Tag: Work Capacity

In another article, we discussed Work Capacity, and determined that Work Capacity was one of – if not the – most important factors in improving your cardio.

So, now that we know that, let’s segue into the next logical question, which would be, “How do we increase Work Capacity?”

The main way would be to simply just do more work. Yeah, that’s right – condition yourself to doing more work, by…doing more work. You don’t have to do a whole lot at first – add small amounts to your overall workload.

There are a few ways to do this. You could add small amounts of “active-rest” to your workouts, so that you’re actually working while you’re resting between sets. (By the way, this is a tremendous way to increase your cardio with actually doing any traditional “cardio” work.)

For example, say you’re doing your weight training, and resting 60 secs. between sets. Spend 30 of those 60 secs simply doing jumping jacks. Or maybe do a couple burpees. Or a few jumps. Or 5 situps. Anything like that will work.

Another way to do this is to add in extra work throughout the day. During your everyday travels, figure out ways to increase your physical work. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Park a few extra parking spaces away so you have to walk further. If you’re shopping, carry your items instead of using a cart. That sort of thing. Then you can add in small “mini-workouts” during the day, as well. 5 burpees, 10 push-ups, 10 situps, and 10 squats wouldn’t take over about 90 secs to complete. Do that 4-5 times during the day.

Doing any of these things will help you build your work capacity, and in turn, help you increase your cardio – even if you’re not doing specific cardio workouts. And when you increase your cardio, you’ll find that your overall quality of life will feel like it’s going up.

Train Hard, Rest Hard, Play Hard.

There is a popular martial arts quote that I’d like to tell you about.

“Conditioning is the greatest hold.” – Karl Gotch

Gotch’s quote simply says that no matter what techniques you (or your opponent) know, if you have better cardio, and can push the fight/match longer and harder, then you’ll have the upper hand.

Now, you might not be an athlete, a fighter, or even anybody who competes in anything right now. But that doesn’t mean you still can’t apply this to your own life.

There are many elements to a good cardio workout (and in turn, having good cardio), but one of – if not THE – most important is Work Capacity.

Work Capacity is a pretty simple concept that many trainers try to give complex definitions or major pseudo-scientific discussions. Work Capacity is essentially how much work you can do, and how hard/fast you can do it.

In other words, if you it normally takes you say 20 minutes to perform XYZ task, then having more work capacity means you can get it done in 15 minutes. Or, coming from the other end, it can allow you to do a lot more work in that same 20 minutes than you normally would do.

This is important because you are simply increasing the capacity of your heart and lungs. They can pump more blood and oxygen, meaning that you are not only fitter and more healthy, but the normal tasks that were “hard” before can be completed fairly easily.

It’s kind of like a car’s gas tank. When you have a 10-gallon tank, you can only go so far at normal driving speeds. Driving super-fast might mean that you can go an even shorter distance. But, if you take that 10-gallon tank out, and put in a 20-gallon tank, you’ve just doubled the distance that car can go. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about driving speeds or with the gas pedal on the floor – you’re able to go a lot further.

Work capacity is the same exact principle – only it’s your body’s gas tank. Double the size of that tank, and you’re going a lot further (meaning you can do more work, and do it easier than ever before).

To increase work capacity – and in turn your cardio – you simply have to do cardio workouts that make you do more work, or doing the same amount of work harder. This way, you condition yourself to being able to do more.

Continuing on with our example, instead of taking one gas tank out and putting another one back in, doing hard cardio workouts more or less takes the gas tank you have now, and expands it – makes it bigger.

Start doing cardio workouts that increase your work capacity, and you’ll be getting in better shape in no time.