So you’re looking to lose weight, get back in shape, or have just decided to do what it takes to help out your body. Either way, you’re going to have to start somewhere. And nothing works better than building up your endurance, which is something that a lot of people tend to ignore.

Most people fail to understand that building endurance also develops muscle. In addition, the added muscle weight also helps the body absorb the impact of strenuous exercise that would otherwise put stress on your joints. So, here are a few ways in which you can boost your endurance if you’re new to exercise or are restarting after a long time.

1. A Routine is Your Enemy

The problem with the human body is that is it extremely adaptive and gets used to whatever workout routine that you’ve set for yourself. So, make sure you switch up your workout if you want to build endurance and stamina. The whole point is to move your muscles in a different manner, to ensure you don’t overuse the same ones.

2. Strength & Cardio Combination

The more you get your muscles working, the more you can challenge cardiovascular system and heart. So, make sure to pair up an appropriate number of strength days into your cardio training. The typical gym-goer has just one day for strength training, with another day for cardio. Combining the two strenuous workouts will definitely have a positive effect. Combine exercises like bench-pressing, jumping rope, followed by squats, sit ups, push-ups, and so on.

3. Reduce Your Time Outs
   

You’d typically give yourself 30 to 90 seconds of recuperating time between sets. The key to endurance, however, is to cut down on break time. You should literally overwork yourself until you’re a dead beat. Do a round of 10 pull-ups, squats, push-ups, & sit-ups.

4. Fast Paced Lifting

If you pump weights at an extremely rapid rate, it will improve your strength and resistance, and will also carry over on to endurance building. The problem with doing too much of endurance-only training will begin to eat away at your muscle tissue, effectively slowing down metabolism.

5. Compound Movements

Working along the same principle that moving multiple muscles at the same time improves endurance, compound moves are those that require the use of more than one joint. Performing warm-up exercises like squats, push-ups, and pull-ups will further enhance endurance, compared to exercises in isolation.

8. Add Cardio to Your Cardio

Not always recommended for the beginner, but you could always include sudden explosive movements that consume a lot of energy to challenge your strength, especially if you want to build endurance and stamina. Once your exercise becomes more explosive, you’ll actually be doing everything a lot faster.

Written by Benjamin Roussey for bodono.

Benjamin Roussey is from Sacramento, CA. He has two master’s degrees and served four years in the US Navy. His bachelor’s degree is from CSUS (1999) where he was on a baseball pitching scholarship. He has an MBA in Global Management from the Univ. of Phoenix (2006) where he attributes his writing prowess. He has worked everywhere from small businesses to large corporations, and also for public agencies. He has lived in Korea and Saudi Arabia where he was an ESL instructor. He misses Saudi food and living in Korea. Benjamin has a tremendous work ethic and is quite focused. Now he writes professionally for several clients that covers one sector of our economy to another. Currently he lives in the Phoenix area after living in Cabo San Lucas, MX for 3 years. He enjoys sports, movies, reading, and current events when he is not working online: www.infinista.com.