Win­ter indoor cross-​​training

Although run­ning can be a life-​​long and year-​​round activ­ity, those of us who live in the snow belt know that some win­ter days can test the met­tle of even the most brazen and diehard run­ners. Shorter days mean more time spent run­ning in the dark, colder days mean more time spent gear­ing up for your run with mul­ti­ple lay­ers, and snow­falls can mean changes to your stan­dard routes or hav­ing to deal with the haz­ards of slush and ice and bliz­zards. Yes, win­ter run­ning can be extremely enjoy­able (topic of a future post), but it can also be very chal­leng­ing. Of course, there is no bet­ter time for cross-​​training than when win­ter is at its worst — so when you find your­self stuck indoors, here are some tips to help you get the most out of your indoor win­ter cross-​​training.

Push your­self on a treadmill

Run­ners have a love/​hate rela­tion­ship with the tread­mill — some run­ners view it as an abom­i­na­tion to run­ning that should be avoided at all costs, other run­ners think it’s a nec­es­sary evil that gets the job done, and still oth­ers swear by it as an ideal cli­mate con­trolled run­ning plat­form. Regard­less of your posi­tion, the fact remains that when you’re indoors with­out a track, the tread­mill is clos­est thing there is to out­door running.

• Do inter­val work­outs — most tread­mills have a vari­ety of avail­able pro­grams that you can use for inter­val train­ing. One of the great ben­e­fits of doing inter­vals on a tread­mill vs. on a track is that it’s harder to cheat on your pace. This can be a great way to get out of a per­for­mance plateau and really push your­self to move your pace to the next level.
• Ran­dom­ize it — if tread­mills seem bor­ing to you, then select a ran­dom pro­gram and chal­lenge your­self to han­dle what­ever the machine throws at you!
• Focus on pace — again, because tread­mills run at a fixed pace, you can pre-​​determine what pace you want to tar­get for the dis­tance you are run­ning and use the tread­mill to focus on your pace. You can do a tempo work­out with a fixed pace for your entire run, or you can do tempo inter­vals, increas­ing the pace for 5 minute blocks dur­ing your run.
• Run with fam­ily! — most fam­i­lies don’t run together very often because dif­fer­ent fam­ily mem­bers run at dif­fer­ent paces. Tread­mills afford you the oppor­tu­nity to each run at your own pace while still run­ning side by side! So sched­ule a tread­mill lunch date with your spouse, or meet your kids at the gym after school, and go for a run together!

Explore new horizons

While tread­mills mainly work the same mus­cles as run­ning, explor­ing other equip­ment will work mus­cles you for­got you had – and just like on tread­mills, you can work out side-​​by-​​side with your family!

• Sta­tion­ary bike — like tread­mills, sta­tion­ary bikes are great for inter­val work­outs. For extra moti­va­tion, sign up for a spin­ning class. Bikes are also great for recov­ery work­outs, because unlike run­ning on a tread­mill, you can read a book while rid­ing a bike.
• Ellipse — ellipses are won­der­ful for devel­op­ing your ham­strings, calves, and thighs – and while you’re at it they’ll improve your bal­ance too. And because of the lack of impact, the ellipse is the per­fect machine for run­ners recov­er­ing from knee or ankle injuries.
• Stair climber — the stair climber has been along for so long that it tends to be over­looked in favor of the ellipse and newer machines, but that just means it’s eas­ier to find one avail­able when you’re at the gym! Stair climbers are per­haps the best piece of indoor equip­ment (other than weights) for devel­op­ing leg strength and are a good sub­sti­tute for hill workouts.

Go for a swim

If you’re not a triath­lete, it has prob­a­bly been a while since you’ve gone for a good long swim. If that’s the case, you’ll be sur­prised at how out-​​of-​​shape swim­ming makes you feel. Despite just hav­ing run a marathon a few months ear­lier, when I gave swim­ming a try I could barely make it the length of the pool before I ran out of breath and had to stop. But it didn’t take too long before I found my form, and found that swim­ming is a great way to really immerse your­self (pun intended) in your work­out. In addi­tion to being a great no-​​impact endurance work­out, swim­ming is also a fab­u­lous way to develop your upper body – some­thing neglected by far too many runners.

Pump iron

Speak­ing of upper body, I had a First Sergeant in the 82^nd Air­borne Divi­sion who before each week­end would remind us to keep doing PT (phys­i­cal train­ing), exhort­ing us to “…do some pushups and develop your bony lit­tle chests!” Unfor­tu­nately, “bony lit­tle chest” syn­drome is a com­mon afflic­tion among dis­tance run­ners. When the weather is nice, we like to log lots of miles — and our upper body pays the price. But there’s no bet­ter time than the mid­dle of win­ter to under­take a three-​​month weight train­ing pro­gram. Hav­ing a stronger and fit­ter upper body will actu­ally improve your run­ning! You might find your­self sur­prised at the improve­ment in your run­ning form and per­for­mance when you try your first race in the spring.

Mix it up!

There’s no rule that says your work­out needs to be homo­ge­neous. If you find indoor work­outs to be bor­ing and mun­dane, then mix it up! Inte­grate all of the above into your rou­tine for a whole-​​body workout.

• Speed and strength — Run and lift weights in the same work­out. Drop your run­ning dis­tance and increase your pace so you get your run done faster (use­ful for those who don’t like the tread­mill so much any­way). This will help you work on speed, and will still leave enough time after your run to do an upper body weight workout.
• Duathlon — Do half of your work­out on the tread­mill, and the other half on a bike, ellipse, or stair climber. This will break up the monot­ony of run­ning on a tread­mill and will help you to work out more mus­cle groups. Or try a land/​sea combo by doing the first half of your work­out on a tread­mill, bike, ellipse, or stair climber and the sec­ond half in the pool!
• Triathlon — Just like the real thing, split your indoor work­out into three parts – run, bike, and swim. Unlike the real thing, you can con­trol the order in which you tackle them, and the amount of time you spend on each.

So whether you live in the snow­belt or not, win­ter can be a great oppor­tu­nity to improve your fit­ness and your run­ning per­for­mance with cross-​​training when you’re work­ing out indoors.

1 Comment

• The joys of winter running | runninginthefamily.com December 8, 2009 at 10:46 pm

  […] I wrote about how win­ter can be a great time for indoor cross-​​training for run­ners. But just because it’s cold out­side doesn’t mean you have to hide out inside for the entire […]