Dedicated training is something to be admired. Many athletes strive for the ability to get up and get out every single day whether it’s for a specific race or event or even, simply driven by a goal.
Since, that’s all you do, day after day, you may be setting yourself up for injury or mental burnout.You may get hurt Or plateau. What can help prevent injury and burnout ? Cross Training – Ideal for anyone who aims fitness.
Cross Training for Athletes
Cross-training is athletic training in sports other than the athlete’s usual sport for improving performance, build overall muscle strength and reduce the chance of an overuse injury. It takes advantage of the particular effectiveness of one training method to negate the shortcomings of another.
Simply put, cross training is training in another discipline to improve your main sport.
Why Cross Training for Athletes is essential?
Including cross-training in your fitness program allows you to vary the stress placed on specific muscles and your cardiovascular system.
Cross-training limits the stress that occurs on a specific muscle group because different activities use muscles in slightly different ways.
The goal is to supplement your main sport with training that’s beneficial for certain muscles, movements, or even, your brain and mood.
Overuse injuries concern for Athletes & remedies on it.
For most athletes, the inclusion of cross training into a workout plan is triggered by an injury sidelining them from regular training.
Up to 56% of recreational runners experience injuries, with most of those relating to the knee. Supplements can help (like glucosamine, which promotes the development of cartilage), but up to 75% of those are overuse injuries.
The options for cross training are almost limitless. Runners can strength train, swimmers can paddle board, cyclists can do yoga.
Cross Training boosts your Performance -
Cross training is an exercise program usually employed outside of these intense training blocks to add some variance (physically and mentally) to workouts, to maintain a high level of overall fitness for athletes to perform excel in their sport.
The dashing right-handler Virat Kohli believes a fit lifestyle is a key to a healthy mind, which also makes one feel good about themselves.
“I realized in the process that when I started getting fitter, I started thinking better. I had more confidence, clarity, focus and determination.” – Virat Kohli
Cross training keeps the body guessing, and has many athletes reap the benefits for their main sport: decreased injury potential, and added strength to the most-used muscles.
Why runners should Cross Train?
Cross-training helps runners to balance muscle groups. … to focus on specific muscles, such as inner thighs, that don’t get worked as much while running and may be weaker than running muscles. Runners can maintain or even improve their cardiovascular fitness.
A study of 27 male runners were assigned one of three different resistance training regimens (in addition to their normal endurance training): heavy resistance, explosive resistance or muscle endurance training. In all three groups, running endurance performance increased. The heavy-lifting group in particular saw improvements to high-intensity running characteristics, like sprinting at the end of the race.
Benefits of Cross Training
- Allows you to seamlessly adjust your training plan if the weather (or life) gets in the way.
- Strengthens and conditions your entire body, not just specific muscle groups, on many axis/planes of movement.
- Reduces the risk of overuse or repetitive strain injuries. Since a majority of injuries happen due to time dedicated to a single sport, cross training can help prevent injuries for the simple fact that it forces athletes to spend less time training singularly.
- Allows you to continue exercising parts of your body muscles, while the other parts rest & recover.
- Improves your overall skill, mobility, balance, flexibility, and agility. Cross training doesn’t just maintain activity by reducing the risk for injury–it also can increase performance.
- Reduces exercise boredom with your workout regimen. The benefits of cross training aren’t just physical; there’s also a potential mental benefit of switching it up. Mental fatigue can impact physical workouts–you may be less likely to workout knowing that you’re facing the exact same exercise every day.
- Allows you to be flexible with your training needs and plans (if the pool is closed, you can go for a run instead).
- Produces a higher level of all around conditioning.
- Especially if an athlete is in-season or training for a specific event, cross-training can provide an exciting challenge.
- Can continue to train while injured
Take away your belief from that cross training takes away from your regular training schedule.
While you’ll inevitably be spending time away from your sweetheart sport, absence makes the muscles grow stronger.
Cross Training Activities for endurance Athletes
There are three main groups of cross training for endurance athletes: strength training, aerobic low-impact work and aerobic impact work, and each can be part of a cross training program.
Types of cross Training
Strength Training
Touching upon all major muscle groups is important for effective strength training.
Incorporating strength training into an endurance regimen can enhance physical fitness, as it did in this meta-analysis of distance runners. Even just 30 minutes per week, once or twice a week at Gym / at home, can suffice. At-home plyometrics or things like push ups can incorporate.
Regardless of where you strength train, a full body workout will maximize the time you spend training. Consider hitting all the major muscle groups such as arms, chest, shoulders, back, core and legs.
Aerobic Low-Impact Work
Probably the reason many athletes experiment with cross training to take stress
off those weary joints and reduce injury risk.
low-impact workouts are typically less hard on the body, especially our joints, and can be a great way to get in a
heart-pumping workout while reducing the risk of injury.
Low-impact activities or no-impact workouts can be done two or three times as week. It’s easily implemented, as it can replace an active recovery day or even a harder workout day depending on the exercise;
so for those who think they’re losing gains because of cross training, you may actually find yourself enjoying the cross training more than your main exercise.
Aerobic Impact Work
If you’re training, the amount of aerobic impact work will likely be higher (and may be your only focus during that training block).
But in the off-season, or times when you’d like to give your body a break from the impact it faces during regular training, aerobic impact work should be done once or twice a week by playing team games, train run, circuit train or CrossFit .
But be mindful: any impact work still puts strain on the body. As a general rule, cross-training is meant to limit the impact on the body.
Cross Training - Low-impact exercises
Cross-training helps runners to lead to a better, injury-free performance on race day.
You may even be able to workout longer and more frequently using these types of workouts due to the lack of stress they cause the body (swimmers can work out every day, and they’re hitting all the major muscle groups). For example, if you planned on running 45 minutes, you could easily spend 70 minutes cycling.
Aerobic Low impact cross Training - Swimming
Aerobic Low impact cross Training - Cycling
Nutrilove's Fitness Tips for Athletes & Everyone
Exercise can strengthen the cardiovascular system, bones, muscles, joints, reduce body fat and improve flexibility, balance, and coordination. But if you want to see all of these benefits, you’ll need to start cross-training.
Cross-training is ideal for anyone: Whether you’re a beginner who wants to get in shape or an experienced exerciser looking to take your fitness to the next level – cross training is perfect for you.
Low impact exercises for obese
It is true that low-impact exercise burns more fat. Low-impact exercise is still a very effective way to lose body fat. You just need to go a little longer in order to burn more calories.
Losing weight takes significant stress off your joints. Building muscle provides more support for your joints and curbs pain. And flexibility exercises help prevent stiffness. Cross training lets you include low-impact activities, like bike riding and swimming, that provide the benefits you need without putting more stress on your joints.
Low-impact exercises are less stressful on your joints compared to high-impact activities such as running and jumping rope.
Effective Low Impact Exercises That Burns the Most Calories & Fat for everyone –
It’s the backbone of any well-developed exercise program. The wide variety of activities means you can choose what works for you.
The Best effective Low Impact Exercises prevent certain Medical conditions & key part in treatment.
Getting in shape, losing weight, and building muscle not only help prevent certain medical conditions but are also a key part of treatment for diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and heart disease.
Cross training is an excellent option if you have arthritis.
Check out with your Doctor, once you’re on the road to recovery, look for activities that help strengthen muscles, which lessens pain and helps prevent further injury.
Decisive Moment
During peak training season, athletes feel the grind. You’re putting in the hours with a race or event or goal in mind, laboring over the same path, the same laps, the same routine, with little variance.
Cross training is meant to serve as a break, but one that’s productive. It can be a break from your normal routine, both physically and mentally. But it can also invigorate the mind, providing it with a new task to learn, a new challenge to face. And of course, the physical benefits of testing the body in new ways are evident.
What’s your cross training routine? Let us know in the comments and share your experience.
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Originally published on HVMN