Cross-over benefit bike to run

[Henley 1]

Suppose for a moment you are a runner only. But you also have a bike or IDT facility. And you are aware of the necessity to recovery after a long run or hard run or speed work run.

So, instead of doing a short, casual “recovery run” the following day, you rather do a bike or IDT session of substantial quality. My feeling is that the latter option will be better for your running performance than the first, yet offers the same “safety” level of recovery.

Wot you sink?

 

[Jaws677]

Yip use some other muscles with something like cycling or swimming for recovery exercise

[FirstV8]

In my younger years when i  cycled competitively i would use a a slowish 1 hour swim session as my cross over after a hard weekends racing as relaxant training . I found that the slow anaerobic muscle movement  was my way of helping my muscles back to norm . I would do this on a monday and resume training again on Tuesday . If we there was no race on a saturday afternoon i would play a game of waterpolo in a low league .

[Wil6]

Suppose for a moment you are a runner only. But you also have a bike or IDT facility. And you are aware of the necessity to recovery after a long run or hard run or speed work run.

So, instead of doing a short, casual “recovery run” the following day, you rather do a bike or IDT session of substantial quality. My feeling is that the latter option will be better for your running performance than the first, yet offers the same “safety” level of recovery.

Wot you sink?

There are heaps of info available on this on many Triathlon forums. Cross training is very beneficial when running, especially swimming. Cycling will also help you a fair deal

[Chris_]

Definitely beneficial. (not being a typical runner build) I find the impact of running consistently really wears me down. Cycling (and swimming) just takes the load off you joints and keeps the heart ticking over.

 

Big plus - interval training on the bike builds really good leg strength.

[dave303e]

a chilled ride in the recovery zone does wonders after a big run or race.

[SwissVan]

Suppose for a moment you are a runner only. But you also have a bike or IDT facility. And you are aware of the necessity to recovery after a long run or hard run or speed work run.

So, instead of doing a short, casual “recovery run” the following day, you rather do a bike or IDT session of substantial quality. My feeling is that the latter option will be better for your running performance than the first, yet offers the same “safety” level of recovery.

Wot you sink?

By substantial you imply a hard session, thus you would be having 2 hard days in a row, albeit different sports you are still using the same physical systems.

 

Normally this would not be recommended, but depending on your age ( the older you are the longer the recovery etc) and training experience ( beginner <-> many years experience) you might benefit.

 

In my experience I never felt that cycling had a noticeable positive effect on my running, but it definetly had a negative effect (tired legs).

 

In some cases it might beneficial to get used to running with tired legs, but imo doing brick sessions on the same day, rather than on consecutive days would be the preferred method to get used to running on tired legs.