Why is endurance important for our assessment?

In my previous blogs, I have put together thoughts on fitness assessment and the key parameters of a fitness assessment.

In case you missed it, you can go through them quickly on: 

Train like Virat Kohli to become like Virat Kohli https://medium.com/burncal-fit/get-your-fitness-assessment-done-today-ac4addb61652

Revealing parameters of BurnCal Fitness Assessment and why it is important for you https://link.medium.com/czgAT7Syadb

Why is strength important for our assessment?https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/fitness-assessment-why-strength-important-our-assessment-chetan-reddy/

In this article, we will get into more details about why Endurance (Parameter 2) is important for assessment. 

Endurance vs Stamina:

A lot of people confuse endurance with stamina. Stamina is your overall ability to sustain an activity for a long period of time. Whereas Endurance means the physical capability to sustain an activity for an extended period of time. The difference is subtle but very important. Example: Improving your time taken to run 5 km is a sign of improving endurance.

Another common belief- People think endurance is important only for athletes, runners, and marathon runners. And a lot of runners think endurance is the ONLY important parameter for them.

But the fact is, strength contributes a lot to your endurance and endurance helps you become better at a lot of things as explained below.

How to improve Endurance?

Firstly, there are two types of endurance - muscular and cardiovascular.

The only way to improve your endurance in both these areas is consistency.

If your focus is on improving your muscular endurance, the best way is to steadily increase your intensity of the workout or increasing your load/weight over the same repetitions.

On the other hand, you can improve your cardiovascular endurance by constantly increasing the time by adding more repetitions. 

It all depends on your current strength especially if you are a beginner. However, if you can include basic strength training in your routine and focus on increasing your aerobic time slowly you can improve your endurance.

What are the benefits of having good endurance?

Endurance would not just help you carry out your fitness activities for a longer period of time, there are numerous benefits. Listing down a few:

1) Mental health - Yes, aerobic activities for longer periods of time helps you improve your mood and reduce depression levels giving you instant gratification and a sense of accomplishment.

2) Sleep- Since endurance activities are very exhaustive in nature, you naturally tend to go into a deep sleep the moment you lie down.

3) Aging- Certain studies have proven that even if you are over 50, regular aerobic activities coupled with a good diet ensure your muscle mass stays intact giving you that younger look

4) Lifestyle diseases- Most lifestyle diseases like cardiac arrests and diabetes happen due to sedentary lifestyles. Very simple aerobic activities like walking, running and cycling have shown amazing results in preventing such diseases from happening, improving your cardiovascular system.

How do you know if your endurance is getting better?

Mentioning again that endurance and stamina are two different concepts. Your stamina could be better but not endurance and vice versa.

The best part about endurance is most of the time you can measure it. With the latest developments in technologies wearables, trackers and apps have been quite accurate. I would not say really accurate but something worth relying upon for understanding on a relative scale.

However, for a lot of people, it becomes really tough to understand how to get better at these activities. I have seen people struggling to achieve their marathon runs in desired time.

While your tracker might say that you have burnt more calories or walked more km, it is not just enough for long term improvement.

What if there is a way to show your current endurance levels?

What if there is a way to guide you on how to improve it periodically with regular goal setting and giving you that sense of accomplishment?

That is exactly why we are carrying out fitness assessments at BurnCal. Know your fitness ability today. Know where you stand today so that we can also show you how strong you are getting over a period of time.

Don’t you think periodic assessments will motivate you to continue your fitness journey? 

You could also boast amongst your friends! Well, that is something I would definitely love to do. With a lot of steps, running, and cycling challenges at a full peak in the online world, this is something you should be totally excited about getting done.

This is what is missing in the current format and we are re-defining it. Try out how it feels like to workout with numbers.

Take your first step. Get yourself assessed today! Sign up at https://www.burncal.fit/assessment