So as I indicated in my last blog, I wanted to touch a little on the idea of cross-training. Why do I want to do this? Well, first off, I believe that cross-training has been a huge part of my success in the past, most notably when I've been dealing with and coming off from injury. If it wasn't for the all the biking that I did in the summer of 2006, I would not have been able to come back and have a successful cross-country season that fall, as I was unable to run due to an athletic hernia. More recently, I was side-lined with a near stress fracture in my cuneiform bone in my foot (the picture is not my MRI, but an MRI of a stress fracture in the same bone of someone else's foot). If it was not for cross-training (both pool running and road cycling), I would not have been able to come back nearly as strong as I am now (I believe that I am in the best shape of my life). In addition to my recovery, the benefits of cross-training through an injury are well exemplified in my roommate Scott's recent comeback, where he appears to be nearly as strong (or maybe even stronger) after a 3 month lay-off, mostly thanks to swimming and aqua jogging, with a little stationary biking thrown in for good measure.
However, what I am currently wondering about is using cross-training as supplemental training while you are not injured. I am currently biking once or twice a week, and am weighing the costs and benefits of continuing this practice. I believe that my cycling is beneficial because:
1) Kick starts my metabolism in the morning
2) Helps to burn off a few extra calories so that I can reach my goal racing weight
3) Warms up my muscles in the morning, so that I can properly stretch them out
4) Strengthens muscles that are neglected by running, creating muscle balance and preventing injury
5) Wakes me up in the morning
However, these benefits must be weighed by the costs:
1) I'm more tired for my daily runs (I don't think this has actually affected them much, but I do believe that fatigued muscles are more prone to injury)
2) The extra time it takes to cross-training takes away from sleep or other daily activities (e.g. core work or self massage)
3) The lack of specificity results in me possibly building muscle mass for muscles that aren't used during running.
For me, I think that the benefits are definitely outweighing the costs right now. But the jury is still out; it may be that as I amp up my training, the costs will start to have a greater impact and I will cut this supplementary training out of my overall plan. I am curious to other peoples' opinions, so if you would like, feel free to comment (even if it anonymously). :)
Until next time, blaze on!
In my opinion, if you’re trying to get better at running, you should run more. However, everyone does have a breaking point, so if you can’t run more without breaking, cross training is an excellent way to burn calories and work on your aerobic fitness. However, if cross training was the best way to get faster, triathletes would be the fastest runners around.
ReplyDeleteWhen people determine whether cross training is beneficial for them, the mistake that everyone seems to make is that they look at what has worked for them in the past. I had a 2 year stint where I dropped PR’s substantially while I was trying to cut weight. Because I was trying to cut weight and I put on muscle mass quite easily, I did very little core work over those 2 years. A logical connection that most people would make is that I didn’t do core work and I had my 2 most successful years in running ever. Therefore, I do not need to do core work. However, in reality, I now have developed muscle imbalances that likely contributed to my hip injury and I believe core work is absolutely essential obtaining better running economy and staying healthy. In my opinion, cross training of some sort is somewhat essentially to staying healthy over long periods of time, but you do have to be careful that you don’t build too much extra muscle mass. Having more muscle means you’re going to have to use more oxygen and most studies indicate that you can’t drastically change your VO2 max. To summarize, I like most things in running, I believe that the amount of cross training needed for each person may be different, but it’s also different for various stages training.