The better the stamina, the better the run! Undoubtedly, exercise becomes fun and effective whenever you are filled with stamina. Regular runners and athletes always agree to the fact that stamina makes your workout easier. However, people often get detached from any form of exercise because they cannot keep up for long due to many personal reasons such as poor health, a busy lifestyle or lack of motivation.
What can be the secret to running faster? Well, we’re here to discuss how to increase stamina for running? These guidelines would definitely help you get increased stamina, more power, and better speed when you’ll start off with your jogging sessions.
Start Slow
No matter who you are, the hardest step that counts most is the beginning. Once you have decided to start your fitness journey, you need to take small steps first. Do this slowly and then increase the speed gradually. The reason behind this is when you increase your movements with slow intensity, your body adjusts better with the changes. This actually helps you maintain a healthy body without having an injury. Also, the early stages of your running career (if you are really serious about it) matter a lot. Your stamina won’t improve overnight and you have to let your body adapt to your cardiovascular changes that might occur when you will start running.
Let Your Muscles Relax
A relaxed and injury-free body is exactly what you need after engaging in any sort of muscle movement activities. No matter how profound athlete you are, you need to let your muscles rest in order to get the maximum outputs. What relaxation does is, it enhances your overall mental and physical performance and gets you on the fast track of having improved stamina. But if you are stressed with a very busy lifestyle, you would see the counter effects on your body.
Relaxation is something that you have control over whereas reducing stress is almost beyond our control. We all know that taking enough rest on a regular basis is almost impossible due to our busy lifestyle, but you should manage some time every day to have proper rest after any type of physically strenuous activities. If not, the stress would make you demotivated over time and you would end up throwing in the towel – which most people do.
Breathe Properly
For you to have a greater physical strength and better stamina, you need to regulate proper breathing. Not only breathing boosts your stamina, but a good amount of oxygen in your body makes your body relaxed too. During the exercise sessions, our heart beats faster and body demands more oxygen in order to function properly. So focus on your breathing and your performance would improve manifolds.
The right breathing technique is inhaling air through your nose and letting it out by your mouth. This is something you will learn with practice. Once you are familiar with it, you might see your running sessions getting extended.
How to Increase Running Stamina for Beginners?
Running is one of those exercises that sound ridiculously easy and challenging at the same time,
especially when you’re first starting out. I have been running off and on for a couple of years now and it was only in the past couple months now that I’ve finally unlocked the key to a successful running habit. Here are a few running tips to run faster for beginners.
Running Gear
First, let’s talk about the gear you might need as a runner. What you probably don’t know is gear is subjective and it might take a bit of experimentation for you to figure out what might really work for you. But when we’re talking about running gear, the first one is a good pair of running shoes.
Running shoes come in different shapes and sizes. Some are built for a high arch, some are built for trails and some are built to mimic the barefoot. You name it and you will find a specific type of running shoes for it. So, running shoes that work for me might not work for you and vice versa. That being said, there are a couple of things to keep in mind when you’re looking for a pair of shoes. If you’re going to be running in it, see if you can wiggle your toes. Does it have a snug fit? You can even try the pair on a treadmill first to see how it feels.
Besides this, some other things that should be in your running gear list are running clothes, a smartwatch or heart rate monitor, socks and gloves.
Food
Taking care of what you feed your body is another important concern. It takes some people forever to figure out what and when to eat before they would go out on a run. Should they have a heavy breakfast? Or a light one? When should they eat? Or whether they should eat anything at all?
Similar to the running gear, this is also kind of subjective. There are two strategies that work well for me. The first one is a sprint session in the early morning with an empty stomach. But remember, you should start the session as soon as you wake up from the bed. Otherwise, you might feel extremely lightheaded and nauseous. I often do this because this makes me energetic and productive to take on the whole day.
The second strategy that might work well for you (which does for me) is having a light “car bridge snack” somewhere between 30 and 60 minutes before a run. It could be a banana or an apple or something light like that. A light snack gives me enough energy to do cardio in the morning and it would never make you sick or your head heavy like a large meal would.
Secrets foods for Stamina Boost
Banana has a combination of fiber and simple fructose or natural fruit sugars. Having a banana gives you instant energy and increases your stamina in the long run.
If you need Iron-rich foods in your diet, beans have the best oxygen transportation capacity to the blood.
Peanut butter is also excellent for building stamina. It is high in calories and digests slowly. Consume peanut butter together with complex carbs.
For maintaining a healthy heart, boosting the immune system, controlling weight and liver detoxification, apples got all the qualities. Due to high amount of soluble fiber, consuming an apple would keep you energetic and full stomach. Iron helps to increase the hemoglobin in blood, increases the oxygen to muscle and builds up stamina.
Demands of Almonds never shrank in the list of most healthy foods. They are rich in vitamin B and Omega 3 fatty acids. Omega 3 fatty acids are something that does not get stored in our body instead provides with a high amount of energy.
If you are willing to work for long hours and without having a feeling of exhaustion, you can just consume a glass of beetroot juice. With a high amount of Vitamin C and A, Beetroot is helpful for fatigue reduction and stamina building.
Pace and Motivation
Two things that go hand in hand tips to run faster are pace and motivation. When you’re starting out running for the first time, it’s really easy to jump the gun and start running at an above-average pace. Especially when you might not be familiar with your own personal average pace.
But after a couple blocks, if you’re running too fast, you’ll feel a burning in your lungs. Your heart will start racing in an uncomfortable way that it will be impossible for you to catch your breath. Then you’ll slow down, stop try to breathe and feel so frustrated with yourself and defeated. The hardest part about running isn’t even your leg giving up or the sweat pouring down your face or your earbud popping out. In the middle of it all is your body telling you to stop and that it’s too hard.
The trick around this is to tell yourself, “I will stop after the next song,” try this till you totally can’t move your legs. at the end of the day when you finish your run, no matter how far you went or how it goes, feel proud of yourself. At least you proved that you could get up and move to the end of the day.
How to increase stamina for running? Pro- Guideline
Are you willing to enhance your cardio strength for long distance running? Here is a guideline that can help you have a better stamina for the next level for running. This is a technique that will push you to your running limits and boost your stamina. The idea is to make overall cardiovascular development by increasing breathing capacity and burning calories in such a way that you do not harm yourself. Additionally, it will make your routine interesting.
Stamina boost by Interval Training
Interval training means you do not drag yourself to your extremes. You need to have a combination of low and high-intensity running distributed equally in alternate periods. Further, they can be segmented to the following:
Steady intervals
This starts with a warm-up session of 10-15 minutes, then gradually moving towards a slow jog, increasing speed slowly until you start running at full face.
As soon as you finish warm up, start your interval training. You need to run for a minute at high speed followed by a jog or a walk for next 2-3 minutes. Repeat the cycle for 8-10 times. Gradually train your body for hard intervals. Run for 1 minute and jog for the next 1 minute. Keep this training session for 6 to 8 weeks and you will notice the difference when you take the long run.
Pyramid Intervals
Here you start with short-steady pace, slowly increase the speed to the maximum and vise versa. The idea is to run in high intensity for a longer period in the middle of the workout getting back to low intensity running. This is a bit complicated compared to the steady interval technique but it’s equally effective.
Warm up for 10-15 minutes. As mentioned above, start with a brisk walk, then move to a jog followed by a running session. Follow the running structure acording to the table below:
Repeat the cycle for 8-10 times, finish your running session with freehand stretching.
Cross Train to Build Stamina
Cross training is a very popular idea for increasing stamina. Not only this technique is beneficial for running, but also improves the overall physical condition. Cross training tips are as follows:
Add weight to your workout
If you want to enhance your stamina, you need a mix of weight training workouts and running. When you include weight in your training session, it will get which will make your running more efficient. At least have a full weight workout routine three times a week.
Bike-Power Intervals
Exercising on a bike is very important for your leg muscles. Instead of running 20 minutes uphill, power workout on a cycle is more effective. Firstly, your leg muscles have a better impact and secondly, you don’t hurt your knees.
When you start power cycling, you need to increase your tension up to maximum tolerance level your leg can bear.
PYRAMID INTERVALS
Other than these, a few other tips that would help you to increase your stamina for running include:
- Swimming
- Increasing the running mileage to 10% every week
- Running longer in weekends (slow long runs)
- Increasing polymetric exercises
- Running faster in the end
- Running on uneven surfaces
Make running a habit so that you don’t give up until you progress to your goal. The probable success rate of your intention to increase stamina for running or increase endurance for workouts basically depends on you. At the end of the day, your vision is what that matters. All you need to do is take the first step and stick to your plan.
