ups, squats, push-ups, and sit-ups and do 3 rounds back to back – breaking as minimally as possible.
3. Choose Fast-Paced, High Intensity Lifting
Using weights at an extremely rapid pace won’t necessarily increase your chances with sports betting NZ, but it will improve your strength and your endurance capabilities, as it’s one of the best ways to ignite your metabolism.
Doing an excessive amount of endurance-only training will actually slow down your metabolism as your body will start to eat away at muscle tissue.
4. Compound Movements Instead of Isolation
Examples of compound movements which require the use of more than one joint are squats, step-ups, push-ups, and pull-ups. These exercises will improve your endurance more than exercises which isolate specific muscle groups, such as bicep curls and leg lifts.
Isolated exercises aren’t going to stimulate your muscles enough to increase stamina.
5. Routine is Your Enemy
What many people don’t realise is that switching up your workout is the key to building endurance and stamina. The human body gets used to a workout routine after two weeks, so if you’re always running, try boxing instead. If you’re a cycling fanatic, switch it up by running stairs instead.
It’s important that you move your muscles in different ways to decrease the chances of developing overuse.
6. Say Yes to Hybrid Exercises
Hybrid exercises take two separate movements and combine them. Examples include: a ‘thruster’ is a squat with an added overhead press, jumping pull-ups, or lunges with bicep curls.
The more muscles you get working in one go, the more it will engage your heart muscles, which in turn improves your stamina.
7. Include Explosive Movements
If you’re looking to challenge your strength, endurance, and stamina simultaneously, it’s imperative that you include explosive movements which require a lot of energy. Once you become more explosive in your movements, you’ll notice that you actually start moving faster.
Try adding the following to your workout routine: burpees, box jumps, jumping knee tucks, and power push-ups.
