Endurance and stamina are two things which are very important in day-to-day life, for many reasons. Perhaps the more popular reason at the moment is the increasing popularity of exercise of all kinds, including marathons and obstacle courses. Endurance and stamina are needed for them. The less popular reason (at least to say in public) is that endurance and stamina are increasingly needed for our day-to-day lives, since they can help us get through long commutes and longer days without any adverse effects. Team Genesis is here to help you develop needed stamina throughout your life.
1.Combine Strength and Cardio Exercises
Most people alternate between strength training and cardio; this is either due to the programme they happen to be following, or because they think that mixing the two will somehow act as a way of inhibiting all the effort they put into strength training. But either training on their own will not be healthy overall – balance is needed for exercise to be truly holistic. For building stamina, try and combine the two types of exercise – do some pull ups and then immediately go for a run, or take a jump rope down into the gym if its empty (note that this should only be done if the gym is empty!!), and jump rope in between weight lifting sets.
2. Reduce your Rest Times
The typical rest time for between sets can be anything from half a minute to two minutes. Anybody who wants to increase their stamina can do that by decreasing the amount of time they spend resting, to make sure that their heart rate remains elevated while they exercise. For building stamina, try to exercise continuously, and only stop when the choice is between stopping, or failing at that particular exercise. Try doing ten each of pull-ups, press-ups, sit-ups, and squats, and try to do them without taking any breaks whatsoever.
3. Use HIIT Workouts
Lifting weights is normally done at a steady pace which builds muscle without making you overtired, and while keeping you from hurting yourself, or something important. Unfortunately, while doing this over a prolonged period of time will build muscle, it does nothing for your overall stamina levels. If you want to build stamina while lifting weights, try HIIT workouts – these are workouts which have you doing short bursts of intense activity, then longer periods of slower activity. The goal is to keep yourself moving at all times, so that you build endurance. Some workouts can be found here.
4. Compound Exercises
Isolated exercises are quite often the norm in gyms today, but these are only good for working on muscles. Compound exercises are exercises which involve more than one muscle group, and they are good for working on stamina as they generally are more tiring, and take more effort over a longer period of time.
5. Don’t Stick to a Routine
Routines are king in the gym today, with the reason that it is easier to follow a routine and remember it day by day. But routines hold one problem: eventually you get used to them, and any good which came from them in terms of helping you to build stamina is lost. Don’t get into a routine – switch it up, and don’t allow yourself to get used to what you are doing!
For exercises which are specifically modelled to help with stamina, look here.
2 comments
I always stick to my routine and maybe this is the reason why I find myself at times not motivated enough to continue my regime. I need to reinforce my stamina and maybe by changing my tactics, I’ll find my speed again.
Thanks for sharing your experience.