There are certain important components of nutrition and fitness one has to pay attention to when they’re training for a marathon, a league sport, running, or cycling. To perform better, basics like staying hydrated, getting nutrition, doing strength training and proper warmups have to be looked after. Endurance training is important for workout. The six key components of physical fitness listed below. The priority of these may change depending upon each individual’s experience and skill.
- Endurance
- Movement Economy
- Strength/Power
- Speed
- Mental Fitness
- Recovery/Regeneration
If you want to improve your exercise endurance, here are some key components to train for endurance:
- Take care of hydration: For starting training for an endurance sport, you should make sure that your body is hydrated. If this is not taken care of, it may result in having muscle cramps or muscle fatigue resulting from depleted minerals, particularly electrolytes. Staying hydrated will only help you when training for endurance.
- Have a powerful warm up: Athletes start their warm up with jogging or some light cycling. But when you want to improve endurance, your body requires more than just jogging to truly prepare for it. So have a warm up that will get you energized for a powerful workout.
- Eat fruits and vegetables: Your body needs a lot when training for an endurance sport. Endurance training puts your body through a lot of stress, so you need to take care of it. Taking care of your body is very important and it can be done by taking a nutritious diet.
- Incorporate strength training: When training for endurance, do not neglect strength training. Endurance athletes often don’t take strength training seriously, but this is not right. Many studies show that including strength training increases your energy and speed and leads to lesser injuries. So, endurance training and strength training should go hand in hand to obtain optimal results.
- Eat protein: Having a balanced diet is important for a successful athlete. Most athletes tend to increase their carb intake to make up for the glycogen that’s burnt, but often don’t increase their protein intake. Increasing your intake of protein is important for maintaining your muscle health.
- Include interval training: Your body has energy systems like the immediate energy system, glycolytic system and oxidative system. Think of it as three stages of training. To properly prepare for endurance, you should train for all three of these energy systems to be well prepared.