Hey hey #fitfam, thank you for reading! A common question that I am asked by people that I meet is how to increase endurance. In most cases, the average person understands how to get stronger; lift weights or focus on exercises that challenge their strength, such as pushups. However, these individuals still end up fatigued easily or struggle to hit every rep in a set without pauses or simply stopping completely.
The pausing and stopping is most often related to issues with stamina or endurance. Endurance is the ability to sustain a prolonged stressful effort, such as consecutive sit-ups, squats, or dumbbell curls to the completion of a set. Sometimes we are just to ambitious and try to do too many reps in a row and we fail. Hey, 30 straight reps on the bench press may be great if you’re at the NFL Draft Combine, but in general, it is not recommended without some break between groups of 5 or 10 reps. Believe it or not, breaking your sets into smaller rep burst can help increase your ability to do more reps in a row.
I’ll bet you’re wondering how in the heck can I increase my endurance/stamina by doing less reps consecutively. The explanation is simple: by using controlled movement and managing your load, you are allowing the muscles to fully activate and you’ll be getting more form each rep. The ‘key’ here is form, by committing to less consecutive reps, you can slow down your tempo and focus on executing the same rep over and over in the exact same way.
That simple focus on form and moving slowly instead of exploding through reps is allowing your body to reap the maximum benefits while lifting the right amount of weight, the right amount of times in a safe and effective way. Unless your goal is body building or muscle growth, you can use lighter weights and slowly increase your stamina. In a short time, you’ll feel stronger and find that you can lift for longer periods with your rep burst incrementally increasing at your own pace.
For lung endurance, it will vary by person but the most important element to focus on is incremental increases to distance or time spent exerting. As an example, if you prefer the treadmill, try walking at a comfortable pace for 2 mins, then trot or run for 1 min, alternate back and forth for a pre-set amount of time, let’s say 15 mins. Do this daily or every 2 days and you will quickly be increasing your run time and decreasing your walk time. The result swill make you feel amazing!
Lastly, I have training programs as low as $75/month that will supplement and guide you to your goals.
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I generally do 10-12 reps and that I find works best for me I had a trainer tell me if you get to the 7th rep and you feel you could do more increase your weight.
Hi Tianna, solid strategy and sound advice from that trainer. If you find that when you’re executing reps that you hav to constantly slow down the motion, then the weight is too light. There is a happy medium between your functional weight and a challenge. In general, you want to workout with weights that are 60% of your 1 rep maximum. An example, if your bench press 1 rep max is 100 lbs, then 60 lbs is just enough challenge to increase your strength and build muscle endurance.