 Will doing cross training like running, swimming, hiking, cross country skiing, weight lifting, etc make you a faster cyclist? In this video we'll jump into the science to answer this very question and we'll also talk about which forms of cross training are the best, what time of year, and how much cross training you should be doing, and we'll also go into some benefits of cross training that go beyond performance that may make it vital to your overall health especially as a cyclist. Welcome to another video my name is Dylan and I'm a cycling coach at CTS and for weekly science-based training, racing, and gear related videos be sure to subscribe and if you have a training question or a topic you'd like to see me cover in a future video be sure to leave it down in the comment section below. I do my best to get to all the questions in the comments. Let's get right into it by addressing the question will cross training make you faster? This is obviously a little bit more complicated than a simple yes or no answer because there are many forms of cross training and cross training at certain times of the year may be better than others. Perhaps a good place to start is looking at the cycling performance of triathletes because obviously they do a lot of cross training in the form of running and swimming. This study comparing cycling performance of cyclists and triathletes had subjects perform a variety of cycling lab tests over a three-week period. What they found was that there was no difference in VO2 peak peak power output time to volition fatigue at 150% of peak power output or time to exhaustion at VO2 peak power output between the two groups. However put the two groups head to head in a 40 kilometer cycling time trial and cyclists came out the clear winners. The study concludes that this may be related to the significantly greater time spent cycle training by the cyclists despite no difference between the groups in total time spent training. This study on the physiological responses of triathletes to maximal swimming, cycling, and running came to a similar conclusion finding that triathletes were well trained in all events but not to the same extent as athletes who train in only one sport. This really shouldn't be too much of a surprise. Put the best cyclists in the world up against the best triathletes in a cycling only race and the cyclists are gonna win every time. Well I mean what can you say? It looks like going with no socks really does make you slower. Does this mean that you should avoid cross training though? Well not necessarily but it does highlight one very important point and that's that specificity of training matters. For example take this study on specific training versus cross training on running performance. They had running subjects increase their training load by 10% each week for eight weeks by adding in more running, swimming, or adding no extra training in the control group. What they found was that swimming did increase running performance over the control but not as much as just running alone. In the conclusion they mentioned that there is potential for athletes to use non-specific training during periods when general fitness is the primary training goal. Further research confirms these findings as well and that's really the takeaway here. Is adding in cross training beneficial? Yes but not as much as adding in specific training. This leads to a couple different conclusions. If you're going to include cross training you should do it in the off season when your training doesn't need to be very specific. Remember that as you get closer to racing you want your training to become more specific to that race. When your races are still months away cross training is a great way to build up general fitness and often works out better logistically as well with off season conditions given that for most cyclists the off season is during the winter. For example it's much easier to stay warm on a cold day if you're running or hiking than if you're riding. If you live in an area that gets a lot of snow then cross country skiing or snowshoeing makes more sense than riding on dangerous icy roads or on snow covered trails. This is also good for the mental side. Many athletes find it refreshing to mix things up in the off season by doing activities other than cycling. This is probably one of the most important reasons to include cross training into your program because motivation is so important for building fitness. If changing things up in the off season helps you do that then it's well worth it. For people who travel are often tight on time cross training can be an important tool even in the mid season. For example if you have to travel somewhere for work for a week and you can't bring your bike and getting in some runs is a lot better than doing nothing at all. However in this situation you would want to make sure that you've been doing regular runs because jumping into a heavy running week if you haven't been running is a recipe for injury. And this really goes for all forms of cross training. When you first start a new exercise you want to start slow. Depending on what the exercise is you may be using slightly different muscles in ways that you're not used to. Give your body time to adapt before you push yourself into any sort of cross training activity. With all that being said what are the best forms of cross training for cyclists? Let's go ahead and jump into some more science to answer this question. This cross training study on elite triathletes investigated the effects of 40 weeks of training in swimming cycling and running on performance in swimming running and triathlon competitions. Interestingly they found a cross transfer effect of cycling and running that did not exist to the same extent for swimming. It seems that swim training is highly specific and provides few benefits for other disciplines. This review article on cross training came to a similar conclusion. They speculated that the transfer of training effects between running and cycling is likely to occur due to the overlap of the same muscle usage. However it's important to note that the vastus lateralis which is the largest and most powerful part of the quad is used to a greater extent in cycling versus running. Swim training doesn't seem to have the same transfer of training effects. Again it should be noted that cross training effects never exceed those induced by a specific training especially for highly trained athletes. For the general population however cross training may be highly beneficial in terms of overall fitness. It seems that running transfers to cycling better than swimming. However not everyone can run because of knee, back, or other problems caused by the constant pounding of running. In that case swimming is a great alternative. And remember that if we're doing it in the off season the goal isn't necessarily to reach peak form but just increase general fitness. In fact I would say that if your goal isn't racing but just to become generally more fit then cross training is a great thing to include in your training plan year round. I know a lot of you living at more northern latitudes will be curious if cross country skiing is an effective form of cross training. Unfortunately there is some science on it. This study on cross country skiing and running on cycling performance trained subjects by skiing, running, or a control that did nothing for nine to ten weeks. What they found was a 17% increase in cycling VO2 max for the skiing group, a 13% increase for the running group, and a 2% increase for the control group. Although the skiing group did see a greater increase the results weren't significant and the study concluded that the two seemed to be largely interchangeable. So basically yes cross country skiing is a great way to cross train and it's not too surprising why many cyclists do both sports. In the off season cross training can come in many forms from running, swimming, skiing, hiking, snowshoeing, skating, etc. Remember that one of the most important reasons for cross training at this time of year is for mental freshness. So the cross training you do should be something that you like to do. However there is one form of cross training that all cyclists should be doing that clearly improves cycling performance and that is weightlifting. Alright talking about lifting again should I do my plug now or later? These other forms of cross training are all non-cycling aerobic activities. All of them tax the aerobic system which is great. However it's clear that the more specific you are with this the better which means riding your bike. However weightlifting does something completely different and actually achieves something that you can't get from cycling alone. This review on strength training for running and cycling endurance performance found no effect on VO2 max and we would expect this because lifting doesn't tax your aerobic system. However a positive effect was found on exercise economy, anaerobic capacity, lactate threshold, reduced fatigue and endurance performance. So why exactly is lifting improving performance if it isn't improving aerobic ability? Adaptations within the strength training muscles including postpone activation of less efficient type 2 fibers, improved neuromuscular efficiency, conversion of fast twitch type 2x fibers into more fatigue resistant type 2a fibers and improved muscular tenderness stiffness. So what kind of effect do all these physiological changes have on your cycling performance? This study tested the effects of strength training on 5 minute power output after 185 minutes of cycling so basically mimicking the end of a road race. What they found was that power output during the 5 minutes increased from 371 watts to 400 watts in the strength training group while the control group saw no increase. And this isn't just one study coming to this conclusion practically every study on weightlifting for cycling performance confirms these findings. The research really couldn't be more clear, cyclists should be lifting. If you want to see me go into more detail about how to incorporate lifting into your training, when in the season you should be lifting, and what a typical gym session for a cyclist should look like including reps, sets, weight, etc. Then I made a whole video about it and I linked it down in the description below if you want to check it out. All right Dylan I got a question. How do you track the TSS from lifting? You see I count the TSS from everything from riding to running to taking the dog for a walk to doing chores around the house. Shoot when my girlfriend and I start getting a little frisky I tell her to wait a minute so I can put my heart rate monitor on because I want to track the TSS from that as well. You know for once you actually ask a pretty good question. If you track TSS or training stress score which is a way of quantifying how stressful that training was on your body then how do you do this for cross training? For any aerobic exercise you can wear your heart rate monitor and go off heart rate TSS. Since cross training won't take up the bulk of your training it's fine to go off zones that are a little off for each activity. There's no need to try to determine your kayaking threshold heart rate for example. If you wouldn't normally wear a heart rate monitor while doing it then don't count the TSS from it so this includes walking the dog chores around the house or other late night physical activity. For lifting it's extremely difficult to track TSS because the stress from lifting is so dependent on how experienced a lifter you are. For example a new lifter could get in the gym and do two sets of squats with just the bar and hardly be able to walk the next day while an experienced lifter could do 10 sets with heavy weight and feel fine. On top of this TSS is meant to measure endurance stress. For these reasons don't attempt to calculate the TSS from your lifting sessions just treat it as a separate category of work because that's really what it is. Up to this point in the video I've glossed over one of the most important reasons to include cross training into your training program and that is bone density. That's right cyclists can suffer from low bone mineral density and the best way to counteract this is by including weight bearing exercises into your program. This study on cycling and running and bone mineral density found that male cyclists had significantly lower bone mineral density of the whole body especially of the lumbar spine compared with runners and 60% of cyclists had osteopenia of the spine and were seven times more likely to have osteopenia of the spine than runners. This is because cycling is a non-weight bearing activity and has a relatively low demand on your bones. Contrast this with a weight bearing activity like running which signals the body to strengthen the bones. The good news for us cyclists is that we can counteract this. For example in this study they took runners cyclists and athletes who did both running and cycling and compared them to non-exercising controls. What they found was a reduced bone mineral density in the cyclists but an increased bone mineral density in the runners and the subjects who both ran and cycled. They concluded that in athletes who do both running exerts a stronger influence than cycling. For this reason it may be a good idea to regularly include running or other weight bearing activities into your schedule. Similar effects have also been shown for lifting. This study on bone density differences from different exercises found that those with a history of intense lifting had a significantly higher bone mass than those who didn't. Just one more reason to get in the gym if you're a cyclist. However if you do want to stick to just the bike then perhaps going off road could help. In this study comparing bone density of mountain bikers and road cyclists they found that bone density was significantly higher at all sites in the mountain bikers compared with the road cyclists and controls. If you are a roadie perhaps getting dirty every once in a while isn't a bad thing. Between all those options there should be something that you can do to improve your bone health because just riding on the road or the trainer all the time could lead to problems. So what can we conclude from all this? First cross training isn't as effective as specific training on the bike but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't do it. Including cross training in the off season is a great way to mix it up when you want to increase general fitness and don't need to be in peak cycling shape. If your goal is to just increase your fitness and not necessarily racing then you should include cross training in your program for this very reason. Swimming seems to be less transferable to cycling than say running or cross country skiing for example and then there's weight lifting which is one form of cross training that you definitely want to include in your schedule if you want to increase your performance. Lastly take care of your bones especially if you're a road cyclist by including some sort of weight-bearing exercise in your routine. Thanks for watching I hope you guys found this information helpful if you like this video be sure to give it a like share with a friend and subscribe. If you want to be notified every time I put out a video be sure to hit the notification bell as well. If you're looking for a coach if you sign up for CTS be sure to use my code CTS DJ to save $40 by waiving the registration fee details are down in the description.