I was watching Stan Lee’s Superhumans on TV the other day and the episode I happened to catch discussed whether or not Dean Karnazes was superhuman. The conclusion was that his body metabolizes lactic acid in such a way that it never builds up in his blood, unlike most people, giving him the ability to run without ever wearing down. Its pretty amazing. And, if you happen to see it on TV, watch it…its a good show.
But, I got to thinking about how us average humans can build a little super human endurance of our own. So here are a few tips from me to you that can help you stretch yourself out a little bit and enable you to go just a little bit longer.
1. Slow down your workout: I’m all for high intensity training and really rocking the workout. Despite the amount of running I do, I still use high intensity weight training as a way to build my strength and as I’ve been coming back from my thyroid problem, to help fight and eliminate some of the excess fat that my body began to store.
While Long Slow Distance running has its detractors, in my own training, I have found that it has helped me at all distances. And, from having run countless marathons and half marathons, I realize that the reason I have the ability to race these races with little beating to my body is because of the base of long slow miles that I developed early on, training with Coach Adam.
So slow down, you’ll get stronger because you will force your body to work for a longer time…and that will give you better endurance.
2. Lift weights: As I said above, I am an advocate of high intensity weight training, even now that the extra muscle weight kind of works against some of my running goals.
While you don’t have to become Mike Mentzer or use his consolidated training plan to get bigger and stronger, lifting weights will give you better endurance.
Part of the endurance benefit is going to come from the way that intense weight training taxes your cardiovascular system, but more, your muscles are going to become stronger, which is a big duh for most of us but I feel like I better clarify it, and this will allow you to sustain the same intensity to your endurance training for a longer time.
Don’t worry about bulking up, because most weight training isn’t going to turn you into the living embodiment of the Hulk. But it will help your endurance.
3. Hydrate properly: Too often we forget about this one. Drink lots and lots of water when you are exercising. Especially when its hot.
If your pee isn’t clear or light yellow, you are dehydrated. Drink more water. Being properly hydrated will help your endurance and it also helps your liver break down and remove fats from your body, so that’s an added benefit, free of charge.
That’s my 3 tips for helping build up some super endurance. I could go on, but I think if you introduce one of these things, you will have an immediate improvement in your endurance.
Let me know what happens.