Who Can Benefit from Crosstraining?
- New runners
- Experienced Runners
- Marathoner and Ultramarathoner Runners
- Trail Runners
- Injured (and Recovering) Runners
- Travelling Runners
- Runners in Extreme Weather Conditions
For the beginner who is only able to run a couple times a week, crosstraining can build the cardiovascular system and prevent overuse injuries and injuries from muscle imbalances. A new runner could benefit from alternating running days with days of other sports (like swimming or yoga) to extend fitness, minimize injury, and loosen tight muscles. Beginners (and others) who run most days in a week but run for short amounts of time (less than 40 minutes/day) can also receive these same benefits by adding crosstraining to one or two of their shortest runs.
More experienced runners can especially benefit from upper body work (through strength training, swimming, rowing, or some other arm-specific sport). Just add in a day or two of upper body work to your normal workout routine. This type of crosstraining is helpful specifically for runners who run five or more days a week (or who have run for many years) to have another activity to focus on occasionally to prevent running from becoming boring (and, of course, to balance the upper body's fitness level with the level of fitness that you have built up in your legs).
Marathoners and ultramarathoners can benefit from crosstraining a couple times a week for the same reasons that the experienced runners can: preventing boredom, keeping the upper body balanced with the lower, and warding off injuries.
Trail runners who add two or more days of crosstraining into their routine can often see a large difference in their strength and balance, by doing upper body work and exercises that condition and tone your "sideways" muscles (like swimming breaststroke or rock climbing). (Because in running, we mostly travel forward, or backward, but never really spend much time travelling to the sides, the muscles that govern sideways travel, like the inner and outer thighs, often are not prepared for trail running, with its jumping from rock to rock through creek beds.)
Runners who are injured, also benefit greatly from crosstraining. As soon as the injury and the doctor allow, injured runners can swim, water jog, or do other appropriate (depending on the injury) crosstraining, which will allow the injury to heal without losing the level of fitness previously established. As well, once recovery has set in and you are able to start running again, alternating running and crosstraining days (with some rest, of course) will keep reinjury at bay by keeping your muscle groups balanced and allowing the recovering body part enough rest.
Even runners who are travelling can benefit from their crosstraining, as it allows people unable to run on vacations (or business trips) to continue their training and not lose fitness. Many hotels, even those without gyms, have pools, allowing you to swim, do water aerobics, or water jog. Also many gyms, especially large chains, have one-day passes. Of course, you can also do crosstraining in your hotel room if there isn't a pool or you don't want to get in; you can do yoga, strength training, and even aerobics in the privacy of your own room.
Whether you are travelling or at home, when extreme weather hits an alternate indoor activity can be a relief to many runners. It is useful during searing summer heat and/or freezing winter weather, during tsunamis or hail storms, and just about every other severe weather condition we see.
As mentioned before, crosstraining can be useful to just about any runner.
