How to cross-train to improve running times and prevent overuse injuries - whether you are participating in your first 10-K or competing to win a marathon or triathlon.

If you want to enjoy a long, successful life of running, it's essential to incorporate non-running activities into your training program. In Runner's World Guide to Cross-Training, Matt Fitzgerald - seasoned runner, triathete, sports and fitness journalist, and online coach to runners and triathletes - tells you everything you need to know about the very best cross-training exercises for runners, from the equipment you'll have to buy to the techniques you'll have to master.

Strength exercises will keep your muscles in balance. Flexibility exercises will keep them supple. An alternative endurance activities will help heal existing injuries while preventing future ones. Fitzgerald recommends the six best non-impact cardiovascular activities for runners: pool running, elliptical training, bicycling, inline skating, swimming, and cross-country skiing. The book shows how to integrate running and cross-training, and features five complete programs that will train you for a basic 10-K, advanced 10-K, half marathon, basic marathon, advanced marathon, and triathlon.

With the imprimatur of Runner's World magazine - the most authoritative source of information on the sport - this excellent guide will be welcomed by runners of every level.

If you ask 10 other runners to name a benefit of cross-training, at least 8 of them will mention injury prevention. But although injury prevention is by far the most widely recognized benefit of cross-training among runners, it's hardly the only one. Runners can also use cross-training to rehabilitate injuries, improve fitness, promote recovery, enhance motivation, rejuvenate the mind and body during breaks from formal training, enjoy competing in other endurance sports, and even stay fit through pregnancy. Related to the benefit of injury prevention, cross-training can also prolong your running career.

The good news is that you don't have to do eight different kinds of cross-training to get these eight distinct benefits (seven if you're male). You can enjoy them all by supplementing your running with a little strength training, flexibility training, and endurance cross-training (for instance, bicycling or swimming). Each of these three forms of cross-training has its own relationship to the benefits I've just mentioned, but there's plenty of overlap.

Strength training is most useful for injury prevention and rehabilitation and improving running fitness. Flexibility training helps primarily with injury prevention and rehabilitation and recovery. Alternative forms of cardiovascular conditioning are useful in relation to all eight benefits, although much depends on the specific form of exercise. For example, bicycling is generally more useful than swimming as a means of improving running fitness, since it increases leg strength. But it may be less useful than swimming for certain cases of injury rehabilitation.

As you get deeper into the book, I'll say more about the specific effects of these three forms of cross-training and show you how to incorporate each into your overall training program. Here, I'll simply sell you on the benefits. We runners aren't lazy, but we are practical. Once we believe something will improve our running, we'll make the effort to include it in our programs. Until then, we won't. We can't afford to waste our time and energy on workouts that are more hype than help. Here's my case.

BENEFIT #1: INJURY PREVENTION

Overuse injuries are the curse of the running life, a never-ending epidemic among pavement (and trail) pounders everywhere. Studies suggest that as many as 50 percent of competitive runners miss at least a few days of training each year because of injuries, and most of those injuries are from the chronic grind of training. (Acute injuries, from slips and stumbles, are much less common.) Indeed, you'd be hard-pressed to find a runner of more than a few years' experience who hasn't come up lame with shin splints, runner's knee, plantar fasciitis, Achilles tendinitis, or another common running-related overuse condition. If I were a betting man, I'd wager you have had at least one of these injuries at least once.

Nevertheless, injuries aren't inevitable. Most overuse injuries can be prevented or at least prevented from returning. (More than half of running injuries are actually reinjuries.) Most of them can be blamed on four factors.

1. Inadequate recovery (when your body doesn't fully recover from one run to the next)

2. Biomechanical irregularities (such as overpronation and leg-length discrepancy)

3. Muscular imbalances caused by running itself (tight hamstrings and weak quadriceps, for example)

4. Improper or worn-out footwear

Cross-training can't help you with your footwear choices, but it can address the other three factors.

THE BENEFITS OF CROSS-TRAINING FOR RUNNING PERFORMANCE

The table below shows how a well-rounded cross-training program results in better overall preparation for running competition. The first column lists 10 attributes that runners seek to increase through training. The second column indicates the effect that proper run training will likely have on each of these attributes. An upward arrow indicates enhancement, a downward arrow indicates diminishment, and a pair of arrows indicates a mixed effect or an effect that depends on circumstances. The three columns to the right indicate the effect that each of the three types of cross-training will likely have on each of the 10 attributes when combined with a good run-training regimen.

Running Only Endurance Cross-Training Strength Training Flexibility Training Endurance Efficiency Speed Power Dynamic Flexibility 1 1 Strength Joint Stability Muscle Balance Motivation 2 2 2 2 Recovery

1 Running can increase dynamic flexibility in those who start with little, but generally speaking, running itself is not a very effective way to enhance this attribute as compared with strength and flexibility training. Most other endurance disciplines are similar to running in this regard, although each enhances or limits dynamic flexibility in its own way. 2 Motivation is a highly individual matter. Clearly, if you love running, it will usually motivate you, whereas if you dislike cross-training, it will usually sap your motivation. In my experience, however, the addition of cross-training usually enhances a runner's overall motivation by reducing the monotony of training.

Recovery. The term overuse injury captures the relationship between recovery and injury prevention. Each workout produces minor injuries within your muscles and connective tissues. Give your body enough time, and it'll not only repair the damage but also make those tissues stronger and more durable in order to prevent future damage. This is why virtually every book about running tells you to increase your training workload carefully and gradually and to avoid hard workouts when you're sore or fatigued.

Still, experienced runners inevitably reach a point at which they can't improve their already high fitness levels without risking an overuse injury. Yet if they stay within their ability to recover from workouts, they won't improve.

This is where cross-training can be helpful. By supplementing your running with endurance-improving exercises that are easy on your joints-such as water running and bicycling-you can lower the risk of overuse injuries without forsaking fitness.

Biomechanical irregularities. Deviations from correct stride mechanics contribute to most injuries. The most common culprit is overpronation (excessive inward rolling of the foot), which is believed to contribute to more than half of all running injuries. Cross-training activities such as inline skating and strength exercises requiring balance can reduce overpronation by improving ankle strength and proprioception (the ability of the muscles and tendons to feed the brain information about their positioning).

Muscular imbalances. Usually, a muscle group that does a lot of work in running becomes tight while an opposing muscle group becomes correspondingly weak; as a result, the tightened muscle may tear, or an affected joint may become unstable and eventually damaged. For example, weakness in the hip muscles can cause a runner's leg to rotate inward on impact, causing overpronation of the foot, which might in turn cause Achilles tendinitis. By this example, you can see that muscular imbalances and form problems are closely related. Most cases of muscular imbalance contribute to form problems, and form problems tend to exacerbate muscular imbalances.

So if muscles are weaker or tighter than they should be, it makes intuitive sense that strength and flexibility training will fix the problem. It's also logical that preemptive strengthening and stretching can head off typical running injuries.

© 2004 by Matt Fitzgerald. All rights reserved. No Part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any other information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.

Tags: Running

About the Author

Matt Fitzgerald, runner, triathlete, and coach, is a former editor and current contributor for Triathlete magazine. He writes articles for such national publications as Men's Health, Men's Fitness, Outside, Fitness Runner, and the Runner's World Web site, and serves as managing editor of the sports nutrition Web site, Pioneering Muscles. More