30 days to build endurance....

30 days to building endurance

How does your body build endurance? Endurance has almost always been synonymously linked to cardio vascular fitness. Although we need endurance to perform in events such as marathons and ironman’s we have learned that endurance is also needed to function at our peak on the weight floor and the cross fit gym also. In fact, as we age, most find it more rewarding to finish an ironman then bench press their own weight. This is most likely because endurance training gives us other desired results. Good Cardiovascular conditioning is like the fountain of youth, we age slower and maintain a higher level of functionality into our retirement. In addition as our body ages it is not a susceptible to injury during endurance activities.

Cardiovascular performance has been based on three main factors

1) Heart rate (how many times your heart beats per minute)

2) Stroke volume (the amount of blood pumped per heartbeat)

3) Heart contractility (the forcefulness of each actual contraction of your heart muscle)

All three factors turn our focus to the heart but there are other ways to improve your endurance.

As your muscles contract during exercise they push the blood back toward the heart, this is called Pre-load. Preload actually enhances the heart’s stroke volume during exercise, making adequate contraction and strength of your skeletal muscle a major determinant of your endurance performance.

Another way to improve endurance is to build mitochondrial density. Mitochondria are the powerhouses or your cells they use oxygen to create ATP which is the power you need to do anything. Both HITT and resistance training help increase the number you have and how efficient they are. All of which improve both how much oxygen arrives at the muscles through your blood and how much oxygen your muscle cells remove from the blood before sending it on back to your heart.

I have attached a 4 week program built to increase your ability to perform for endurance.

HITT Cardiovascular- Hill repeats can be performed on the bike or treadmill by increasing resistance and or incline. After performing a warm up and stretching, alternate between 60 seconds at a sprint with 120 seconds at a moderate pace. Repeat the interval until 20 minutes is up and or you can no longer continue.

Steady State-Complete 45-60 minutes at a moderate pace.

Strength Lower body- Complete 4-8 lower body exercises focusing on the quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes, hips, and calves. 4 sets of each with 13-20 repetitions in each set.

Strength Upper body- Complete 4-8 Upper body exercises focusing on the chest, back, bicep, triceps, and shoulders.4 sets of each with 13-20 repetitions in each set.

Make sure to keep track of the workouts, exercises you choose and weight increases throughout the month in your exercise log. After a week of complete rest from the program you may want to repeat it for further gains.

Good luck and do not forget to send your feed back into ghouston@mvhospital.net, I would love to celebrate your win with you.