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Want to know how to increase your stamina? Read our expert's advice to increase stamina in just 1-week.
READ MOREThe word stamina usually refers to the physical or mental capacity of an individual to sustain a prolonged stressful effort or an activity. It also means that a person with low physical or mental stamina may get easily exhausted or experience a lack of focus on the task at hand and get easily distracted. Stamina is often interchangeably used with endurance, but though being related concepts they do have their own distinct meanings.
While stamina is the amount of time, a group of muscles or neurons can perform a particular task with maximum capacity, endurance is the maximum amount of time a group of muscles or neurons can perform a specific task.
Now that we have made an effort to appreciate the importance of a good stamina, it is also necessary to initiate a conversation regarding the ways to increase stamina. Underlying medical causes like thyroid, blood sugar or cholesterol, poor nutrition and physical and/or mental stress are some of the major reasons for poor stamina and mentioned below is a list of benefits of increasing stamina:
After a brief understanding of ‘ What is stamina?’ and ‘ Benefits of increasing stamina’, the next big question that we need to tackle is ‘ How to increase stamina?’ A low stamina can usually be increased by stamina building exercises, stamina boosting supplements and some general home remedies to build a good stamina.
According to a study published in a renowned journal, listening to good music improves your cardiac efficiency by lowering your heart rate. This enables you to perform the task at hand for a much longer duration with maximum efficiency.
As published in a 2017 study, caffeine has the ability to improve your stamina and helps you boost the energy needed to complete rigorous tasks. The best way to increase stamina and be able to sweat it out for long hours at the gym, is by drinking a few caffeine shots before hitting the gym. However, care should also be taken to prevent an individual’s body from developing caffeine tolerance, consuming caffeine sources with large amounts of sugar and other artificial flavors and preservatives, as this may lead to addiction, diabetes and other health issues.
Hydration is linked to muscle nourishment, which clearly indicates that adequate hydration can help muscles perform better and for longer durations.
A good uninterrupted sleep is very essential for building good stamina. Your body is a complex machine that also needs its own sweet time of rest, after which it can perform optimally. Measures like no TV/WiFi before an hour to bed or having meals at least three hours prior to bed are some of the important tips that necessarily tell you how to increase stamina.
As we have already established that any form of underlying mental or psychological trauma is one of the major reasons for poor stamina, performing yoga and meditation on a daily basis helps relieve such stresses and eventually build good stamina.
Basically any exercise that challenges your breathing capacities and helps you sweat it out is considered to be the best workout to increase stamina. Swimming in the pool for about 20 minutes daily will help your lungs to deliver more oxygen throughout your body, provide a good breathing exercise and improve your overall efficiency to perform any given task.
What better to beat the blues, than taking your cycle out for a spin! According to a study, if you want to know how to increase stamina with a good cardio workout, cycling is your answer! Cycling is known to be one of the best cross training exercises that not only provides you with a ton of aerobic benefits but also helps you build strength and improve your stamina.
Daily dedication of just 15 minutes to the High Intensity Interval Training Workout, is considered to be the best way to increase stamina. Some exercises that can be included in the HIIT workout regimen are mentioned below:
Pullups (Maximum possible in 30 seconds)
Jumping Jacks (Reps 60)
Burpees (Reps 20)
Jump rope (1 min)
Dips (Reps 10-15)
High knees (30 each knee)
Curls with resistance band (20-25 reps)
Crunches (Reps 50)
Bicycle crunches ( 1 minute)
Situps (Reps 15-20)
Hanging knee raises (Reps 15)
Oblique crunches (Reps 20 each side)
Half burpees ( 15-20 seconds)
Strength training or muscle building exercises like fast paced high intensity lifting also form one of the key stamina building exercises. By incorporating lesser break times in between sets and literally resting only when required, such that each set leaves you heavily breathing and sweating, burning your muscles only then you can say that this lifting workout will benefit you in the long run and improve your stamina.
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Eating bananas is the best way to attain instant energy. Bananas are loaded with carbs, fats, potassium and fibers. Consuming bananas right before an intense workout session helps to perform the exercises for a longer duration without getting tired.
As it is already known to many, eggs are an excellent source of protein and are consumed especially by those who want to bulk up on their muscle. Eggs also contain a significant amount of carbohydrates and thereby provide an instant pack of energy when eaten.
Fish is an excellent source of omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin B12, fats and protein. Fishes like tuna and salmon also contain essential fatty acids like DHA and EPA which help build excellent stamina. Fishes are also a good source of carbohydrates that slow down the process of burning calories and thereby provide high amounts of energy to suffice throughout the day.
Complex carbohydrates are a key to good stamina. Therefore, if you have a habit of consuming white rice it is best advisable to shift to the brown variant of rice. Brown rice contains essential minerals like manganese, phosphorus, magnesium, selenium and iron along with loads of fiber and carbs. Thus it takes longer for your body to break down brown rice and provides you with ample energy to last throughout the day to perform various tasks.
The one important thing that you need to avoid if you are looking to achieve good stamina levels is alcohol. Alcohol is known to soothe your nervous system, tame down your reflexes and muscle neuron coordination. You generally tend to experience dehydration post a drinking session. Thus, in order to maintain a good stamina one must take extra precautions and avoid consumption of alcohol.
If there is something that you know is not good for your health, yet you cannot possibly stay away from it, is fried food! You know it's not healthy, yet it is so tasty that it always manages to draw you towards itself. Fried food is loaded with all sorts of fats, takes time to digest in your body and eventually lowers your stamina.
Dairy products like milk contain complex sugars like lactose that take a longer time to digest and in some cases may also cause indigestion. Although milk is a source of protein and overall energy it is always advised to not consume milk before hitting the gym.
Once you understand the essence of building a good stamina and how it helps your overall health in the log run, you can follow the above mentioned tips and incorporate the various workout routines in your daily life. With dedication, sincerity and commitment towards this new routine one can easily increase stamina in just one week.
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