The Theory Behind the Programme & the Benefits of Cross-Training
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When you are aiming for a specific goal, for example, to improve your Personal Best or increase your running distance, a big part of your training programme should be spent running. In fact, ‘specificity’ is one of the principals of training:
‘Sports training should be relevant and appropriate to the sport for which the individual is training in order to produce the desired effect’.
Essentially, this means you need to perform a specific skill in order to get better at it i.e. you should be running to improve your Personal Best time or increase your distance.
This programme has been put together in a scientific manner, we are not simply going to send you out for a run without specific targets. We have discussed how the sessions are going to broken down over the next 10 weeks in previous blogs, but to confirm, we are going to use a ‘LISS’ (low-intensity steady-state) method of training on Sundays and the other two runs during the week will either focus on speed or power. All of this running training is great and adheres to the ‘specificity’ principal, however, does this mean your training should ONLY consist of running, and no other form of exercise is going to help you to improve? Definitely not!
Cross-Training
Cross-Training can be defined as an alternative workout which will benefit your primary sport. In this instance, our primary sport is running so we must supplement our running with strength, core and mobility work. This is exactly what we have done in this 10 Week Programme. But how will cross-training improve your running?
Injury Prevention – Overuse injuries are very common amongst runners. These injuries can be caused by inadequate recovery, biomechanical irregularities or muscle imbalances. Incorporating strength training and stretching into your training programme will help to prevent these injuries occurring or recurring if you have had one already.
Improving Running Fitness – Cross-training helps improve efficiency and power. It will also help to ensure we can increase the amount of time spent training without accumulating fatigue or getting injured.
Active Recovery – It is a fact that workouts only help you to achieve athletic conditioning when they are followed by rest and recovery-promoting activities. Obviously, nutrition and hydration play a major part in recovery, however, in this blog we are focussing on exercise. Periods of complete rest are essential but, as part of a programme, light workouts will also help accelerate recovery beyond what happens during outright rest. In this programme, active recovery will come in the form of Pilates sessions and stretching.
Enhanced Motivation – It doesn’t matter how much passion you have for running, if you do it continuously it will become boring. Most of us enjoy some level of variety so cross-training helps you to maintain enthusiasm and motivation making it possible to train harder and ultimately achieve better results.
Cross-training plays a large part in this programme and each week we will be including:
1 strength & conditioning session
1 recovery session comprising of core work and/or stretching
The next 10 weeks have been designed specifically to get you to your fittest and strongest, helping you to achieve goals which you have been unable to reach before. We hope you enjoy the variety of the sessions and you feel the benefits as well as seeing the progression in your running.