“I want to be fitter… run longer, jump higher and never get tired”
How can you increase your fitness if you’re already ‘fit’?
There was a day some time ago when you embarked on your fitness journey.
Whether you chose to start running or join a gym you made a decision to ‘be fitter’.
But you’re not like everyone else are you?
You discovered that you’re extremely motivated. You push yourself to continually make progress.
Unlike the average ‘fitness enthusiast’ you choose to make training a larger part of your life.
Now you want to know...
How can you keep increasing your endurance?
Reaching your fitness potential is an art.
A complex process in which many factors influence your bodies ability to progress.
If you’re serious about reaching your potential you need to avoid these common mistakes.
Avoid doing...
1. More of the same
Doing more of something to improve it seems logical.
However…
More is not always better especially when it comes to fitness.
The truth is…
More can be better.
If you’re mixing up your endurance training correctly you can still make progress.
But doing the same 45 second interval class everyday will bring your fitness to a slow death.
Be smart with your endurance work.
The program I write at Creature is layered with effective endurance models allowing for continual progress.
Well balanced high and low intensity training allows the body to progress faster.
2. No days off
You know recovery is important.
Think of your lungs and heart as your ‘fitness muscles’.
Like other ‘muscles’ they need to be trained hard to improve.
They also need to be rested to grow and recover.
The heart and lungs are damaged from intense exercise.
They tear, bleed and temporarily weaken after hard training.
It is important then to have proper recovery in your program to give them rest.
3. Improper pacing
Nothing is more fatiguing than poor pacing.
No matter what sport or exercise you do pacing is an essential part of fitness.
RPE (Rate of perceived exertion), heart rate monitoring and effort levels are all tools used by coaches to improve pacing.
Improving your pacing can mean faster times despite no actual increase in physical fitness.
All great coaches know...
The more accurately you can pace a workout to your physical ability the further you can stretch your body's limits.
Learning to pace properly is simply a matter of being more conscious in your training.
Write down, video and monitor your training closely.
Experiment with various strategies to see how your body reacts.
If you want to perform at your best this is an essential process.
4. Self programming
If you write your own workouts it is likely you are making critical errors in your endurance workouts.
As we spoke about earlier doing more of the same is bad.
However doing more variety can be good.
But how exactly can you piece it all together?
Well unless it is your profession to write programming and coach people through it…
I would highly recommend finding an experienced coach.
Programming is super tricky.
It is an under appreciated art form in many ways.
Having written thousands of group and individual programs over the last 5 years I can say with absolute certainty that putting it altogether is no walk in the park.
5. Non-specific
If you are trying to go beyond a well rounded fitness aka GPP (General Physical Preparedness) you need to be more specific.
Whether you are trying to improve your marathon, CrossFit Open rank or triathlon times you need to dial in your training.
Rather than a more well-rounded approach to variety of movement, time zones and intensity you should now become more focused on improving singular aspects of your performance.
For example…
If you want to improve your marathon time by 12 seconds in your 26th race many factors must be considered.
Stride cadence, breaths per minute, heart rate zones and other extreme details must all be trained individually.
This will have a much greater effect on overall performance.
Another example…
A CrossFitter who wants to go from 51st to 30th in The Open must look at the main movements that will hold them back from qualifying.
If it is pulling endurance… specific hamstring, low back and glute training must be programmed to see the biggest benefits.
So...
Are you holding back your fitness with any of these errors?
It’s not too late.
Start with one simple change and stick to it for 2 weeks.
Your improvements will blow you away.
Want to take your fitness to the next level?
See how our coaches and program can help you regardless of where you are at.