Cross training has been catching on as an effective way to boost the results of your exercise activities. It’s defined as an exercise routine that includes performing different training activities to achieve a certain fitness goal. These goals vary from person to person, as do the exercises they choose to perform.

Benefits of cross training

Cross training provides numerous benefits for individuals who regularly participate in these routines. These include:

Reducing the chances of injury

Individuals who participate in multiple exercises are able to spread out the stress from each exercise to other muscles and joints. This lowers the risk of them sustaining injuries

More effective weight loss

Cross training can also help participants lose more weight than singular exercises. If the cross training exercises include activities that are performed for long durations and at moderate intensities, they can lead to enhanced weight loss.

Improved running fitness

Cross training is especially beneficial for runners who would like to get faster. Exercises such as squats can help runners build better leg muscles on their non-running days to enable them to run faster.

Staying active during recovery periods

People often use cross training as a way to keep active on their recovery days from other intense workouts. The most obvious benefit of this set-up is that it enables them to get in more exercise per week. As a result, people who perform cross training are usually fitter than people who rest during recovery periods.

How to select a cross training routine

Getting into cross training is as simple as adding a second activity to your primary exercise routine. If you are a runner who practices running multiple times a week, you can perform some other athletic activities on your non-running days.

Runners should avoid performing these cross training activities on their running days, as it could lead to overtraining.

Many runners choose to run three times per week with two days of cross training tucked in between or around running days. However, the number of exercise days can vary from person to person depending on the intensity of their running and cross training activities.

Swimming

In addition to strength training workouts at the gym, runners could also benefit from adding swimming as a cross training activity. Swimming provides an all-around workout which targets multiple muscle groups at once. Runners who swim have stronger leg muscles and a better balanced distribution of muscles than sole-runners.

Cycling

Cycling is another cross training activity that is popular with runners. Cycling is considered a great secondary activity alongside running because it is non-impact and provides various cardio benefits.

The non-impact nature of cycling as an activity means you can recover from cycling days fairly quickly without having them impact your performance on running days.

Cross training continues to benefit people from different sporting fields as they look for ways to boost their performance. The possibilities can be endless when you combine multiple activities, so get started with cross training today to maximize the results of your workouts.