Run Longer, Build Endurance: 3 Proven Ways to Improve Stamina

[Music] i want to help you run longer for longer distances more mileage per week which is ultimately going to make you a better runner so let's talk about building your aerobic capacity building your endurance this for any distance runner is their secret sauce this is what is going to help them run faster times because if we're honest about it the limiting factor for most runners is their endurance a lot of us can run really fast but maybe only for five seconds or 30 seconds or a minute or two the key is the ability to extend that speed that's endurance so in this video i want to talk about three different ways that we can build endurance in the order of least risky to most risky because truthfully running is an injury-prone sport you are likely to get injured every single year that you participate in the sport of running that's because running is an impact sport it's you in the ground every stride that you take sends impact forces up through your body so to get stronger to build that ability to run more we have to mitigate those impact forces so let's talk about our least risky way of building endurance and that is simply by running higher mileage now the key here is that we are not going to be running more mileage at any kind of faster speed in fact most of our mileage increases are going to be at a very easy effort in fact if you're using zones we're talking about zone one or zone two very easy either at a recovery pace or at an easy effort that feels comfortable controlled and conversational those are my three c's of easy running so if you're not sure if you're running at an easy effort just remember do i feel comfortable do i feel in a in a controlled state and would i be able to carry on a conversation with someone if they were running next to me because what easy running does is it builds your foundation it improves a lot of structural things within your body things like additional mitochondria development in your muscle cells those are the the energy factories of your cells that allow you to to process oxygen and to improve the aerobic metabolism of your cells that is what endurance is aerobic metabolism and so to be better at it we must improve that structural capacity and nothing improves that structural capacity like a lot of very easy running okay once you're doing a lot of easy running let's look at something a little bit more specific let's look at the long run because the long run is one of those runs where you're forced to run longer than what is really comfortable for you and once you start going beyond that threshold a lot of special things start happening in the body you become a lot more economical because when you're tired your body is forced to try to conserve energy so by running longer every week or really every other week is what you should do then we can really force the your body to make more of those structural adaptations and make yourself better with running economy and also fuel management one of the things that really stops us from gaining a lot of endurance is simply our inability to fuel those really long runs if any of you have run a marathon you know that roughly mile 20 or so is when your body simply runs out of fuel that's why we carb load before the marathon that's why we fuel adequately during the marathon to carry us those extra six miles to the finish line and long runs are one of those workouts that really work incredibly well at improving your body's ability to manage their carb stores so that you can run longer at the same effort if you're not already let's try to run a long run every week maybe every four to six weeks you can take a cut back long run where the distance gets a lot shorter but when we know that the long run is the one workout that contributes most to our endurance and ability to run longer we won't shortchange ourselves by cutting that run too frequently all right now that you have started running a lot more easy mileage you have really focused on the long run and building that every week or every other week what's the next step the next step is to focus on certain workouts or faster running sessions that develop that aerobic metabolism now let's take a timeout here you've noticed that we're being very strategic very methodical with how we are building our mileage we started with the least risky option just a lot of easy running this can be very slow this is at your recovery pace or maybe a little bit faster but again it's not too difficult then we started getting into your long run now your long run is done at an easy pace too but because it's a single run it's your longest run of the week there is a higher injury risk than if you were to spread that mileage out throughout the week now we're going to move into a more specific type of workout and whenever you start running faster you're increasing the intensity of your training that has the highest risk for injury so this is our most risky type of strategy for building endurance and so this workout is the lactate threshold workout this is arguably the most beneficial type of workout for runners who are training for the two mile all the way up to the 50 mile ultra it is the lactate threshold or tempo run a lot of runners will know this as the tempo run and this workout is specifically designed to increase your ability to run faster while still being in an aerobic state because what happens when you go anaerobic well you're running so fast that your body is producing lactate which leads to lactic acid once you have all that coursing through your muscles and your bloodstream you have to slow down but what lactate threshold workouts do is have you work right in that tiny threshold of being anaerobic or aerobic and anaerobic aerobic yes you're going to straddle that line and so what it does is it introduces a lot of lactate into your system but not so much that you can't clear it and that's what we're talking about we're talking about lactate clearance we are teaching your muscles and your bloodstream and your body to clear all those exercise byproducts while you're running hard so that you can continue running aerobically now the easy running the long runs that builds the foundation now we're sharpening the knife a little bit we're using lactate threshold and tempo runs to give you a much more specific stimulus for endurance this is where it's going to help your racing performance a bit more and by running at this lactate threshold effort where you are straddling that line between aerobic and anaerobic you are teaching your body to run a little bit faster while still being in an aerobic state it's one of the most valuable things that distance runners can do now all of these strategies are dependent upon you running consistently because you can't run more and more easy mileage if you're not running consistently you can't build your long run if you don't consistently do long runs and the same with these tempo or lactate threshold workouts you can't just get off the couch and go from couch to tempo workout we have to do this in a more methodical way and a big part of maintaining this consistency and being able to train uninterrupted for months is staying healthy preventing your next injury and there's a lot of injury risk with the sport of running and so i want to encourage all of you to do your strength training in addition to all of these aerobic workouts in addition to all of this uh volume that you're building the distance of your long run and if you want to hear from nine pro runners i interviewed a bunch of elite athletes on their favorite recovery and injury prevention strategies i put together a short ebook that has their nine favorite tips on recovery and injury prevention i call it the little black book of prevention and recovery you can get it at the link under this video on youtube and it highlights advice from people like dathan ritzenheim ian sharman amelia boone and a lot of other high-level runners and so if you're someone who struggles with consistency you can't build that endurance because you're always taking time off from running because of injury this is going to be really valuable for you because these are the runners who are running the most they are doing the hardest workouts they are running more than 100 miles a week and their strategies for staying healthy are really critical especially at those higher levels so if you can take that in and really work some of these tips and strategies into your own running then i think you're really going to benefit from it and you'll become more consistent which is really going to help you build a lot more endurance you

Channel: StrengthRunning

Views: 824,230

Keywords: running, marathon, cross country running, track & field, 10k, 5k, half marathon, injury prevention, strength exercises, strength training for runners, barefoot running, endurance training, how to increase endurance, aerobic workout

Id: XWXRfxhi4U8

Length: 9min 41sec (581 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 31 2020