Endurance Training Workouts

Athletes who participate in long distance running or biking events must incorporate endurance training into their workouts.  Endurance training also helps you last longer on any playing field.

Even if you are not a competitive athlete, you can still benefit from the improvement in your overall health.

Endurance is important in any sport.  It allows you to sustain prolonged exercise or physical activity for longer periods of time.  Depending on the sport or activity, this can mean minutes, hours or days.

If you have endurance your circulatory and respiratory systems can provide the energy your muscles need for sustained physical activity.

Types of Endurance

When people talk about endurance, they usually mean aerobic endurance which is related to cardiovascular fitness.  Aerobic exercise uses oxygen to fuel the body with the energy it needs to sustain the workout.

Endurance training workouts develop the body’s energy production system to enable it to support the physical activity for as long as required. Muscular endurance is another type of endurance that helps an athlete perform better.  It builds stamina, or the ability to resist fatigue.

Stamina enables quick recovery so you can continue to work or play while maintaining the same level of performance.  Weight training develops muscular endurance and improves the cardiovascular and respiratory systems.

Benefits of Endurance Training Workouts

Endurance training improves athletic performance at all levels.  Even non-athletes can benefit from endurance training workouts.

It helps regulate metabolism in adults, which stabilizes blood sugar levels and keeps energy levels balanced.  Thus, endurance training workouts also help in the prevention of diabetes.

In general, endurance training improves cardiovascular health.  Because endurance training exercises take a lot or time, it’s best to choose exercises that are challenging yet fun for you.

Guidelines for Endurance Training Workouts

Identify and Set Your Goals

Having a goal motivates you to stick to your training workout. Your goal may be to run a marathon or bike a hundred miles.

Build Endurance Slowly

Understand that you cannot develop endurance overnight.  If your goal is to run 5 miles, start by running one mile each day for a week.  Gradually increase the distance until you are able to run 5 miles at a time.

Interval Training

Incorporate interval training into your endurance training workouts.  The short bursts of high intensity exercise will give your endurance and speed a boost.

Make Time

Set aside one or two days in a week for endurance training workouts.  This should be part of your overall training program.  Endurance training can involve running, swimming, jumping rope, or exercising on a stationary bike.

Training Tools

Use training tools like a heart rate monitor to ensure that you are training correctly.  A heart rate monitor will help you make sure that you stay within your aerobic threshold while exercising.

Avoid Boredom / Possible Injury

To avoid boredom or possible injury, make use of different activities for your endurance training workouts.  You can run, swim, bike, jump rope, do plyometrics, etc.

Elliptical trainers and stationary bikes are also useful for endurance training especially when the weather prevents you from exercising outdoors.