Cross Training for Recovery and Performance

May 11, 2021 / Shara Smith

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I think most of us work out or have played sports and danced growing up. The people that had an edge on others are the people that cross trained. I remember when I was running track in high school and dancing through college that my performance only improved with doing a completely different type of fitness along with my training. Once I started weight training, pilates and cardio on the elliptical did my balance improve, my turns become sharper and my recovery from a rough two hour Ballet class become quicker and not as grueling.

This theory comes from the Principle of Adaptation which means once your body becomes use to a specific form of exercise your body does not progress in performance and injury is at a much higher rate. So if you are a swimmer and you just swim and do nothing else you will stop building muscle and burning negative fat stores and over-use injuries occur. So swimming not every day and doing resistance training, yoga and have rest days will create a more injury free experience. Even for a non-professional athlete these techniques should be into practice. We are starting to see more and more over-use injuries even in childhood sports. I have friends that played baseball since they where five and blew out their shoulder and where not able to play in college, which was the ultimate goal and possibly go professional from not cross training and doing proper recovery. Their coaches over played him and over trained him and now he can barely hold his new baby even after extensive surgery and rehab. He pledged that he would not let that happen to his children. I have seen it in swimming, friends that played football and soccer. In the dance would you see it over and over as well. This could happen to a normal gym goer. If you do not vary your gym workouts you can create over use injuries, and stop seeing the results you first saw when you started going to the gym regularly.

Below is a sample of a work out plan that keeps your body guessing:

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Doing exercise with different kinds of equipment is also an easy way to keep your muscles challenged and your body burning last nights pizza and wine! Below are examples of equipment you have seen at the gym and some could be used in your home gym to mix it up and make your workouts more fun and challenging.

Mini Trampolines or “rebounders” are huge in the work out scene right now. They help with many things. It stimulates the lymphatic system which flushes out diseases and keeps cancer cells from forming. Its easier on your joints and gives you a total body work and still gives your muscles a great workout. Bye, bye running and the tread mill this is all you need! Even Vogue did a a write up on the benefits click here to read more.

Bands are are a great way to do alternative resistance training in creative ways. Also you can do them anywhere because they are so compact. You can usually by packs of three to six with different levels of resistance. Kyra Stokes has the most comprehensive library on how to use them in workouts if you want to give these a shot. Click here to find out more in an article by Shape Magazine.

The Pilates reformer is a great way to take boredom out of a gym weight training routine. It has springs inside that make the tension and intensity the movement harder and believe me will challenge you and your muscles on a different level. Pilates is also great for Golfers and Tennis players that have to use a different muscle groups to articulate fine movements. Swimmers, Road Bikers, Triathletes, benefit from this form of exercise, not just Dancers that it is traditional known for. I recommend taking either a private lesson or doing a few beginner small group classes to get the technique first before you take more challenging classes.

I know people have seen these in Gyms and always wondered what they do. They aren’t just for up your push up and pull up game but can do many other exercises. TRX’s are almost a complete home Gym piece of equipment. You can pretty much use it anywhere that has a place to attach it to like a door, tree, play ground equipment. Doing a quick search on the web your can find many work outs for it. Click here to find out more.

We have all scene this scary thing at the gym. Well, skip the treadmill and try this out instead. These large stair steppers are wonderful for cardio but also developing stability in your hips and strength in your joints. Anytime I am on vacation at a resort that has one of these, I jump on for about thirty minutes to burn off any Margaritas I had the night before.

I know what you are thinking. What is this? Well this is Gyrotonics the Gyrotonic Expansion System. This is a the ultimate in fitness because the system is designed to exercise fine muscle groups and also the larger ones to. The system combines, yoga, pilates, dance, gymnastics, swimming and t’ai chi. There are a couple of places locally you can take private lessons to try this out. Forbes even did a whole write up on it you can read click here to read more about. There is so much research about how high impact exercise like HIIT is actually causing more stress then benefit on our bodies and workouts using this equipment gives us better performance without sacrificing strain and injury. Also if you have any type of back issues this is also highly recommended as well.

Hopefully this information will make you think about your workouts. Maybe you will try different things like equipment or types of exercise next time our work out. Doing the same type of exercise all the time will keep your body from performing and getting the results you are looking for.

Have a great Wellness Wednesday!

Shara