Relaxation and Tension Endurance – Key to Big Dog Endurance for the Average Guy

The question of athletic fitness and the way to really train it always draws more attention than your average jihad. You want to start a fitness holy war? Then question someone’s particular favorite style for strength endurance. You’ll end up being called out for pistols at dawn.

I want to talk to you about why the average training system for endurance doesn’t get the job done for most people and how you can use this tip like mainlining Viagra for your endurance training. When you train any new system for physical gains there is a learning curve. The learning curve is always more stressful than what an experienced trainer goes through because the body is not used to that particular style of stress.

For instance if you do bodyweight exercises for the first time for ultra high reps, it seems like some kind of fitness epiphany. You can’t believe the burning sensations from the high reps or the soreness or the fact that even though you can squat 500 pounds, you can’t do 100 unbroken reps of bodyweight squats. However after a while you learn that the key to high reps with any lightweight implement is alternating relaxation and tension.

This is a skill that lends itself to any type of endurance activity. If you bike or run for long periods of time you develop the most efficient form that allows you to relax the most while putting out the right level of tension to maintain your pace and stretch out the endurance. The same applies to grappling or boxing. That’s the reason cyclists and runners often die on hills, because a hill requires a radical increase in the amount of muscular output or tension.

It’s one thing to maintain a paced level of any training exercise, but it’s another thing to have to go from moderate to all out pace and back and forth during an endurance session. Eventually all light training especially if attempting to do high straight reps succumbs to greater efficiency. You learn how to relax the most and apply the least tension to still get the job done. It’s necessary, but it diminishes the returns especially as it applies to sport.

So what’s the solution? Mix in a heavier or faster pace implement or interval into you endurance training. If you’ve been training kettlebells or dumbbells or what ever the case may be and you’re cranking up to 100 rep sets one way or the other you’re learning to relax during those sets. So if you want to truly train your system to be able to go harder and longer, amp up the workout by throwing in something truly difficult in the middle of those reps. Could be heavy barbell work, strongman or simply heavier, faster work or a light implement, or a sprint style pace or heavier, more difficult bodyweight exercise that allows you to really lay it on the line in the midst of a conditioning session.

This way you can still keep your conditioning session short, but push the intensity up and get massive gains. You can actually be prepared to take those gains from the gym to the real world.

Remember just because a guy may be a world champion at a particular endurance feat or sport doesn’t mean you should train like him. Many of the champion level professional athletes are simply so gifted that they can play the sport with moderate to low intensity work outs and still be unbelievable. However, for everyone else, if you really want to make amazing progress either in your sport or in taking your training to the real world, you have got to over prepare. You have to make it harder than the game or whatever real world challenge you might be looking to conquer when you train in the gym.

That’s the key to mind blowing endurance.