Thursday, April 15, 2010

Benefits of Cross Training

Cross training is a fun and exciting way to spruce up your workouts, reduce the risk of injury, maintain a consistent workout routine, and achieve better results. Participating in different activities for cardiovascular training continuously challenges you to learn new skills and realize accelerated performance gains while reducing the risk of injury.

As humans we are naturally creatures of habit. In your workout routine, however continually doing the same cardiovascular exercise is also the quickest way to plateau and reach workout boredom. There are numerous other cardiovascular activities you can participate in which are fun and challenge you to learn new skills. For instance, spin class, mountain biking, hiking, racquetball, volleyball, basketball, boxing or jumping rope? Even vigorous martial arts and yoga classes can be extremely aerobic.

Since cross training challenges different muscle groups, you will work a broader range of muscles and achieve muscular balance. Repetitive stress and muscular imbalance are most often the cause for injury. Change activities on a regular basis and you will find it much easier to do your cardio work and it will be more effective.
This can be extremely useful while training for a long distance event. You can continue to train your cardiovascular and endurance systems without added stress to your body. If you begin to feel over trained, replace the Thursday light run with another lower impact aerobic activity.

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