Can Other Sports Improve Your Cycling Fitness?

This January you’ve joined the GCN team in the Zwift 30 in 30 challenge but what else have the gang got up to this month? They have tested out other forms of exercise, including running (?!), that can help improve your cycling performance and mental well-being.

In association with @Zwift 👉 https://gcn.eu/zwift2024

00:00 Intro
00:41 What is cross-training?
02:01 Si Richardson goes running
04:34 Conor Dunne goes swimming
05:38 Hank in the gym
06:43 Manon goes walking
08:06 Dan Lloyd actually does some exercise
09:00 Ollie and Alex
09:30 Alex on Zwift

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Gotta Move on – STRLGHT
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📸 Photos – © Velo Collection (TDW) / Getty Images & © Sprint Cycling Agency

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This January we challenged you to complete 30 minutes of exercise every day for the whole month here we go another day another zift day in Day come on we teamed up with zift so that loads of us could ride together on two gcn group rides per day and it was cracking

To you all ride along with us but it wasn’t just about cycling running swimming the jit walking any exercise counts and I am a big believer in Cross training but but do other sports really help to improve your cycling let’s take a look should have worn flip-flops cross training is when you

Mix things up and use a different sport or activity to improve your overall health and fitness or one specific thing like cycling of course if you are watching this you’re probably a cyclist hold on how whoa whoa how do I end up here yeah bikes rock on bikes if you are

Here randomly then welcome because we cyclist we do have a bit of an obsession we prefer riding our bikes to any sort of other removement and if we are going to the printer in the office we do wheelie there instead of walk which is a bit silly

Really but it’s a good Obsession at that isn’t it and you all agree too in fact 6,300 of you joined us on our zift 3030 rides we improved our power by 2 Watts on when we did this last year 83 watt average come on everyone we’re getting

Stronger we’ve got this it’s in the bag we 68,000 ride on and we actually covered 74,000 M altogether which is three times around the equator pretty nuts away from all that cycling though moving your body in different ways does have its benefits and when we couldn’t jump on the bike

This is what we’ve been up to in a bid to complete our Jan challenge but does the science say we should continue with our off bike activities [Applause] of course most of my exercise this month has been on my bike cuz that’s what I love doing so whether that’s in the rain on ice on zwift in Jona that’s pretty cool and on the rare sunny day here in the UK as well however I have also started running

Which is weird cuz I’ve successfully avoided it for many a decade but basically a good mate of mine invited me out for a run on New Year’s Eve and I should of forgot to say no and then one thing’s led to another and I’ve now done

Five in the month of January with no goal other than to be able to run without crippling myself in the process so I don’t think it’s going to improve my cycling the one thing I am wondering is if I go for steady runs can I do them

On the days when I don’t feel like I’ve got time to ride maybe then that’ll have a benefit but I mean it’s cool like I’m enjoying it don’t going me wrong it’s a nice way to catch up with some mates but it’s not quite up there with cycling

Let’s be honest now that’s my hunch about performance but what about the science there are studies out there such as a couple from the universities of New Mexico and California that have shown that your aerobic performance is maintained even when you mix up your training cycling and running in

Comparison to focusing on just one or the other which makes sense but I’m not actually worried about my aerobic fitness it’s my anerobic fitness and those high power efforts that I’m concerned about losing but perhaps I shouldn’t be whereas Pro pro cyclist in the past would never have run now stra

Is a wash with Pro cyclists admitting to running everyone from wart to Pros Rog glitch and they clearly don’t have any issues with anerobic or high power efforts so perhaps I’m worrying about nothing there one thing though that I definitely am aware of and you should be

Too is that if you are starting running you should begin very very gently to avoid getting injured oh and no just because I cycle and have now started doing a bit of running it does not mean that I’m going to start swimming as well that would just be

Weird this month I’ve actually been swimming and a bit of Surfing too I love doing both I’ve done it since a young age and it feels like the perfect antidote to a life spent hunched over bars I love it and it has been very easy

To do in the winter months as well come down after the kids are in bed when it’s dark get some Lanes done in the pool now I must admit that research into the benefits of swimming for improving your cycling performance is pretty low on the ground but there is some research out

There that is showing that swimming can improve your cognitive function when compared to running or cycling which is where I got it from maybe kind of probably not maybe I’m an anomaly but swimming has been shown to help make your brain work better and perhaps more intriguingly it has also been shown that

It can reduce artery stiffness which can help reduce stress on your brain and your kidneys overall is definitely added to my fitness and my Mobility which is transferred to how I feel when I jump back on the bike yes January 1330 it’s gone by and I have loved sharing riding with all of

You all around the world on zwift and I’ve also Lov smashing a bit of racing that’s what really gets me going being able to be competitive from inside your own living room but also I love getting away from the horrible January weather we have in the UK and hitting the

Gym so why have I done gym work for my month and I’ve got three reasons first off it’s efficient and it’s easy the Gym’s always there no matter what the weather and I know exactly what session I can do in the time I’ve got two it’s

Good for on bike work so it means I can work on the anerobic efforts meaning the short hard efforts and uh also helps with injury prevention and also gets me stretching too and three I love it I love the mix of sports I love being able

To do this in the winter and then as soon as the summer hits it’s full gas bike I have absolutely been loving riding my bike with you guys on Swift and it’s been especially nice just being able to get back on my bike after my running injury and yes I was taking it

Easy but something else I’ve been doing quite a bit of alongside riding my bike is walking and there’s been a lot of dog walking hasn’t there now I know all the others will be on about how fit they are and all the aerobic advantages to exercise and blah

Blah blah blah blah but actually just getting out there and walking has so many benefits Studies have shown that people who get out there and walk for 20 minutes a day are 43% less likely to have a sick day than those who just exercise once a week and if they did get

Sick it was a lot less severe there has also been a Harvard study of 12,000 people that found the effects of 32 different obesity promoting genes were cut in half in participants who did a brisk walk each day way just having a poo break sometimes uh walking in balls

Picking up poo which is Splendid it’s my favorite part of the walk it’s 27th of January and this is my first 30 and 30 the 30 and one basically good 100 people hopefully you can see that um I have been doing some other riding on sft one ride

Outside but I’ve also been getting my 30 30 done in other ways Fair few dog walks at a Brisk Pace once sometimes twice a day longer at the weekends and I’ve been doing some rocking you have to be careful to say that clearly rocking uh you can’t really see my

Backpack it doesn’t look very big but uh there’s a 25 kilo sleeve weight in that backpack so about a third of my body weight I was reading that it’s really good for you and I hope it is cuz it’s bloody hard work well I haven’t done anything other than

Cycling in January why would you do anything else I love cycling about you uh done quite a few things quite a bit of walking been to the gym lifting some weights I’ve also done uh bit of uh yeah I’ve done a lot of like core work oh you

Actually done loads and and uh a bit of paddle ball as well absolutely nothing for me I’m riding my bike and that’s about it yeah just having a good time all the time um also I read Anthony K’s autobiography and he said that his like main way of working out was as um

Population as well cool so I I yeah I’ve been doing that so cross training can definitely help you become a fit healthy allround individual whatever sport you’re taking on but can it improve your cycling potentially if cross training is done in addition to anything you’re doing on the

Bike but it’s hard to see how it would make you a better cyclist if you replace what you do on the bike with what you do off it personally though I think it is a great way staying fresh staying fit when potentially not going to ride your bike

And also spicing things up keeping them fresh that’s what it’s all about of course thank you to everyone who joined us in our 30 and3 January challenge on zwift it was great to ride with you all and share a few pedals along the way share a few pedals along the

Way yeah we’ll take that nice to ride with you everyone thanks for watching let us know in the comments what You’ got planned this year hope it’s a good one let’s go and smash it two whats Improvement already from last year woohoo