Can cross-training improve your running?

The elliptigo allows you to cross train in the fresh air!

Most experts believe there is no substitute for training in your own sport if you are serious. If you want to improve your speed in running and your endurance, you need to devote a lot of your training to running.

However, casual competitors and exercisers, for whom exceptional performance in just running is not the uppermost goal, are most likely to benefit from cross-training. Top athletes too take to cross-training to maintain aerobic fitness while recovering from an injury.

Take a look at these questions below and see if you answer ‘yes’ to any of them:

1. Are you bored with your current exercise / training regime?

2. Have you suffered any exercise related injuries in the past year? (There is a link between poor flexibility and injury, so do you answer ‘yes’ to the next question too?)

3. Do you miss out stretching and rarely find time to relax and "chill out" after your exercise regime?

4. Apart from running, the other two most common activities for cross-training (in aerobic fitness) is cycling and swimming. Do you like these activities?

5. Do you feel like being more challenged in your training? (If you have an hour a day, four days a week, that you can devote to exercise, you could include cross-training into your life.)

6. Do you want to feel stronger? Do you suffer with poor posture or back ache? Do you want to keep your bones strong and healthy?

If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions then cross-training could help to complete the picture. It helps to fill in the gaps and balance our training.

We can probably learn a lot from triathletes. Their training programme is made up of swimming and cycling sessions as well as running and that means they stimulate responses from muscles that runners often fail to tap into.

If you are feeling tired or uninspired with your training it could be that you are crying out for change. When you become used to a certain type of training and it isn't challenging you or stimulating response anymore you will be in danger of 'flatlining'. This is where you stop improving. You may even start regressing. By challenging your body with a different type of exercise you will keep the overload, recover adapt process going, keep improving and whilst you are adapting to the new challenges, your body is being given time to repair the overused muscles that led to your injury or over-training syndrome.

Depending on the focus of your training programme you can use other activity to help build a good aerobic base. If you can't run as many miles in a week as you would like because you are susceptible to injury or fatigue you can use swimming, cycling or other aerobic exercise to increase cardiovascular output and thereby improve your endurance. The elliptigo is a great option for runners. It allows you to use a running action and so is more specific to running but the impact is reduced because you are on wheels and you can do it in the fresh air rather than in a gym!

If your focus is on improving flexibility or strength you may want to consider yoga, pilates or weight training.

For many runners the challenge of cross-training is time available. If a runner is substituting a running session for cross training it can be manageable, but even then, it takes longer to go to the pool, swim and shower, than to put your shoes on and run out of the front door. It is even more difficult if you are trying to cross-train as well as to keep the same volume of running that you would normally do. The runner needs to decide what the aim is. If it is to build all round fitness, recover from injury or overtraining or address a weakness then cross-training should be considered. If a runner is training for a running event and has limited time available to train then cross-training will probably play a smaller role. To train for an event your training needs to be specific to that event. For example, if you are training for a marathon 90% of your training needs to be spent running.

Make cross-training beneficial to you and your running!