This January, at GCN, we set ourselves and everyone a challenge to be active for 30 minutes every day for 30 days. This includes two of his Zwift group rides each day hosted by the presenter.
However, the 30/30 challenge wasn’t just limited to cycling. It includes all forms of physical activity.
So how does supplementing your riding with other forms of exercise improve your performance on the bike, if at all?
What does the term cross-training mean?
Cross-training is adding another sport or form of exercise to your primary activity. For example, if your main sporting activity is cycling (which, of course, is why you’re here), adding in gym sessions or running would be a form of cross-training.
This can be used to improve overall health and fitness, and can also help prevent injuries associated with the repetitive motion of some sports such as cycling and running.
Cycling can be time consuming. After all, it is literally characterized as an endurance sport. For those of us who aren’t professional riders, going out for a ride isn’t necessarily a top priority in this day and age. This can leave you with little or no time to incorporate rides into your daily schedule. This is where cross-training comes in handy. Instead of a 2-hour ride, you can complete his 30-minute HIIT workout or run to and from the office.
Cross-training only becomes more convenient and can increase the overall amount of training you can manage. It can also have many mental health benefits. Mixing fresh movements and new challenges into your regular training is a great way to avoid stagnation and boredom during your training.
Considering the above, many GCN The presenter is doing just that, adding some sort of cross-training into his weeks.
Simon Richardson: Running
Si spent most of January riding her bike. Because that’s what he loves. He was able to find time and incorporate his five runs into his January schedule. He took a relaxed approach, with no goals beyond completing the race without breaking down and preparing for the next day’s ride.
With this approach, Si doesn’t want to believe that running this way or this often will significantly improve her cycling performance. The benefit he found was that on days when he didn’t have time to ride, a quick run could replace cycling.
Studies examining cross-training between cycling and running show that an athlete’s aerobic capacity can be maintained by performing either or both activities. This is great if you’re going through a period where it’s difficult to ride your bike regularly. Replacing some rides with runs can get you back on the bike with a similar level of cardio.
If you’re thinking of incorporating running into your training, the most important thing to consider is that it needs to be a very slow, gradual process. Cycling and running both use the cardiovascular system in the same way, but they recruit muscles and joints in very different ways. If you’re new to running, it may take some time for your body to build up the strength needed for certain movements. Injuries are very common for beginner runners, so it’s important to relax.
Conor Dunn: Swimming
Instead of running, Connor decided to add swimming to his routine. Yes, we were getting dangerously close to triathlete territory here. This is something he’s been doing since he was a kid, and Connor felt that swimming made a big change to the environment and movement, and the hunched back of road cycling made a big difference to the air distortion.
It may not be all that surprising that very few studies have investigated the benefits of swimming on cycling performance. There is some evidence that swimming can improve cognitive function more than cycling or running, and while cycling may have no direct physical benefits, it can potentially improve brain health. There is a gender. Swimming is also associated with reducing arteriosclerosis, which reduces stress on the brain and kidneys and once again promotes overall health.
What swimming has but cycling and running don’t is a full-body workout. If you spend a lot of time pedaling or pounding the pavement, your upper body can end up hurting. It is considered a good idea to reduce the muscle mass in your upper body in order to make your body as light as possible. This is true for the world’s best athletes, but even for those of us who lead regular lives, having some upper body strength can have huge benefits in our daily lives.
Hank: Jim
With the 30 out of 30 challenge taking place in January, Hank made the wise decision to make the gym part of his daily routine. Training at the gym is a great way to get motivated, especially during the winter months when the weather outside makes it difficult to go out for a ride.
Training at the gym allowed Hank to stick to the areas he wanted to work on. This month, he specifically targeted his core strength and weight loss through running on the treadmill. This gym presented new challenges with new movements and a fresh training environment.
Depending on what kind of training you want to do in the gym, it can be a great place to work on asymmetries you’ve developed over the years or work on weaknesses that could lead to injury in the future. For those who are more performance-oriented, training in the gym is also the basis for combining resistance and plyometric training to improve sprinting power.
Manon Lloyd: Walking
Every physical activity doesn’t have to challenge your limits and leave you drenched in sweat by the end. Manon did a lot of walking with her dog as a change of pace from cycling, but sometimes that’s all you need. Why not go for a walk and look at the world around you? In fact, studies have shown that people who take a walk for at least 20 minutes every day are 43% less likely to have a sick day than those who exercise only once a week.
A Harvard University study of more than 12,000 participants found that the effects of 32 obesity-promoting genes were cut in half in people who walked briskly every day. Walking not only has physical benefits, but it can also improve your mental health and clarity. Sometimes, taking the time to slow down a little and just enjoy a nice walk may be exactly what our brains need.
To find out what Dan Lloyd, Alex Payton and Olly Bridgewood did this month, be sure to watch the video linked at the top of this page.
Do you confuse cycling with cross-training, or are you a hardcore cyclist who doesn’t look dead in your running trainers? Let us know what you think in the comments.