Rider Fitness with Tiffany Henwood – week 7

 

Over the past few years I have trained or rehabbed athletes from many different sports. Addressing injuries, imbalances, desire to improve speed, power, strength, stability or flexibility…. The list goes on. I have used many different elements of training varieties and skills improvement drills…cross training… to achieve amazing results. Cross Training not only breaks the monotony of training in the gym or doing the same classes or the same run, but adds entire new dimensions to your fitness and aids in injury prevention.

 

Most of the population if they train, train what they like or know…gold stars for working on your fitness…. But our bodies become accustomed to what we are doing very quickly and we plateau. Therefore our gains that seemed so great in beginning have now stalled at a point. Never to change. On average, depending on frequency of training, the body will begin to plateau at 4 – 6 weeks. So if you’re following a program at the gym, if you’re running 3km three times a week, if you take the same classes every week…they are most beneficial to you for 4 – 6 weeks after which you make little to no progress and can even regress. Yet another reason to cross train….avoid the body becoming accustomed.

 

Cross training is really only limited to your imagination, I myself have had to throw a spanner in the works of my own training, as lingering weakness and imbalance from prior falls has reared its ugly head leaving me in sleep depriving agony. Therefor my training has a done a complete 180 and I’m only swimming and practicing hot yoga while I attend to recovery and rehab. The swimming takes the load off my joints but maintains my cardiovascular fitness while the yoga is addressing my tightened muscles and maintaining my flexibility, strength, balance and focus. For someone that is used to training twice a day, running boot camps, riding 2 horses and training 6-12 clients in a day, this seems like a significantly lesser amount of training, but the long term benefits and future improvements are greatly significant.

 

So if you are plugging away at the same old exercises or if you are new to fitness take some time to tailor your training, or seek the advice of skilled Personal trainer. Set goals and create blocks of training that are no longer than 8 weeks. Include all kinds of different elements of physical activity. Road bike riding, mountain bike riding, swimming, yoga, Pilates, a weight program, running, boxing, kick boxing, power and agility drills, tumbling, dance or trapeze classes…..AND TAKE THE TIME TO ADDRESS YOUR INJURIES… Rehab them fully and do your best to address any weakness and imbalance in the surrounding muscles and joints to help prevent further injury. 

 

I find it hugely beneficial to throw the odd challenging fun day into the mix!!! Go to BOUNCE.INC, awesome trampoline playground, THE TREES ADVENTURE, high ropes climbing course, TRAPEZE CLASSES, HIKE A MOUNTAIN, MOTORBIKE RIDING, PAINTBALL, 1000 STEPS….these are just a few of my favorite mix it up things to do.