Pour améliorer vos performances sportives, vous avez tout à gagner à travailler votre endurance, quelle que soit l’activité pratiquée. Découvrez les différents aspects de l’endurance et testez des exercices simples, appliqués à tout type de discipline sportive et à tout objectif.

Endurance objective

Working on endurance is an essential step to progress in your sport. Endurance is the ability to sustain exertion over time. Developing this capacity offers a large number of advantages:

• The ability to have fun and be more comfortable during training, whether that’s running, cycling, rowing, dancing or swimming.
• Improved respiratory and cardiac capacity, which is a significant health benefit, but also helps to provide the muscles with all the oxygen and nutrients they need to optimally function.
• Endurance also has benefits on a psychological level: improving resistance to stress, developing the ability to concentrate or solve problems…

Endurance training is done by doing moderately intense activities, carried out over long sessions, mostly at a consistent pace. In order to make progress, it is necessary to gradually increase the duration of the training. The results are visible very quickly, which helps you to stay motivated and persevere in your efforts. The main activities commonly practised to improve endurance are :

• Running
• Walking
• Swimming
• Rowing (or using a rowing machine)
• Using an elliptical bike, which reproduces the movements of walking or running.

• Etc.

These sports activities are accessible to sportsmen and women of all ages, all physical conditions and all levels!

The 4 aspects to work on for better H2 endurance

If you aim to increase your endurance, focus your attention on 4 axes that cover all aspects of endurance during sports practice:

• Breathing: to support prolonged exertion, develop your breathing capacities. Your muscles will be better supplied with oxygen and you will become more efficient.

• The heart: the heart is a muscle, and as such, you can strengthen it. Endurance work helps to improve the power of your heartbeat. The blood is propelled more efficiently to the muscles.

• Muscles: with a well-developed and maintained muscle mass, you will be able to perform physical effort for longer.

• The mind: willpower and resistance to the feeling of tiredness are crucial to increasing your endurance.

Top 5 iFit® circuits: focus on endurance

To easily build your endurance training plan, consult the iFit® library. Your fitness equipment adapts in real-time to progressive programmes led by professional coaches. Here are 5 examples of iFit® circuits to quickly build up endurance:

• 5 Mile Challenge: Work on all aspects of endurance while running through 15 routes that will take you all over the world. This 1-month treadmill programme will take you to South Africa, Sweden, Iceland, Turkey, Portugal, Tasmania, Isle of Man…

• ●        Endurance Series in the heart of the Hawaiian Islands: go on holiday without leaving home, motivated by Joanie Gale, who will tell you the story of the main island and Lauai as you progress. Over the course of 9 weeks of endurance training comprising 18 stages of 45 minutes each with breath-taking views, alternate running at a constant moderate pace with faster sessions, with a greater awareness of the effort being made.

• Endurance Skiing Series in Norway: Nick Hendrickson, iFit® coach and professional skier, invites you to work on strength and endurance on an elliptical trainer with sessions of which increase in length throughout the programme. Improve in the warmth and comfort of your own home, while discovering magnificent Scandinavian panoramas across 12 sessions of approximately 40-45 minutes.

• Tokyo Endurance Series: join Travis McCabe and explore Tokyo and its surroundings by bike in 6 sessions of about 45 minutes: the programme includes the former imperial palace or the Senso-ji temple. Your indoor cycling sessions have never been so exciting!

• Endurance Series in Turkey: Ryan Petry offers a variety of bike training sessions while introducing you to the main places of interest in Turkey: caves, churches, villages, castles… These shorter sessions (35 minutes on average) include split workouts, repetition exercises and recovery rides that will offer you a diversified experience of endurance work on an indoor bike.

With these interactive virtual training programmes, and many more, available in the iFit® library, you should quickly increase your endurance and improve your sports performance!

Check out our Fitness equipment & Coaching page for more advice.