Many of us don’t know what exactly stamina is all about. Well let me clarify this, stamina, often referred to as endurance, it is your ability to sustain a physical or mental effort for a long period of time. Whether you’re training for a marathon or chasing a toddler around the house, there are plenty of reasons to want more stamina. If you’ve been experiencing a personal energy crisis lately, developing your stamina might be just the thing for recovering your zing. Here are ten exercises which you can do to increase your stamina.
1. Weight Training
Weight training is a common type of strength training for developing the strength and size of skeletal muscles. It uses the weight force of gravity (in the form of weighted bars, dumbbells or weight stacks) to oppose the force generated by muscle through concentric or eccentric contraction. It basically helps in raising your metabolism.
These were some of the exercises to increase your stamina but to do this on a regular basis, you need to use the power of your mind. Someone truly said, “If we want to increase stamina, we have to be willing to push the envelope. (And) to do that, we need willingness and determination.”.
2. Cross-training
It is one of the most effective and safe ways to improve stamina and performance level, as well as a great way to avoid injury. Often one particular activity works certain muscle groups, but not others; cross-training aims to eliminate this. The essence of this special training is to choose two or more activities that complement each other, such as weight training and trail running, or biking and swimming.
3. Long Slow Distance
Most of us have heard the acronym ‘LSD’ and we know it stands for ‘Long Slow Distance. There’s serious trauma associated with the act of running fast. Running fast all the time clearly won’t work over the long haul because sustained trauma over time will inevitably lead to burnout and breakdown. The long run at slow speed is meant to help build stamina, and it is not a race.
4. Swimming
You can either swim as a break after a hard workout or simply include some swimming to change up your routine. Swimming has the added advantage of working your upper body muscles, which are typically underdeveloped in runners.
5. Pedaling
Pedaling on a high-tension exercise bike setting works your leg muscles even more than running uphill, without the impact on your joints. While you pedal on an exercise bike, gradually increase the tension until you can barely move the wheel. Stand up and do intervals of pedaling as fast as you can. Rest and lower the tension between intervals.
6. Changing Terrain
As runners we often get accustom to daily habits and routine, rarely venturing out to explore different environments for training. There is often the excuse of convenience and doing what is comfortable. Changing up your running surface and breaking up the monotony is not only good for your mind, but beneficial to your body and paramount to improving your performance
7. Plyometrics
Plyometrics exercises like jumping rope and skipping drills can help to improve your running mechanics by lessening the amount of time that your feet stay on the ground. Originally developed for Olympic athletes, plyometric training has become a popular workout routine for people of all ages, including children and adolescents.
8. Interval Training
They say that slow and steady wins the race. But the cardiovascular key to fat burning is using interval training workouts – workouts that alternate high-intensity levels with lower-intensity effort. In simple words, it can be described as short periods of work followed by rest. Bursts of energy (the high-intensity part of interval training) will increase the amount of calories you burn. This increases your overall endurance capability.
9. Bear crawl
This exercise will rapidly elevate the heart rate for anaerobic conditioning and challenge the muscular endurance of the upper body and lower body. For proper technique, keep the spine parallel to the floor throughout the exercise, no hunching or rounding of the back. Start in a crawl position with knees elevated off the floor and your abs braced in tight. Step forward leading with the right foot and left hand, then the same with the left foot and right hand. Build your speed up until you are crawling forward quickly, and then reverse movement stepping backwards.
10. Pistol Squat with Suspension
Pistol squats develop leg strength, flexibility, balance skills and increases your vertical jump. Stand facing the suspension trainer and hold the handles with a light neutral grip. Lift one leg off the floor, flex the heel, and squat down on the standing leg until the squat is parallel to the ground. Push up to the starting position and repeat 10 times, then switch legs. An eventual goal is to perform a pistol squat without the suspension trainer to assist you.
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