How to develop endurance to live longer and better

What is Endurance

Endurance is the ability to work for a long time without reducing intensity. For example, run for a long time or swing a kettlebell and not get tired.

Endurance training improve peak oxygen consumption, as well as increase blood volume and capillary density in working muscles. Thanks to these changes, the heart rate decreases - it no longer needs to beat so often to provide the body with the necessary level of O₂.

As you exercise, your muscles store more glycogen, a form of glucose that is used as fuel during activity. And the number of enzymes necessary for obtaining energy from oxygen and without it also increases.

The main indicator of endurance counts maximum oxygen consumption - MPC, or Vo2max. It is measured either in liters of absorbed O₂ per minute (L/min), or in milliliters per 1 kg of body weight per minute - ml / (kg × min).

BMD depends on how efficiently the heart pumps blood to the muscles and how quickly they can extract oxygen from it for energy production. The higher this indicator, the better the condition of your cardiovascular system and the higher your endurance.

For example, for those who lead a sedentary lifestyle, the MIC is about 30 ml / (kg × min), for active people it is about 40 ml / (kg × min), and for trained athletes it can exceed 50 ml / (kg × min). min).

Why Build Endurance

It makes sense to do this even if your sport involves one heavy lift and all activity at work is a walk to the cooler and back to the computer.

Building resilience will help you:

• Support cardiovascular health. One study found that BMD levels directly tied with heart health - moreover, much more than the total amount of physical activity per day. In other words, for health it is not enough just to move - you also need to be hardy.
• Reduce the risk of death from any cause. In one cohort study calculatedthat an increase in BMD by 1 ml / (kg × min) reduces the risk of death from any cause by 9%. In a different done conclusion that sport will not increase the genetically determined lifespan, but it will help to maintain health up to old age.
• Better to carry the load in everyday life. You can climb stairs without shortness of breath, catch up with a departing bus, or carry a tired child in your arms for a long time. In other words, any everyday tasks will not make you suffer and complain about "life after thirty."

What kind of activity to choose for the development of endurance

Perhaps the easiest and cheapest way to develop endurance is run. Beginners can start by alternating it with brisk walking, gradually increasing the amount of running.

Also, any other cyclic cardio is well suited for developing endurance, including classes on a bicycle ergometer, elliptical or rowing machines. This load makes it easy to adjust the volume and intensity of training and track your progress.

If you don’t like cyclic cardio or want to do it at home, but don’t have the opportunity to buy a simulator, endurance can be developed using sets of exercises with your body weight. For example, run a series burpee, jumping jacks, squats and other movements that do not require equipment and well accelerate the heart rate.

They will help your body get used to the loads and pump the cardiovascular system, but at the same time it will be more difficult to regulate the intensity of the workout.

How to exercise to build endurance faster

The intensity of training is of great importance for the development of endurance. It can be determined by the pulse at which the lesson takes place.

As a rule, the intensity is indicated as a percentage of the maximum heart rate (HRmax). To calculate this indicator, you need to subtract age from 220. For example, for a 30-year-old person, HRmax will be 190 beats / min.

In terms of intensity, it can be conditionally divide workouts for:

• lungs - 50-63% of HRmax, about 120 beats / min;
• medium - 64-76% of HRmax, about 130-140 beats / min;
• heavy - 77-93% of HRmax, about 150-160 beats / min;
• very heavy - 94% or more of HRmax, 170-190 beats / min.

Even experienced athletes spend most of their training at a low heart rate - with light to medium intensity. And for beginners, this is the best opportunity to gradually get used to the loads, get pleasure from exercises and not be injured in the very first weeks of classes.

At the same time, for rapid progress, it is also worth adding hard training. In one research found that low-intensity fitness programs increased BMD by an average of 0.4 L/minute over 20 weeks of regular exercise, and that far from all participants.

But high-intensity interval training (HIIT) or their combination with long-term calm loads gives better results. For 6-13 weeks, they increase the BMD by an average of 0.5 l / min, and sometimes by 0.85 l / min.

Try an 80/20 load ratio where 80% of your workouts are moderate and 20% are very hard.

This format use many athletes: it allows you to progress quickly and not get injured.

For example, you decide to run three hours a week. Of this time, 36 minutes (20%) should be spent on a pulse of 170–190 bpm, and the remaining 144 minutes on a pulse of about 130–140 bpm.

That is, you will have somewhere quiet activities - uniform running or a combination of running and walking at a low heart rate, and two intense interval workouts alternating between hard work and periods of recovery activity. For example, six intervals of alternating a three-minute fast run and a five-minute easy run.

If you are going to build endurance through exercise at home, you can also adjust the intensity based on your heart rate or how you feel.

For example, for long, calm workouts, choose light cardio and movements with your body weight, during which the heart rate does not rise above 130-140 beats / min, and you can carry on a conversation without choking.

For intense workouts, you can use interval circuit complexes in which you need to work vigorously on for 30-40 seconds and rest until the end of the minute or complete as many circles as possible for a certain time.