A ball is resilient. Throw it against the wall and it bounces back. The number of times you throw that ball hard against the wall, and it doesn't burst, is a measure of its stamina. Resilience and stamina are important for athletes and for a healthy lifestyle. In case of injury you want to heal quickly--resilience--and get back in the game. Stamina determines how long you can stay in the game.
Building Stamina
You can improve your stamina at any stage. For example, 30 minutes may be the maximum amount of time you can run on the treadmill. Pushing yourself by increasing the amount of time on the treadmill will also help to build your stamina. Martina Navratilova, in a July 2010 article for AARP, describes how she is building her stamina for a new activity, bike riding: "I decided to see how far I could push myself and entered my first 40 km (about 25 miles) bike race. Training for the race required spending more time in the gym on the stationary bike and treadmill to build my endurance and doing leg exercises with weights to build muscle. I also increased my outdoor cycling in terms of speed and endurance by about 10 percent each week in order to reach my race performance level."
Resilience
Resilience determines whether, when you fall, you get back up or just stay down for the count. The U.S. military recognizes the importance of resilience for soldiers and has introduced resilience training. As part of the Army's Comprehensive Soldier Fitness Program, resilience training will "teach soldiers how to deal with stress, work, physical training, family, personal problems and multiple deployments. Becoming mentally strong is just as important, if not more important, than physical strength."
Resilience and Aging
Though not widely studied until recently, resilience levels don't necessarily decrease in all areas of life as we age. According to "New Frontiers in Resilient Aging: Life-Strengths and Well-Being in Late Life," edited by Prem S. Fry, we should start "looking at resilience and aging from a somewhat more positive and broadened perspective that expands the conception of resilience as normal development in the face of adversity to include facets such as recovery, plasticity, regenerative capacity, maintenance of health function (e.g., mobility) in the face of disability or disease, and access to psychosocial and technological-ecological resources that may facilitate maintenance and improvement of physical and emotional health with age. "
Building Resilience
Resilience can be nurtured, sustained, and increased according to the American Psychological Association. You can increase your resilience level by incorporating the APA's advice to, "make connections, avoid seeing crises as insurmountable problems, accept that change is part of living, move toward your goals, take decisive actions , look for opportunities for self-discovery, nurture a positive view of yourself, keep things in perspective, maintain a hopeful outlook", and "take care of yourself."
Stamina Supports Resilience
Stamina could be viewed as a component of resilience. Your ability to push yourself through a workout when you want to give up contributes to your body's overall strength and endurance and increases its resilience. Throughout the ups and downs of minor or major injuries, you may discover your resilience--ability to recover-- is accelerated because of time devoted to endurance training.
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