» Are you obese?

» Potential new diabetes drug

» Old men left home alone

» Myths about exercising

» Slim doesn't mean healthy

» Kinder egg faces ban

» Get enough vitamin D!

» Running slows ageing

» Anger slows healing

» Eye health is important!

Today, 07 November 2009

› Malema’s life in danger

› Leicester sting Bok Bs

› Eskom chair faces the axe

› Nedbank, ANCYL make up

› Hofmeyr addresses Joost

Yesterday, 06 November 2009

› ANCYL, BMF back Maroga

› Vanilla Ice, ice baby?

› Eskom boss 'slaughtered'

› I have fallen hard - Joost

› Eskom boss 'pushed'

The Two Oceans is over and Comrades is only a few weeks away. I spoke to a friend recently who is planning on running Comrades who admitted to not having run since Two Oceans. There may be many of you out there in the same position.

There are lots of reasons for breaking your running training. The most common is injury - or you may simply be bored with your daily distance and need a change.

Whatever the reason you must remember that you can lose as much as 16% of your VO2 max, or aerobic capacity, in only 6 weeks without running.

However, you don't have to run to keep your fitness up if you are injured or simply cannot face that 20 km run. There are several different training options open to you.

What are the goals of cross-training?

The main reason is to maintain, or even improve, you current aerobic capacity.

Along with this cross-training can allow healing of any injury and improve your overall muscular strength and endurance. Recent research has shown that the three most effective cross-training alternatives for runners are cycling, stair climbing and water running.

Cycling

This has been shown to be very effective in maintaining VO2 max in runners. In fact Tim Noakes recommends it in his book "The Lore of Running" for those who are injured.

However, your heart rate and lactic acid production will be higher for a given VO2 max when you cycle rather than run. In practice this means that you should increase your target heart rate range if you use a heart rate monitor, or push yourself to a higher perceived exertion when you are cycling in order to get the same work out which you would do when running.

A good cycle for a runner would be intervals of up to 4 mins at 95 to 100% of maximum heart rate with similar length recovery periods.

As an alternative, push yourself to between 95 and 100% of maximum for as long as 15 minutes and then recover completely in between each interval.

Stair climbing

Stair machines are highly effective for cardiovascular training. Recent research has shown that people who worked out for 30 to 45 minutes, four days a week for 9 weeks at between 70 and 90% of maximum heart rate on a stair climbing machine improved their time trial times by 1 minute over distances around 500m.

Most of these machines have computerised training programs or levels which will allow you to tailor your workout to your specific training needs. Any good gym with personal trainers should be able to help you.

Water running

It's getting rather cold to do this outdoors now, so again, head for your local gym.

This is increasingly popular with runners because the running motion is mimicked without the pounding on the joints which results from road-running.

It does apparently maintain VO2 max and so running performance.

In water your heart rate will be about 8 to 11 best lower for a given percentage of VO2 max, so you'll need to decrease your training heart rate range by that amount.

You can either water-run for the same time as you would do your normal training run, or use interval training or a mixture of both.

Conclusions

While cross-training has obvious benefits for those runners who are recovering from injury, it's benefits may be such that it is worth incorporating into any runner's life. It keeps your training interesting and may actually improve your running!