What is an example of cross training on my rest days?
Posted by Ray Gill
Filed under Cross Training Answers
I am a 30 year old male and have always been fairly active. For the past month I have been commited to a running schedule of about 12-15 miles per week, 4 days a week (usually 3 mile runs in about 24 minutes). I have been reading alot about XC training on rest days but I’m if XC means the bike or swimming or what?
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umm… XC stands for cross country. Its a sport of running long distance. Cross training means doing training in a sport that’s not your main sport, you do it to work your body in different ways.
People talk about XC and cross training together because to be a good cross country runner you should incorporate all kinds of exercise into your training.
If you are a runner, good cross training is mostly biking and swimming. If you do 3 mile runs then 10-15 miles of biking is probably good for training. For swimming maybe 1 mile? I’m not much of a swimmer but it really works your body without putting as much strain on your joints. Laps in a pool is good.
Some runners also lift weights as cross training. Be careful with this because big muscles will actually hamper your running, and sometimes working out muscles that are not involved in running can make the muscles you do need to run weaker.
Anyway i hope i cleared it up! have fun running!
Cross training would be just about any other athletic activity, preferably aerobic.
Common choices with running would be things like biking (including exercise machines) and swimming, though there are things like rowing machines that would work as well. It’s usually considered ideal to do something that gives your running muscles a rest and is non-impact.