“I want better endurance.”
“I just gas out so quickly.”
“I do cardio, but don’t feel like I’m making progress.”
Can you relate?
As someone interested in the science of endurance/energy systems, I talk about it a lot — with clients, friends, family, training partners, coworkers, etc.
And I hear it all the time — People want better conditioning, but they don’t know how to get there. They do their cardio, but they’ve seemed to hit a ceiling. So, let’s talk about some potential pitfalls.
5 REASONS YOUR ENDURANCE STILL SUCKS (DESPITE DOING CARDIO)
- YOU’RE NOT TRAINING AT A VARIETY OF INTENSITIES: A lot of times, people want to improve conditioning & they decide to go out and start running or pick up orange theory or what have you, and they aren’t intentional with intensity. They go out & try to go as fast as they can for as long as they can, or as fast as is comfortable to just check the box. You need to understand that good endurance is comprised of multiple systems, mainly your aerobic & anaerobic system. They work together, but they also do different things for & need to be trained somewhat differently. Aerobic: think long, slow, conversational pace work. Anaerobic: think sprints, threshold work, higher intensity stuff. Let easy be easy and let hard be hard — and be intentional about both!
- YOU’RE NOT PUTTING IN THE WORK: Ouch. This is not the case for everyone — sometimes folks are putting in too much work. But most people underestimate how much of a time commitment is actually needed to see big gains in your endurance, particularly because your aerobic fitness (which is big big important) responds best to a lot of volume. You need to just do a ton of it over a long period of time. The greater your aerobic fitness, the more you’ll need to do to get it to keep improving. 90 minutes/week might start out being plenty of training to improve, but for an elite athlete 90 minutes might be half of one day’s session. It just depends.
- YOU’VE BEEN INCONSISTENT: It’s important to have a good program, but don’t just hop from one program/trend/training method to another before you’ve really given your body time to absorb & adapt to what you’ve got going on right now. Endurance takes TIME to build. It’s a slow grind, but it’s worth it. Be patient & embrace the monotony. Building endurance is a lot of doing the same thing week after week, literally putting one foot in front of the other with like, a 1% improvement each week. You have to trust that it will add up.
- YOU’RE NOT DOING MUCH SPECIFIC TRAINING: Consider why you want better conditioning. What’s the arena you want to be able to apply it in. Up on the mountain? On the mats? On your bike? On the pavement? Cool — now let’s see… Are you spending time doing the thing you’re trying to get better at in the environment you’re gonna be in? If you want to get better at running, you must run. If you want to get better at hiking, you must hike. Not every session…cross training is a good idea! Especially if your overall training load is high & you’re trying to spare your joints/tissues while still getting the cardiac adaptation. But don’t complain if you wanted to be a better hiker & gas out on the hill, if most of your cardio was done on the rower.
- YOU’RE NOT SUPPORTING YOURSELF ELESWHERE: Strength training to build resilient bones/tissue. Eating/hydrating enough to give your body the building blocks needed to do what you want it to. Sleeping & managing stress so recovery can occur. Investing in a good pair of shoes. Setting boundaries. Taking full rest days. If this is important to you, let your life reflect that.
That’s all for now. If you want to chat about this, or need some guidance, my inbox is always open & I’d love to hear from you!
Peace & Love,
Sofia