stamina buildup 2

How to begin exercise after a long period of break?

If you haven't exercised in years, it's important to see your doctor before starting any fitness program. Barring any acute health issues, your doctor will probably recommend you begin a well-rounded fitness routine for a healthy heart, strong bones and pain-free joints.

As a beginner, you will want to start slowly to avoid injury to your muscles and joints. While working out will make your body stronger, too much too soon can create soft- tissue injuries like tendonitis and sprains. To avoid injury, choose a lightweight, high-repetition strength-training routine for your legs, hips, shoulders, arms and back. Choose a weight or other form of resistance, such as resistance bands, that you can do 15 reps with good form before taking a break. After at least four to six weeks of consistently using the lighter weights, try upping the weight and lowering the reps.

For your cardio routine, choose a low-impact exercise such as walking, biking, swimming or stair climbing. These activities will help you boost your aerobic capacity and burn calories, and they're easier on your joints until you have the strength to safely do more high-impact training.

Balance, core and flexibility training are important precursors to more challenging activities and should be included in your fitness routine to help strengthen and support your joints. Pilates, yoga, and stability ball training are great choices for this type of training for both the novice and the experienced exerciser.

Keep in mind is how often you plan to exercise. While it is advisable to start slowly by choosing exercises that won't hurt your joints, the number of times you exercise each week needs to be fairly consistent for any positive change to occur within your body. If you have led an inactive lifestyle recently, try to work in at least 20 minutes of exercise each day. If you already lead a fairly active lifestyle—you take the stairs when you can, you often play outdoors with your kids, you are often on your feet and walking—then start by devoting 40 minutes to an hour three times a week to pure physical activity.
Tips on Building Stamina

By Jae Ireland
eHow Contributing Writer

Building your stamina is imperative to improve your performance in sports and fitness activities. If you feel like you are less than in peak shape, you may want to think about creating a fitness regimen in order to improve your stamina. The more you work, the more you'll be able to sustain your stamina and energy levels while participating in different sports, whether it be a simple game of pick up basketball, or running in a 5K. Here's how.
Training Session Habits

If you feel like you are out of shape and have no stamina whatsoever, you are going to need to employ a training regimen that will help you build up your stamina slowly. In order to make an activity a habit, you need to perform it at least 21 times, so in your stamina training, make sure you are diligent. Even if you don't particularly feel like training, you must do it, otherwise you will lose the stamina you've built up during previous training sessions. Whether you are running daily or hitting the elliptical, make sure to do it every day and be diligent about your routine.
Building Up Activity

As you train, you should start small and then work up to the activity level that will build the most stamina for you. You may start with a 20-minute workout, and each day increase your work out time by five minutes. Or you may start with one weight set, and increase your weight by 5 lbs. each week. Starting slowly will ensure that you not only have attainable goals, but you don't strain your body. You should build your activity level gradually until you reach the amount of stamina that you feel is acceptable.
Altitude Training

We all know that the higher you get in altitude, the thinner the air is, therefore the harder it is to train. Altitude training is the practice of performing your sport in a higher altitude than is necessary to train your lungs for better stamina. Many basketball teams have training facilities in Colorado and Utah, which help them to build stamina. To try altitude training, look up a hiking trail near you that is higher than where you live and normally train. Try to do your normal training routine. You'll most likely find it challenging at first, but after some training sessions, you'll notice that your stamina has been built up significantly.
Swimming is an all time great activity / exercise for heart health

When it comes to heart health, nearly all kinds of exercise are helpful; the trick is to do enough (30 minutes or so of moderate activity) often enough (nearly every day). Walking is often held up as the gold standard -- most people can do it, it's easy on the body, and it doesn't require any special equipment beyond a good pair of walking shoes. Walking isn't the only way to protect your heart and improve health, but it's the best option for the largest number of people.

More vigorous activities will improve health in less time than walking. The lion's share of research has focused on running because it's a logical extension of walking and because it's a popular form of exercise. Swimming, by comparison, has been a backwater of exercise research, with barely a trickle of studies over the years on swimming and heart disease. But a study published last year highlighted the health benefits of swimming.

Researchers compared blood pressure, cholesterol levels, maximum energy output and other measures of cardiovascular health across nearly 46,000 male and female walkers, runners, swimmers and couch potatoes. Swimmers and runners had the best numbers, followed fairly closely by walkers. As you might expect, people who didn't exercise had the highest weights and resting heart rates -- and the worst cholesterol levels and overall fitness.

What makes swimming so beneficial? For one thing, it gives the heart and other muscles a solid workout. This trains the body to use oxygen more efficiently, which helps bring down the resting heart rate and breathing rate. And because you use your arms, legs and all the muscle groups in between, swimming improves muscle strength and flexibility.

Water cushions the body, eliminating the kind of pounding associated with running. Because it's easy on the joints and muscles, swimming is often recommended for people who have arthritis and for those who are overweight. The resistance of water also allows you to work out vigorously with little chance of injury.

There's also a relaxing, meditative side to swimming. It can come with letting your mind drift as you focus on your breathing and your movements. This stress-busting ability makes the list of swimming's cardiovascular benefits even longer.

Best of all, swimming is an activity you can do across your life span, and you needn't give up it late in life. And it's never too late to learn how to swim or to brush up on strokes you learned as a child.

If you're a beginner or are getting back into swimming, start slowly with five to 10 minutes of smooth lap swimming. (For safety's sake, never swim alone.) As you get used to the exercise, and your strokes, kicks and breathing become more efficient, you'll be able to swim for longer periods. Mix up your strokes -- freestyle, backstroke, butterfly, whatever you can do. In addition to keeping your swimming routine fresh, the variety helps you work different muscles.

If you tire of doing laps, there are excellent aquatic alternatives to swimming. Try walking or running in water. It is far easier on the joints than walking or running on land but offers an equally good cardiovascular workout. Another option is water aerobics. This type of exercise is a staple at many community centers, YMCAs, schools and other facilities with pools.

Although swimming (and cycling, for that matter) can be great for the heart, lungs, blood vessels and muscles, your friend is right that it doesn't do much for the bones. While most body systems receive the maximum health benefit from aerobic forms of activity, bones are different. Stress, in the form of weight-bearing exercise, is necessary to stimulate the growth of new bone.

Any activity that works against gravity -- running, walking, playing soccer, weight lifting or dancing, for example -- can help build bone. Even daily activities such as stair climbing help, so you don't necessarily need to cut down on your swimming to fit weight-bearing exercise into your schedule. Talk to your doctor about what combination of activities makes the most sense for you.

One final note: Water leaches natural oils from your skin and hair, and chlorine compounds the problem. Wear a cap while you swim. Afterwards, wash your hair with a clarifying shampoo and apply a conditioner; look for products designed for use after sun or pool. Use a body wash or soap with bath oil, and then apply generous amounts of moisturizing body lotion. That way, you'll not only feel good, you'll look good, too!

How to Build Up Your Stamina in Three Days

By Ryan Angus
eHow Contributing Writer

Atheletes are usually concerned with building speed and strength, and with this focus it is easy to ignore another important "S": stamina. Stamina keeps the spring in your step---helping you sustain energy over long stretches of time. The two quickest ways to increase your stamina are building strength and increasing mileage (walking, running or biking). In this article we will look at exercises and workouts that you can do to safely and quickly increase stamina.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

* Bike (optional) Jump Rope (optional) Exercise Mat (optional)

Quickly Build Stamina

1. Step 1

Run in the morning, if possible, at a slow pace so that you can maximize your mileage. Morning running will give you energy through your day and will also help you burn more calories through the day; helping you to increase your stamina. If you cannot run, then walking or jogging is a good alternative.

2. Step 2

Strength train with weights if you have access to exercise equipment. This type of training is also best done in the morning if you have the time. If you do not have access to weights, a good alternative is to do push-ups, sit-ups and pull-ups.

3. Step 3

Do speed work on a track or run hills to both increase your lung capacity and build strength in your leg muscles. These types of workouts are helpful because they are like a strength and cardio workout combined.

4. Step 4

Jump rope as a cross-training exercise to increase the amount of air taken in by your lungs. This is one of the most effective exercises for lowering your resting pulse and thereby increasing your stamina.

5. Step 5

Bike on the roads or the mountains to increase your stamina. Biking increases stamina by allowing you to work your heart and lungs for a longer, sustained amount of time than running. It is also a great way to build strong, lean legs.

6. Step 6

Start a daily yoga routine. Yoga can be a productive stamina building workout. It helps build long, lean muscles, increases lung capacity and fills you with energy.

7. Step 7

Eat healthy, energy packed foods. In general these are foods that are low in fat, mostly unprocessed, high in protein, and full of vitamins and minerals. Focus on fruits and vegetables, lean meats and whole grains.



Tips & Warnings

* Don't push yourself too hard. These workouts can build up your stamina slightly in three days, but larger increases in stamina take time. You will just be tired If you push too hard, instead of building up stamina..