Doing the same workout, day after day, ad nauseam is not only boring, it can short out your workout results. The human body is not meant to act like a machine on an assembly line, mechanically doing the same things over and over; It means stretching, turning, turning and moving in all directions in response to the world's ever-changing external environment.
What is Cross Training Studies?
Cross workouts are workouts that add dimension to your regular routine. It helps to train your body in ways that aren't used to correcting muscle imbalances, strengthening potential weaknesses, and reducing the chances of overtraining or overtraining. Cross-training workouts are not a specific workout, but a personalized approach to balancing your typical workout to improve overall fitness and athleticism.
4 Tips for Choosing a Cross-Training Work
Because cross-training workouts are not “one size fits all,” you need to think critically about your usual routine to find cross-training activities that work for you. Following are a few tips.
1. Adding a Complementary Routine Based on the 5 Components of Fitness
Fitness has five key components: muscular strength, muscular endurance, cardiovascular endurance, flexibility, and body composition. Most workouts are designed to enhance a few of these components, but may not target all of them. For example, cycling, running, and swimming are great activities for improving cardiovascular endurance and can increase muscular endurance to some extent. However, they are not the best activities for building muscle strength or flexibility and may or may not contribute to significant improvements in body composition depending on other cofactors such as food intake.
When trying to choose a training workout, it's a good idea to choose a complementary routine that targets one or two of the five components of fitness that you hadn't focused on before. For example, if you do a lot of work, you may want to start building muscle strength or increasing flexibility. Your cross-training workout may include strength training and/or yoga several times a week.
2. Change Your Impact
There are three main levels of impact you take on when exercising: high impact, low impact, and no impact. Neither is necessarily “better” than the others – they all have their benefits and drawbacks.
- High-impact activities like running and jumping are great for developing lower body strength and building strong bones. Depending on the context, they're also great at developing fitness-related components of fitness, including balance, coordination, agility, and speed. The downside? They can be harsh on your joints and soft tissue and can cause overuse injuries if not approached carefully and concentrating on proper form.
- Low-impact activities such as walking and strength training, where at least one foot is always in contact with the ground, are also effective at building strong bones, especially in the lower body. These activities vary widely in context and purpose, so you can combine them for a well-rounded exercise routine. However, they are not necessarily effective at developing fitness-related components of fitness, including strength, agility, and speed.
- Impressive activities such as swimming and cycling do not put pressure on your bones and joints, thus significantly reducing the chances of overuse injuries to your body. They're also often suitable for people recovering from injuries or training for extreme endurance events and don't want to risk overinjury. That said, non-impact activities lacked the bone-building benefits of low- or high-impact exercise.
When choosing a training workout, you may want to vary the effect of your workout. For example, if you're a big fan of dance cardio workouts that fall somewhere in the spectrum between low- and high-impact workouts, you may want to supplement your programs with an ineffective alternative, such as indoor cycling or water aerobics. Similarly, if you're a great swimmer, it might be time to get out of the pool and try your hand at strength training or jumping rope.
3. Change Your Direction
People move in three planes of motion: sagittal, anterior and transverse. Moving within each plane requires the involvement of different muscle groups to perform separate actions in movable joints. If you are constantly moving in one place – for example, runners and cyclists trajectory only forward in the sagittal plane – you are neglecting the actions and muscles needed to move in other planes. Over time, this can lead to muscle imbalances that can cause injury. It's a good idea to choose cross-training programs that disrupt your movement patterns and force you to perform movements in different planes of motion. Here's what you need to know:
- Sagittal Plane: This plane of motion cuts an invisible path through the middle of your body, dividing you into left and right segments. As you move in the sagittal plane, you engage in forward or backward motions that run parallel to that plane. Running, cycling and biceps curls are just some of the exercises done in the sagittal plane.
- Front Plane: The front plane cuts an invisible line through the middle of your body that divides you into anterior and posterior halves. When you practice on the front plane, you move side to side in a path parallel to the plane. For example, wheels and skating take place in the front plane. In fact, skating is interesting because it requires frontal plane movement of your extremities as your whole body moves in the sagittal plane. Other examples include performing a chest strike while swimming and performing a side lunge in the gym.
- Transverse Plane: The transverse plane cuts an invisible line through the middle of your body, dividing you into upper and lower halves. When it comes to movements, the transverse plane is the most difficult to conceptualize because it includes rotation and twisting movements. Swinging a golf club or baseball bat are obvious examples of movement in the transverse plane, but they are not the only ones. Activities like boxing, dance, and yoga often involve rotation and twisting, and strength training like wood chops and Roman twists are other obvious examples.
If you review your regular training and discover that you almost always work in one plane of motion, it's a good idea to combat muscle imbalances by using a cross-training routine that encourages movement in multiple planes.
4. Try Something New
When you're stuck in a rut, repeat the same routine for months, you don't need to revise your cross-training plan. Almost any new workout will "shock" your system and remind you that you're using muscles you neglected a lot. Choose an activity you want to try and take your best shot. You may love him, you may hate him, but at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. The important thing is to keep your body guessing so you continue to see improvements in your fitness and health.
Sample Cross Training Workout Ideas
If you need a few ideas to get the creative juices flowing, consider the following.
- If You're a Runner: Runners benefit from strength training, core training, and flexibility training, especially the hips. Adding a quick strength training routine to your weekly runs can help offset muscle imbalances. It's a good idea to make time each week for stretching or yoga.
- If You Are A Yogi: Yoga does great things for flexibility, balance, coordination, and some muscular endurance, but does not significantly improve cardiovascular endurance or muscular strength. Consider adding a circuit training workout (combining strength training and cardio) a few times a week.
- If you're a strength trainer: hitting weights regularly is just as important as maintaining flexibility and developing cardiovascular endurance. Consider playing a sport like basketball, tennis, or soccer, adding 10 minutes to each of your workouts and days you're not at the gym.
- If you're a cyclist : cyclists have lower body strength and endurance and killer heart and lung health, but they may not enjoy the benefits of more effective workouts. Try doing an upper body workout routine that includes hiking or rock climbing on your cycling days and on your rest days.
- You're a Swimmer: Like cycling, swimming provides stellar cardiovascular improvements and muscular endurance, but does not lead to significant gains in muscle strength or bone density. When you're not in the pool, add a camping class class to your routine to reap the benefits of low-to-high strength training.
When to change something
It's a good idea to adjust your exercise routine once a month. This doesn't mean you have to try an entirely new training exercise each month, but it does mean that you should make changes in the frequency, intensity, time or type of training you do regularly. If you find a cross-training routine that you really like, it may just mean adding one more workout to your schedule each week, or it may mean adjusting the cross-training routine to a shorter and more intense one. The key is to change things regularly, even in small ways, to maximize physical adaptations and improvements.
A Word from Best Fit
The topic of cross-training exercises may seem confusing because there is no quick and hard program that works for everyone. Instead of emphasizing the details, aim to do two to four workouts each week in your favorite routine, then add one or two sessions of a completely different activity. Make a few changes once a month. It really is that easy.
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