In this article, I want to talk about such physical activities that prolong life, revitalize, rejuvenate, give vigor, and good mood. These are endurance exercises. Are all types of physical activity equally beneficial? There is fitness, which gives visible external results. There are sports that allow you to reach high places and overcome yourself. And there are exercises that improve health. And at the same time almost without affecting visual changes in the figure.
In this article I want to talk about just such physical activity, which prolongs life, revitalizes, rejuvenates, gives vigor and good mood. These are endurance exercises.
What are endurance exercises
here are two main types of endurance:
- General (cardiovascular or cardiovascular endurance). It helps to keep the heart and blood vessels working well for long periods of time with different types of physical activity.
2. Strength (muscular). Requires repeated repetition of exercises so that muscles “get used to” contracting more and more times
How endurance improves quality of life.
While one gets tired after half an hour and can’t even do household chores, you can feel great for long stretches. A simple example: washing windows. Someone will fall exhausted after the first window, another will wash two floors and then still ride a bike to the store.
The amount of muscle mass is not that important. It’s more important to have stamina. You’ve probably seen many times hustling and fragile women who run like electrowomeniks on the site: here to dig, there to loosen, here weeding arrange. And all this with jokes and jokes and jokes. And another lady, like, more shapely, goes to the gym, but after 15 minutes already hardly moves her legs.
Why is that? Because endurance depends on how gas exchange works in the body. That is, how healthy and trained the circulatory, respiratory and nervous systems are.
Endurance develops biochemical processes that help you perform physical work for longer periods of time and keep your nervous system resistant to high-intensity stimulation.
Endurance and telomeres - what are they?
I’ve read several popular science articles with studies on the link between sports and longevity. Scientists are unanimous that any kind of beneficial physical activity improves our health. But some types of exercise have a particular impact on active longevity. These include, first of all, endurance training.
For example, in one of the studies involved almost 300 volunteers. They had to perform certain sets of exercises for six months. And later, scientists measured telomeres.
So, what did the results of the study show? There were 3 groups of volunteers who participated:
- The first group did light aerobics.
- Endurance declines faster than muscle mass
- I have two pieces of news for you. Which one do you want to start with? I usually prefer the bad one.
- Endurance without training is lost very quickly. Not only athletes know this. Only 7-10 days are enough for you to be unable, for example, to easily run 5 km, which you have recently overcome in one breath. At the same time, you can be in excellent shape: taut, slender, with a pronounced musculature. But your endurance will drop by 3-5%. That is, you will either run this distance 3-5% slower or your heart rate will increase by the same percentage.
- After 21 days, your endurance will drop by 10%. And after a month, 14%. What does that tell you? Stamina needs to be trained every day.
- But don’t feel bad! I have a second piece of news for you. And it’s a great one:
- Endurance is gained faster than muscle mass.
- Your endurance will grow every day. And with it, your chances of achieving an active longevity. You don’t have to go to the gym to develop your stamina. Below I will tell you what you can do.
2. The second group alternated between heavy and light exercise (bicycling and rowing).
3. The third group exercised on weight machines.
Can you guess which group had the best results in terms of biological age markers? Actually, two: those who ran/aerobics and those who alternated between rowing and cycling.
The point is that endurance changes the metabolic environment of the cells: it affects the metabolism of each cell. Thereby revitalizing our body.
How endurance affects longevity.
✅ Improves blood flow. When your heart rate increases, blood can move 20 times faster.
✅ Improves cellular nutrition. An accelerated blood supply delivers nutrients faster.
✅ Increases lymph flow. Cells not only receive more nutrition, but also get rid of breakdown products faster.
✅ Improves metabolism. That is, metabolism. This is a consequence of the previous points.
✅ Increases immunity. The lymphatic system is responsible for the body’s resistance and immunity.
✅ Improves gas exchange. That is, the respiratory and cardiovascular systems.
✅ Strengthens the stabilizer muscles. They support our skeleton, affect our posture and sense of balance. They help the body to be in an optimal position.
✅ Heals the spine. This is a consequence of the previous point. Strong stabilizer muscles are a healthy spine. They keep the vertebrae aligned both at rest and in motion.
✅ Strengthen joints and bone tissue. And that’s injury prevention. In a bonus chapter below, I’ll talk about how endurance exercises improve bone strength.
✅ Increase self-confidence. You discover new possibilities of your body, it starts to obey better, becomes more flexible. All this directly and indirectly affects the inner feeling of confidence. Which manifests itself externally. One posture is worth it!
✅ It’s a mood booster. Just like any healthy physical activity. This is due to the release of certain hormones, lymphatic outflow, improved blood supply and gas exchange.
✅ Help maintain a healthy body weight. I deliberately don’t write that they help you lose weight. Because there are both underweight and overweight people. Endurance exercises normalize metabolism.
✅ Strengthen the nervous system. It becomes more resistant to prolonged stress. Not just physical stress. And it also directly affects life expectancy: strong nerves – good health.
Aerobic. Strengthen the heart and blood vessels. These are running, bicycling, skiing, jumping, dancing, aerobics, swimming and other types
Strength training. Strengthen the muscles. These can be classes in the gym, but functional. That is, aimed not at gaining muscle mass, but at developing the endurance of different muscle groups.
Speed. Train susceptibility to intensity. This is, for example, speed running, fast cycling, etc.
Interval training. Alternating intervals of high and low intensity physical activity. This is the ultimate in endurance training. You are expected to measure your heart rate.
For interval training, a certain algorithm is developed, which necessarily has a warm-up (at least 5 minutes), aerobic load, strength load, static load and warm-up.
Warm-up prepares the body for the exercise, raises the temperature in the tissues, makes them more plastic and, accordingly, protected from stretching.
Aerobic exercise involves loads that increase the heart rate. For example, the same bicycle.
Specific endurance exercises.
Endurance exercises can also be your favorite fitness variation. The difference from a regular exercise is to perform as many repetitions as possible in several approaches. As well as increasing the distance and intensity.
Running. If you do not have contraindications. You can run in place, on a treadmill or jogging on the street (ideal). Here it is important to master the correct technique of running, so it is better to take at least a couple of trainings with a trainer.
Nordic walking. Develops the whole body. The distance can be systematically increased every day.
Dancing. My all-time favorite. Fortunately, now there is such a huge selection of online lessons, including free ones. You can practice any type of dance. The main thing is regularity. At least four times a week.
Jumping rope. How many jumps can you perform after warming up? Write this number down. In a year you will be very surprised by the result.
Push-ups. As with squats, it is better to do 2-3 approaches with the maximum number of repetitions you can do.
Squash and other types of tennis. Ping-Pong (table tennis) is also a great eye training and concentration exercise.
“shadow boxing.” That is training with a punching bag. This is a more exotic kind of physical activity. Many people think that only men are engaged in such activities. However, for women, such training for endurance is also very useful. True, here you can not do without a coach, at least at the initial stage.
Burpee. Stand up straight, feet shoulder width apart. Jump up and simultaneously raise your arms. As soon as your feet touch the floor, place your hands on the floor as well (at shoulder level). Jump into the plank. Now jump back into a squat. And jump up with your arms raised. Repeat the maximum number of times. Pause. And do a couple more sets.
Circuit training. This is when you perform exercises for different muscle groups after warming up without a break. Be sure to finish with stretching. Suitable for beginners. For beginners, such intensity is still too much.
Static exercises. The most popular and universal is the plank. And very good is “Birch” (stand). I have even devoted separate articles to these exercises.
