 What is cross-training anyway? And what's the difference between cross-training and supplemental training? That's a distinction that I like to use. You know, there are things that supplement our training regimens, and then there is cross-training. What is cross-training? What is supplemental training? Let's get into it. Quickly, before we get into this video, I want to say thank you to all my Patreon supporters. There's a link in the description to my Patreon page if you're interested in exclusive content. Monthly Q&A videos, regular updates from my training, etc. Head over to patreon.com slash the long trail to follow me there and be part of the Patreon community. Alright, so cross-training. What is it? Well, it's really simple. Cross-training is any activity that's similar enough to your main activity so that you can at times substitute it for your original activity. Let me give you an example. As a runner, I'm a runner. When I go out and run, I do so in order to become a better runner. There are certain adaptations that take place when I'm running that make me fitter as a runner. Fitness is specific. For example, I'm not going to really become a better runner by doing mountain climbing. Okay, even though maybe some of my muscles and tendons and whatever might get beneficial effects from doing climbing, for sure it will increase my overall general fitness, but it's not like climbing makes you a good runner or vice versa. However, some sports are quite similar. For example, take something like cycling. Cycling is fairly similar to running in the sense that there's a lot of the stimulus to the heart in the cardiovascular system. It's almost the same, right? The legs are working so opposed to something like swimming where you're also using your arms and upper body a lot. Cycling uses the legs mainly, which is true for running as well. Similar muscle groups are involved, not exactly the same way though, but it's similar enough so that if you take any given cyclist and you give them just some basic introduction to running, they'll probably perform okay as a runner. We see this a lot with cross-country skiers in Norway where you have cross-country skiers that they do a fair amount of running in the summer maybe, but their main sport is skiing. Still, when you take those out of their normal context of being a skier and put them in a running race, they often do quite well actually, even though they're not really runners and that's because there's a crossover there, right? The fitness that you get from being a cross-country skier is really transferable to being a runner. It's very similar and vice versa. Runners can be pretty good at skiing although there's a greater technical demand when it comes to skiing. So that's really cross-training. Cross-training is doing another activity that still benefits you in terms of producing fitness that's applicable to your main sport. So when would you do cross-training then you ask? Well, suppose you're a little injured, maybe you can't run for a little while because you got a little bit of an injury, but you can cycle, well go ahead and cycle. You know, do some cycling and that will probably in the period of time where you can't run, it will maintain a large part of your fitness so you're not losing as much fitness as if you didn't do anything. And of course if you are injured it's very important that you add in the cross-training correctly and cross-training in general, it's a difficult thing to get right, whether you're injured or not. So I do recommend speaking to a coach and I happen to be a coach of course. Way to go, plugging my own services. I am a coach, mggcoaching.com, that's my website, I'll put a link to it here, there's also links in the description. I make customized training programs, I do consultations, all that good stuff. So if you're interested in incorporating cross-training and supplemental training into your regimen, contact me there and we'll see if we can set something up. Also if you're trying to build volume perhaps from a cardiovascular standpoint and also for the legs really, just want to build that sort of training volume up a little bit but you're at your limit in terms of how much you can tolerate structurally because running is a very taxing sport structurally, right, our tendons and our muscles. So cycling is much easier on the joints and the tendons because there's no impact. So perhaps when you're at close to your limit structurally but you could still handle more volume systemically as a runner, well then you can add in some cycling on top of the running and you get more volume overall without the pounding. So that's cross-training, right? I'm cycling because I want to be a better runner. It's all moving me towards that same goal but it is a different activity. I wouldn't, you know, as a runner suddenly do, as I said, mountain climbing as a cross-training activity. I wouldn't really call that cross-training unless you're just looking for general fitness but then it's not cross-training. It's just that, you know, you're just doing something else and you're just, you have a life with a lot of different activities and your overall, in general, very fit. But if you're trying to be fit in one sport like running, you want to be as specific as possible but you can go off to other sports and activities sometimes in order to sort of move you in the same direction and replace some of the original sports. So as a runner, cycling, cross-country skiing, perhaps swimming to a lesser degree but swimming is really good for your cardiovascular system still so you will maintain some of that. Like, suppose you're injured and you do swimming instead that could be a good way to do water running, elliptical. These are things that are cross-training type activities for a runner. That's cross-training now. What about supplemental training, right? Well, supplemental training is different. Supplemental training could be rock climbing. Supplemental training is what you do in addition to your main sport in order to supplement, okay? So the difference between cross-training and supplemental training is that cross-training is taking care of the whole, you know, you're doing it instead of your original sport for some reason. Supplemental training, you're doing it in addition to your original sport and it's things like weightlifting. Again, I'm speaking from the perspective of a runner. Weightlifting, lifting weights, it stiffens your tendons. It creates, you know, you become more injury resistant. You become stiffer and therefore more economical as a runner. So, you know, weightlifting is not cross-training. It's not like you could just quit running and do weightlifting for two months and you'll maintain your aerobic fitness. No, but you could do that with skiing, right? If you did skiing for two months, you'd maintain your aerobic fitness really well. You might even build it and then come back to running and you'll be pretty much just fine. If you go to strength training and weightlifting instead, that's not going to work. So it's not cross-training. It's a different activity that benefits the original activity, okay? So it's supplemental training. We do weightlifting or in order to be tweaking our body so it's better for running. Things like just small mobility exercises. So we have the right range of motion and flexibility to be a good runner. Small exercises for the feet, strengthening certain tendons and muscles, stability exercises, core exercises. This all goes under the umbrella of strength and mobility, I guess. And you could even throw in things like drills, running drills to work on technique and perhaps even mental training like running psychology. Perhaps even that could be considered supplemental training. You're working on something that doesn't benefit you directly but indirectly it helps you be a better runner or it helps you handle the training of being a runner. For a lot of the strength training, it's not that it actually benefits you in terms of running performance but it strengthens your body enough to be able to handle the training load necessary to be a good runner. So that's it really summing up. Cross-training, similar activity as your original activity that you can throw in in times of injury or perhaps on top of your other training in order to reach a higher volume. It has crossover benefits, hence the term cross-training and it's just for a small part of your overall training regimen and really specificity is key. So the more you run, the better you will be as a runner but you can substitute some of it maybe for other sports. And then supplemental training, something that you'll do most of the year to indirectly benefit your fitness as a runner. All right, so that's it. Supplemental training versus cross-training, both important, both good, not exactly the same. If you could make sense, it's sort of like subtle differences there but there is definitely a difference. If you have any questions, of course, you can send me a message at mdjcoaching.com, my coaching website, there's a link in the description or on my Facebook page, The Lone Trail or MGA Coaching, you can send me a message there as well. Hope your running is going well. Thanks for watching. See you around.