Pillar III : Endurance
Simply means enduring the process. It’s not just a physical but a mental game too.
Then why should I endure a tough thing ?
Well it’s one way to look at this.
Rather celebrate that your body can do it !
Endurance is a simple term but very complex underneath. When we talk about endurance, the first thing our mind looks at is people running at a fast pace for a long time, the elite marathon runners, the pro cyclists or the olympic swimmers! What we fail to realise is that this is not what endurance is all about !
Not everyone can be a pro/elite, and it’s well quite okay, you don’t have to be. Your own niche, your own expertise is brilliant on its own & you should not look at it this way. Treat endurance like your own physical limits & capabilities that you have to exceed and know what you are capable of doing way more than what you can imagine. You will never realise it unless you try it.
But isn’t running/cycling/swimming long time very tough?
It’s because you have been taught wrong since your very childhood itself, by everyone around you, including your friends, family & the society in general.
When we think of any endurance sport we think of performing as hard as we can so that we burn a lot of calories & lose weight. I believe this premise of doing endurance for this very reason is flawed in its own right. Endurance sport is not about that at all ! Endurance is taking things slowly but doing it for a long span of time. You are not just burning calories, you are improving your heart, making your mitochondria (powerhouse of cell) more efficient, strengthening your legs, body & mind at the same time.
Needless to say that your heart is the most vital organ in your body & to keep it healthy you have to condition it, you have to train it & you have to make sure it runs at the most optimal level it can.
But once again, why ?
To have the best VO2Max !
What is VO2Max ?
Basically it’s the maximum amount of oxygen your body can efficiently absorb and utilize during an exercise.
VO2Max is one of the best & reliable indicator to tell how healthy you are or in other words how good is your aerobic capacity. A higher VO2Max means you can perform a certain activity at a higher intensity for a longer time without getting tired easily.
Why do I need it ?
Well anything that you do requires your heart to absorb oxygen and deliver it to your cells to convert into energy (along with either fat/gycogen). Like even lifting a glass of water or getting up from your chair and moving to the kitchen, everything & anything you do, your heart plays a vital role in that !
The higher your VO2Max is, the simpler it is to do these things. Yes in your early ages, these things doesn’t matter at all, but as you age, you turn 70-80 that literally means a lot. Even today we see our grandparents struggling to even do these basic things & one of the reason is their low VO2Max. You can’t build it at that age but surely you can do it now. The higher you build it now, the better runoff you will have down the line.
And not only that you can actually run / cycle / swim at a very great level, doing things that is like super tough or even seems impossible for others. Running a marathon or a duathlon or even better doing an IronMan !
How to build Endurance ?
Slowly and steadily !
It is not build in a day or a week or a month. It takes years, yes years, but before getting afraid remember that a journey to a thousand miles begins with a single step.
The easiest and most accessible way is to start running ! (& yes you can apply this principle in cycling or swimming as well)
- slow running / jogging is what builds the foundation.
- the main principle is to be in your zone-2
- zone-2 is when are working at 60-70% of your max heart rate.
- max heart rate is very individual specific but just a rough estimate is you have a 200bpm as max (depending on your age again), then you have to stay around 150bpm.
- this will helps you to run for longer duration without getting much tired.
- But yes slow running is a bit hard on body but it is what will build strength in your leg muscles as well as develop your mitochondria (powerhouse of the cell).
- During slow runs, your body is basically using the fat reserves along with oxygen and convert it into fuel to help you sustain the effort (its not only fat but some levels of glycogen as well)
- Consistent runs every day / multiple times a week, while gradually increasing the distance by 10% per week will help you to increase your aerobic capacity.
- A 5k run which looks quite difficult today, will be very easy in few weeks
- A 21k Half Marathon, which seems impossible can be attained in only few months of consistent training
- Yes you need intervals, strength, plyometrics etc for making your running more efficient but its the zone-2 or the aerobic that matters the most.
Remember slow & steady wins the race :)
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Saksham Khurana
Saksham Khurana
Saksham Khurana
