Cross Training

Today, I did a 2700 yard swim workout. I wanted to get a run in too, but got home from the pool too late. I'm really happy with how my swimming has been going. I've been getting in 2 swims a week for the past couple of weeks, which is really good for me at this point in the season.

Now, on to cross training and injury prevention. First of all, I'd like to make a distinction between cross training and weight training. To me, cross training means doing an activity outside of the sport you normally train for. Weight training is a type of cross training for anyone who is not a weight lifter. Cross training does not necessarily mean weight training.

Next, if you have an injury that prevents you from training for a couple of weeks, I would advise you to go to the doctor. Hopefully, he can provide you with some exercises or stretching to do that will improve your condition or help to prevent the injury from happening again.

The best type of cross-training in my opinion are core exercises. Having a strong core does wonders to prevent a lot of different types of injuries. I have all of my athletes do core exercises, whether they've ever been injured or not. I would start by doing them 2X times a week and gradually build up to doing them everyday if you have time. Remember, don't do the same exercises everyday, week after week after week. You need continually mix it up.

Now obviously core exercises won't prevent all injuries, so what about preventing other injuries? To my knowledge the latest rage for this sort of training are functional strength exercises. I will blog about these tomorrow, as it's too much to get into tonight.

Next, let's move on to the situation where you're injured and you need to use cross training to maintain fitness, because you can't participate in your usual sport. Well, if you participate in running, cycling, or swimming, you know that the bulk of your training is to build, improve, and maintain endurance. So you'll want to choose cross training activities that do the same. (I would again caution you to have your doctor help you with this, as some types of cross training might do more harm than good for your injury.) So, let's say you have a running injury and are unable to run, but you get the okay to use an eliptical machine and exercise bike from your doctor. I would follow much the same plan with those two pieces of equipment as you were planning to do if you were able to run. For example, if you were suppose to do a 5 mile run at an easy pace, I would do an equivalent workout on the bike and or eliptical. So let's say your scheduled run would have taken you 45 minutes, so that might be equivalent to 1.5 hours on the exercise bike in heart rate zones 1 and 2. Aerobically, you would get a similar workout. Now, obviously, the exercise bike is not going to build strength for running, so as Katie hinted, you'll want to do some strength training to maintain and build your strength. Here again, is where I would prescribe functional strength exercises and maybe some weight training of the appropriate muscle groups.

We'll continue this discussion tomorrow!