Stamina is the energy that helps you perform physical or mental activity for a prolonged time. The more stamina you have, the longer you can perform the tasks you have at hand. At the same time, stamina helps you do it properly and keep up with the pace even if you’re doing it on relatively stretched time.
On the other hand, if you have low stamina, you’ll easily get tired and stressed by doing physical or mental activity. Therefore, if you want to perform longer and better, increasing your stamina is a must! So, let’s dive right in so you can learn exactly how to improve your stamina.
Benefits Of Improving Your Stamina
As already mentioned above, stamina gives us the energy to perform well over a stretched time. But having such high energy goes beyond performance.
If you have a high level of stamina, it will have a positive impact on your overall health and life. Since high stamina allows you to perform well over longer periods, this gives you the confidence that you can do whichever work is given to you at hand. Hence, having high stamina will benefit you around work, your family, and your relationships.
Also, having high stamina itself signals a healthy body and mind. In fact, you won’t get to a point of high stamina if you don’t exercise your body and mind! To build stamina, you should work out on yourself – physically and mentally. Naturally, your stamina will increase, allowing you to even perform more over longer periods.\
How To Improve Your Stamina: 9 Top Ways
Listed below are some of the best practices that you can do every day to improve your stamina.
1) Work Out Regularly
Regular exercise is key to building stamina. If you don’t exercise regularly, you won’t be able to build the stamina to perform better and longer next time.
This is not only limited to physical activities but mental as well. Those who regularly perform a mental activity on something – say, writing or even simply calculating with their head – are better at performing them compared to those that don’t do them regularly (or not at all). This explains why Christopher Hitchens can write down a 1,000-word column in less than 30 minutes while an average college student can’t get started with a 300-500 word essay.
Now, you don’t need to beat yourself up for having low stamina, but if you want to increase it, you have to get started at doing something – be it working out or mental activity. And of course, do it regularly!
2) Eat A Healthy Diet
Although increasing your stamina is mainly about working out regularly, diet also plays a crucial role in stamina-building. A sluggish diet will make you sluggish, even if you’re working out – and eventually, you’ll feel too lazy to even work out at all! So, no, you can’t escape from a bad diet.
It’s also important not to overeat – even with healthy foods. If you eat too much of a food, be it a burger or fruits, you’re going to feel very full. Eventually, you’ll feel sluggish and heavy after your meal.
Eat clean, eat healthily, and eat lean. Compliment your exercise with a clean and healthy diet.
3) Get Enough Sleep
Getting enough sleep is also important for building your stamina, too. Although stamina is all about performing or doing something for a longer time, it does not mean that you should not take a good rest such as sleep.
Eventually, our body will become tired and need fuel to recover. Aside from a proper diet, getting enough sleep is also crucial for our physical and mental recovery. So, work on your stamina, but you don’t have to burn yourself out! If possible, always have a good night’s sleep!
4) Eat Enough Protein
Protein is one of the main building blocks of our body, and it plays a vital role in our body’s overall health. If you are properly supplementing with protein, your metabolism will function properly, your weight is more manageable, your energy is balanced and consistent, you’re overall in a better mood, etc.
When you don’t have proper protein intake, you’ll get the opposite: messed metabolism, weight gain, unstable energy, low mood, etc. If your overall body is not stable, it will be hard for you to build stamina. In fact, in these cases, you may not even think about fitness at all. Get enough protein, and together with regular exercises and an overall proper diet, you can build your stamina.
5) Eat Healthy Fats
Fats have gotten a bad rep over the last forty years. The truth is not all fats are unhealthy; some are very useful for our body and some are even necessary for our body to function properly.
Healthy fats can be beneficial in building stamina because fats can act as our energy source. Aside from that, fats can also make us feel full for a relatively long period of hours. This can keep us from eating too much, which then would lead to weight gain and weaken our stamina.
If we fuel our bodies with healthy fats, we increase our ability to exercise and push through hard workouts.
6) Get Your Daily Dose Of Caffeine
Yes, your favorite morning drink can work to increase your stamina too – if you’re a coffee-lover, that is.
Caffeine can increase your stamina by giving you a good kick of energy for the day, but it can do more than just that! Caffeine is loaded with health benefits, among them increased physical performance. If you utilize caffeine in your workout, it can help you build long-term stamina. That’s why you’ll find that caffeine is a popular ingredient within pre-workout supplements; it is included in MRI Black Powder, BlackWolf Pre-Workout, and 4 Gauge, amongst others.
However, not all people can tolerate caffeine properly, so don’t force it if you can’t.
7) Start By Doing What You Like
Many people have trouble getting started with their workout routine because they are given workout routines (or activities) that they don’t necessarily like. So, they try to keep up with the program, but eventually, they’ll fail it – and so are their fitness goals.
What are the things that you enjoy doing or you think you would enjoy doing? Lifting weights? Running? Cycling? Dancing? Circuit training? CrossFit? HIIT? Obstacle courses? Whatever it is, simply begin there!
When you like what you’re doing, motivation becomes easy because, well, the very activity is already the motivation.
8) Limit Your Rest Between Sets
Limited rest between sets is important because it pushes your body to its limit. Eventually, this builds up your stamina over time.
If you start at the very bottom, you may find yourself getting tired easily after performing an exercise for a relatively short period. It’s okay, and you don’t have to force yourself right away.
But as you do your workout every day, try to push your body a little bit more. For example, try to shorten your rest in-between sets from 2 minutes to 1 minute, and progress even lower than that – mostly, 30 seconds is the lowest rest in-between rest relative to the workout.
If you keep working out every day, you’ll find yourself naturally getting more enduring to each set than before. This is simply because your body grows and becomes strong with it.
9) Take It Slowly
Finally, take it slowly. Building stamina is not about pushing yourself on every workout, although you should do of course your best during your workouts!
Building stamina is more about the consistency of the workout, diet, and sleep routine that you’re following. The more you consistently follow your routine, the more you’ll build stamina over time.
Final Thoughts: Improve Your Stamina
Increasing your stamina takes time, consistency, and hard work. Start with what you enjoy doing and go from there! Make sure you’re keeping up with a healthy diet, getting a proper amount of sleep, and staying on track with regular workouts. Don’t rush or push yourself, stay with it and your stamina will improve before you know it!
