How To Increase Your Stamina?

As per a study, Indians need to exercise 100 minutes more per week compared to Europeans and other westerners to get the same results.

The current physical activity guidelines state that an average adult should do at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity per week. But Indians need to exercise 250 minutes to attain similar results.

This means that we would have to spend 40 minutes a day, 6 days a week working on our bodies. Until 2020, less than 10% of Indians met the physical activity guideline of 150 minutes, let alone 250 minutes.

To sustain the 150-minutes-a-week workout or to endure the increased 250 minutes per week, you need to increase your stamina, which is easier said than done.

What is Stamina?

Stamina is defined as the ability to sustain prolonged physical or mental effort. Notice the word mental effort? It is a crucial part of building stamina. So, it isn’t just physical stamina that you want to work on but also your mental fortitude. It’s helpful to think of building your mental stamina to aid in improving your capacity for physical endurance. After all, the popular saying goes, “the body achieves what the mind believes”.

When you hear the word stamina, you may think about running a marathon or doing a 100 pushups without breaking a sweat. However, climbing just a flight of stairs without huffing and puffing is also stamina. Simply put, it is the ability to persevere.

So let’s look at some practices that can help you increase your stamina, both physical and mental.

Yoga Se Hoga

Your body relies on oxygen to produce energy when exercising. So, one of the keys to building stamina is to better utilise your body’s oxygen. Yoga helps with oxygen saturation. When you meditate, yoga can help you relax and thereby help your body better direct the flow of oxygen.

Yoga also improves your overall physical strength, giving you the edge to improve your stamina.

You can do the following 5 poses to increase your physical stamina:

1. Navasana - the boat pose

2. Hanumanasana - sitting wide-legged in the straddle pose

3. Balasana - the child pose

4. Utkata Konasana - the goddess pose

5. Setu Bandhasana - the bridge pose

As each pose helps you stretch different muscles while controlling your breath, it builds your capacity for enduring difficult positions for progressively longer periods. This way, yoga helps you improve your stamina on many levels.

Werk It Out

To increase your stamina for a full blown workout, you must consistently workout. While this seems like an obvious or oversimplified statement, it is the hard truth. As the aphorism goes, practice makes progress, and it applies to working out as well.

A workout wouldn’t be the first thing that pops into your mind when you’re not feeling energetic (when you are low on stamina). However, you build endurance over time by challenging yourself to achieve more every day.

To improve your stamina, you will have to train with the principle of progressive overload, which is to increase one aspect of your workout everyday―maybe a minute more, a pound more, or lower intervals between each set. Minor tweaks will lead to significant improvement over time.

Do some of the following consistently to improve your stamina:

1. Go on long walks.

2. Add running intervals between your walks.

3. Increase your running distance or time.

4. Run up hills and stairs.

5. Try high-volume weightlifting.

6. Practise isometric exercises.

7. Decrease rest intervals during workouts.

8. Try cycling, rowing, or dancing.

9. Play sports.

Groove To Your Favourite Tunes

Listening to music can help you increase your stamina. Now, isn’t that music to our ears? Music with a tempo of 120–140 beats per minute can provide better stamina while exercising. Exercising to these specific beats of heart-pumping workout music can improve your performance by over 15%.

Music provides a total mental workout as well. If you wish to keep your brain engaged throughout your life, listen to music. Music can help the mind relax, energise your body, and even help with pain management. In many cases, music therapy is used to promote emotional health and help patients cope with stress.

In addition to these stamina-building tips, here are some basics you should follow to build your stamina:

• Get sufficient and regular sleep.

• Consume caffeine in small amounts before you start your workout.

• Ashwagandha isn’t just a flavour enhancer. It can help you build your stamina as well. So, add a little to your regular diet.

• Choose your food wisely. Stay away from sugary, processed foods that make you lethargic.

• Take supplements. No! We are not suggesting that you start high-end doping. Instead, you should consider adding energy-boosting supplements to your routine in consultation with your doctor.

While you build your stamina, you may need to spend a lot on daily healthcare to evaluate your current health and energy levels and develop a sustainable plan for consistent stamina building.

You can explore some of the health plans offered by us at Kenko Health. We offer up to 50% off on OPD expenses like doctor consultations, lab tests, medicines and daily healthcare that includes nutrition and supplements.