How Running Can Help With Endurance

How does running or any other cardio workout help you build your endurance? First let’s define endurance. It’s more than just cardio, it’s about the body’s stamina and ability to “endure” long workouts and activities that are physically tasking. It’s about the body being able to take a pounding, from the legs and joints to the heart and keep going strong. It should be an important part of training that shouldn’t be taken lightly.

Muay Thai professional fighters run every day to build endurance.

There are many reasons these professionals take up running, but one important one is to build stronger bones, particularly shinbones. It’s important for anyone practicing Muay Thai, since it’s an important protection for blocking kicks and a powerful tool to deliver painful ones. If your shinbones are strong, you can deliver stronger kicks with a lower risk of breaking the bone or having a bone fracture. That makes running excellent conditioning for Muay Thai.

You get a good cardio workout when you run.

Running not only gets your heart pumping, but it also boosts your overall endurance. Your heart needs exercise to be stronger, just like any other muscle in your body. Running increases the heart rate and works it like leg exercises work leg muscles. Modifying your pace, like using high intensity interval training—HIIT—can increase the benefit of running. It creates afterburn to torch even more calories. It’s just modifying your run to volley between short bursts of high intensity and recovery paces.

Running boosts endurance by increasing your mental strength.

Not only do you burn off stress when you run, you build mental strength. That’s important not only for Muay Thai, but in every aspect of your life. Running improves your mood, primarily from the happy hormones it increases and pushing your body past that point of giving up to reach that point can help you push past other things in life that block success or achieving your goals. You’ll learn to endure more and push past it.

• You’ll improve your knees by thickening the cartilage, which boosts their endurance. Studies show people who walk double their chance of osteoarthritis compared to runners, because the impact builds the strength of muscles that protect the joints.
• Running increases lung volume. It strengthens the respiratory muscles like the diaphragm, which allows to improved lung volume. That lets you take deeper breaths and increased oxygen each breath.
• Running helps your muscles perform better doing other tasks. It’s called post-activation potentiation—PAP. Studies show running increases PAP, which increases the amount of time you can perform endurance exercises.
• Running changes the body by increasing the network of capillaries, boosting mitochondria production and helping you lose weight and build muscle tissue. All those things build endurance.

For more information, contact us today at Garcia Muay Thai