Cross-training workouts -
Around this time, focus more on your strength training and recovery, and give the HIIT workouts a rest until after race day. After a big race, your training possibilities are endless! This makes it the ideal time to focus on those HIIT workouts you avoided leading up to race day.
The best cross-training for runners in the off-season include activities that mimic running. Sports like cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, and even simple hiking doing a great job at this.
If not, just create your own workout using exercises that get your heart rate up. Mix it up! One super-easy way to do this is to find some new locations for your workouts or runs. Use a trail-finding app to explore a new route if you usually hit the pavement for your run. Try to explore new workouts during this time to refresh your mind, as well.
Running is a fantastic way to zone out and find what is almost moving meditation. Charge your mental game by finding a cross-training activity that makes you think about your next movement or have to recruit new ways of moving to stay sharp.
Cross-training is an essential component of a runner's training regimen, helping to improve overall fitness, prevent injuries, and break the monotony of running every day. By incorporating different types of workouts, runners can enhance their strength, flexibility, and endurance, leading to better performance.
Here are some top cross-training workouts for runners. Remember, you don't need to do all of them. Pick one or two that you enjoy, or perhaps you can alternate week-to-week or month-to-month.
Cycling is a low-impact activity that improves cardiovascular health, builds leg strength, and enhances endurance without putting excessive strain on the joints. It's particularly beneficial for improving quadriceps strength, which can be beneficial for runners.
Add cycling sessions per week, focusing on steady rides or interval training to boost endurance and power. Indoor cycling classes are also a great option for structured workouts. Swimming is an excellent full-body workout that builds endurance and muscular strength with minimal impact on the joints.
It also enhances lung capacity and breath control, which can benefit running performance. Swim times per week, alternating between longer, steady-paced swims and shorter, high-intensity intervals. Include different strokes to engage various muscle groups. Strength training, including bodyweight exercises and weightlifting, increases muscle strength, improves running economy, and reduces the risk of injuries by correcting muscle imbalances.
Focus on compound movements such as squats, deadlifts, lunges, and upper-body exercises like push-ups and rows. Include strength training sessions per week on non-consecutive days. Yoga improves flexibility, balance, and core strength.
It also helps with mental focus and stress reduction. For runners, yoga can enhance range of motion and help prevent injuries by improving posture and alignment. Practice yoga times per week, focusing on poses that target the hips, hamstrings, and back.
Restorative yoga can be particularly beneficial for recovery after long runs or races. Pilates strengthens the core muscles, which are crucial for running efficiency and stability.
It also improves flexibility and posture, helping runners maintain form and reduce the risk of injuries. Add a Pilates session times per week, focusing on core strengthening exercises. Mat classes or equipment-based sessions can both be effective. The elliptical machine provides a low-impact cardiovascular workout that mimics running motion without the hard impact, making it a good option for recovery days or runners with joint issues.
Use the elliptical for minutes times per week as a substitute for a running session, especially if you're recovering from an injury or looking for a low-impact alternative. You can combine all three into one workout or split them up into individual sessions spread throughout the training week.
A straightforward way to get started with cross training is to alternate activities each workout. You can also alternate activities within an exercise session. A thorough warm-up and cool-down are essential to a cross training workout.
Aim for a five-minute warm-up such as walking, high knees, or jogging, followed by a few dynamic stretches , such as leg swings, hip circles, and arm circles. Dynamic stretches allow you to move your joints and muscles through a full range of motion. After a cross training session, spend five minutes performing static stretches like the kneeling hip flexor stretch , seated hamstring stretch , and standing calf stretch.
These moves require you to hold a stretching position for 30 to 60 seconds. Cross training workouts are no different than any other fitness protocol. To maximize benefits, you need to be fueled, hydrated, and rested. How you fuel your body matters too.
Make it a point to hydrate before, during, and after each workout, and eat a healthy diet. I'm Ashley Walton, Cofounder and Chief Content Officer at GymBird, and I wanted to share my thoughts on cross training.
I'm not a professional athlete by any means. Years ago, when I first starting getting into fitness, I would get hyper-fixated on one workout type. I started running, and then that was the only kind of exercise I did for a while. I started doing circuit training or HIIT workouts, and then those were the only workout styles I did for a while.
I got into kickboxing, and then that took over my life for a while. It wasn't until some trial and error and actually learning from fitness experts that I realized I needed to round out my workout routine. I was falling into a pattern of hyper-fixating on one workout and then getting burned out on it.
Instead, I needed to deliberately vary my workouts, so different muscle groups and joints could recover while I worked out other muscle groups. When I finally started varying my workout routine, I started recovering from my workouts more quickly, and I also became way less susceptible to injury.
My entire body was way happier, and I had more energy. There were other benefits, too. I noticed I was building better overall strength. I stopped neglecting my core and my arms, and I started seeing a pretty drastic body transformation, to be honest.
I hadn't realized how much I'd been neglecting parts of my body that needed attention. Now I do a pretty good mix of different types of workouts in a given week.
Although I mostly walk and do circuit training, I've also incorporated regular strength training, swimming, yoga, rollerblading, hiking, barre , and Pilates. I make sure that I don't over-emphasize high-impact movement, and I do exercises that let my joints rest and recover.
I'm much better at listening to my body and adapting to the kind of movement that feels good to me on a given day. I've never been happier with my fitness routine. Cross training is an effective way to enhance sports performance, maintain or improve cardiorespiratory endurance, increase muscular strength, improve flexibility, reduce overuse injuries, and boost overall fitness.
Alternate sides every rep. If a strict push-up is too difficult, start on an incline elevate your hands on a box, a bench, or even a table—the higher, the easier or with your knees on the floor. When you can easily complete ten or more reps of this exercise, make it more difficult by elevating your feet on a box, a bench, or an exercise ball or by wearing a weighted vest.
For an extra upper-body workout, hold light dumbbells in your hands. What it does: Strengthens the hip abductors to improve stability and control of the knees.
How to do it: Stand with your feet together and knees slightly bent, and loop a resistance band around your ankles. Place your hands on your hips to make sure they remain level, take a hip-width step to one side, and, with control, bring the second foot to meet the first.
Continue in the same direction for 12 to 15 steps, then repeat in the opposite direction. Pay close attention to proper form. Make sure to keep your toes pointed forward and your pelvis level throughout the movement.
Volume: Three to four sets of 20 steps in each direction or until your form breaks down. What it does: Builds strength and stability in the core muscles through an isometric hold. How to do it: From a kneeling position, place your forearms on the ground shoulder-width apart, with your elbows directly below your shoulders.
Extend your legs behind you, feet together and toes tucked under, so that your body forms a straight line from your heels to your head. Engage your core.
Keep your back flat—no sagging, arching, or tipping the hips—and your head up so your neck is in line with your spine. Hold this position until you break form when your hips sag or lift.
Remember to breathe. If you lose form in less than a minute, begin with multiple shorter holds such as six reps of second holds, with 15 to 30 seconds of rest between each , and work your way up to a minute.
If one minute feels too easy, lift one limb from the ground for a three-point plank alternate which arm or leg you lift every set , wear a weighted vest, or have a friend place a plate weight on your back. What it does: Strengthens the glutes and hips to better assist the hamstrings and to improve stability and control of the knees.
How to do it: Loop a resistance band around your ankles, and stand with your feet together and a slight bend in your knees. Take diagonal steps backward, alternating sides.
Between each step, bring your feet back together. Keep your toes pointed straight ahead, and focus on knee position and good form. What it does: Strengthens your quads, glutes, hamstrings, and calves. How to do it: Stand in front of a sturdy box or bench that comes to somewhere between midshin and just below your knee the shorter the easier.
Step onto the box with one foot. Make sure your entire foot is on the box, not just the forefoot, then engage your quad, press through with your heel, and stand to bring your lower leg up onto the box. Your upper leg should do all of the work.
Step back down for one repetition. Alternate which leg goes first every rep. Keep your torso upright and your hips and shoulders level throughout the movement. Make it harder by wearing a weighted vest or holding dumbbells.
Volume: Start with 15 reps on each leg, and once you add weight, reduce to six to eight reps on each leg. What it does: Strengthens the core, with a focus on the obliques and rotational core control.
Cross-training is one of workotus best Heart health for women an athlete can build strength Cross-training workouts overdoing it. Cross-trxining a runner, examples of Cdoss-training include biking, yoga, strength training, Heart health for women, and even soccer as forms of Restorative care. And Polyphenols and eye health you were a cyclist, you might consider walking and hiking and maybe even running as cross-training workouts for your primary sport. Cross-training uses your body and muscles in different ways. Cross-training helps you switch it up. For example, biking puts a different emphasis on your glutes, calves, quads, and hips. Not only do you build up minor muscles that might get neglected on your runs, but you train key muscles in new, challenging ways.
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