Did you know that 14% of Americans who sign up for a gym membership in January every year throw in the towel before Valentine’s Day? That’s an alarming statistic, considering almost half the population is toying with obesity.
The truth is, you need staying power to enjoy the best benefits of exercise. Whether you’re attending a gym or training at home, you’ll see better results if you can increase endurance during your workouts.
Better stamina means you can work out harder for longer and see the results you want sooner. Keep reading for top tips on increasing endurance during gym training.
Start Your Day Off Right
One of the best ways to boost endurance has nothing to do with reps, weights, or miles. Simply getting enough sleep helps your body cope with the demands of the gym for longer.
You must get between seven and nine hours of good quality sleep every night if you want to get the most out of your gym sessions.
Exercising every day is one way to ensure you sleep well, but you should also try the following tips:
- Set up a sleep schedule and stick to it
- Don’t overeat before bedtime or go to sleep hungry
- Keep your room cool, quiet, and dark
- Avoid napping during the day
- Practice anxiety-relieving tactics like meditation or yoga
Too little sleep impacts your metabolism, performance, and appetite, so you’ll feel sluggish all day. Good sleep beats depression and lethargy and helps your body heal from the rigors of exercise.
Nutrition to Help Increase Endurance
Your body needs good quality fuel to power your workouts. For starters, you must follow a healthy, balanced diet comprising plenty of carbohydrates like whole grains.
Carbohydrates and healthy fats give your body the energy it needs during a tough workout. Thus, some of the best foods for improving your endurance include:
- Brown rice
- Beans and legumes
- Couscous
- Quinoa
- Sweet potatoes
- Whole wheat bread and pasta
- Eggs
- Cottage cheese
- Hummus
- Greek yogurt
- Lean meat
- Seeds and nuts
You can also indulge in a mid-workout snack to keep you going during exercise. Try some of these:
- Carbohydrate-rich energy bars
- A banana or an apple
- Fruit juice
- A few tablespoons of honey
- Lactose-free yogurt with fruit
- Sports drinks
Hydration is vital for building endurance, especially when you enhance your liquid intake with electrolytes.
You can also try stamina-boosting supplements containing calcium, vitamins D, E, C, and B12, Zinc, Magnesium, Selenium, and Iron.
Studies show that glycosaminoglycans can help increase endurance. You can’t find these substances in common foods, but they are abundant in supplements made from deer antler velvet and shellfish shells.
Workout Tips for Enhanced Stamina
Unfortunately, you can’t get fit by eating and sleeping well alone. You’ll need to put in a lot of hard work, too.
These are some of the best fitness tips to supercharge your stamina:
Kettlebell Swings
Kettlebell swings work on the hamstrings, lower back, core muscles, glutes, and other posterior chain muscles.
These muscles play a role in almost all human movement. So, it follows that strengthening them will do much to improve your endurance, too.
High reps of kettlebell swings can become an intense cardio workout to help tone your cardiovascular system to keep pace.
Elliptical HIIT
High-Intensity Interval Training is tough, but it’s also effective. When you do your HIIT sessions using an elliptical trainer, you can supercharge these exercises to exhaust as many muscles as possible quickly and simultaneously.
Super-setting Resistance Exercises
Super-setting makes your lungs and heart the focus of weight training sessions. For enhanced stamina, you should super-set as many of your weight exercises as you can.
This technique involves going from exercising one muscle group to the next without resting in between.
Maximize Weight Lifting Intensity
The more intense a weightlifting routine is, the more your muscles must contract, and the harder your heart and lungs will work.
As you continue these workouts, your cardiovascular system and muscles will adapt to greater levels of exertion, especially if you use rest-pause techniques throughout.
Rest-pause means taking a tiny break in the middle of a set. This allows you to recover just enough to squeeze in a few more reps.
For instance, if you’re doing ten reps in a given set, but your muscles fail at five, rest in the neutral position for 10 seconds before continuing as long as you can. When you reach failure again, repeat the process until you complete your ten reps.
Combine Strength and Cardio Workouts
The more muscles you get moving, the harder your heart works. So, instead of focusing only on cardio workouts, add some strength training to the fray.
Don’t separate strength and cardio days. Hit the bench press, then try some pull-ups, then run a mile at top speed.
Change Things Up
Don’t become stuck in a routine doing the same old workout every day. Not only will a change of scenery increase your motivation, but a variety of exercises challenges your body in new ways.
Step away from the weight and the elliptical trainer for a while and try new things. Some of the best endurance-boosting activities include boxing, rock climbing, biking, swimming, and yoga.
Even a good session on the dance floor can enhance your stamina.
Don’t Give Up
When you increase endurance, you’ll find it easier and easier to complete your workouts, making every outing to the gym more enjoyable than the last.
That means you can achieve your goals more easily and avoid the demotivation that causes so many people to abandon their exercise resolutions.
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