Stop Working Out and Start Training Like an Athlete

If Serena Williams only played tennis, there's a good chance she'd burn out, get hurt or both. "Any workout done exclusively can lead to an overuse injury and decreased results," Holland says. "Cross-training, engaging in an activity with different cardiovascular demands and muscle activation patterns, can increase endurance, strength and flexibility while allowing you to continue favorite activities with less risk."

How to cross-train if you're a...

• Runner: Spin to boost your aerobic capacity, without added pounding on joints.
• Cyclist: Take a Pilates class to stretch your low back and strengthen abs, two spots that can suffer on a bike.
• Yogi: Add two weekly strength workouts with bands or weights to build muscle.
• Boot Camper: Do a weekly long, slow jog to build endurance and offset intervals.

Athletes are always training for something. Find your something — and that doesn't necessarily have to be a race. Having that deadline allows you to structure your training using a pro strategy called periodization. Think of it as a super specific scheduling method that gets you fit, fitter, fittest at precisely the right time to meet your goal (the Olympic trials, or maybe your best friend's wedding). A short-term plan might entail three weeks of increasing workout intensity followed by a taper, or down week, that allows muscles to recover and results to set in, says Andrew Kastor, a onetime competitive runner and current coach of the Asics Mammoth Track Club in Mammoth Lakes, California. That brings us to another term to think about when structuring your training: progressive overload. "It means making each workout push you a bit farther than you've gone before," says strength and conditioning coach Martin Rooney, founder of Training for Warriors and former speed coach for the New York Giants. "You add a little weight to the bar, or you run a bit faster, and you change your body." A good trainer or class instructor builds periodization and progressive overload into the workouts, so you're doing it without realizing it. No coach? No problem.

Try it:
Apply this formula from Kastor to any cardio or strength program: Increase intensity by 10 percent each week for three weeks. Let's say you typically jog 5 miles. For Week 1, go 5.5 miles, which is 10 percent farther; if you usually lift 7-pound weights, up it to 8s that first week. Then for Week 2, dial it up 10 percent more, and again for Week 3. When you hit Week 4, you get a breather: Scale back to your base numbers (5 miles, 7 pounds). You can repeat the four-week plan with one caveat: Make your base intensities higher the next cycle.

Few fitspo moments are more inspiring than watching a skier like Julia Mancuso carve side to side down a mountain at 80 mph. One training secret that makes that moment possible: "multiplanar" exercises (as in: exercises that have you move 360 degrees). The four-time Olympic medalist says, "I do hops and jumps in all directions, balance moves on a surfboard and agility-ladder drills." Chances are you're more one-dimensional (as in forward). "Most people train in the sagittal plane only — moving straight forward and backward, like when you run or raise and lower your arm for a biceps curl," explains Aletheia Fadness, performance specialist for the EXOS elite athlete-training facility in Carlsbad, California. But in life and in sport, you're constantly moving in all three planes of motion: sagittal, transverse (a sweeping cross-body move like when Michelle Wie rotates to swing a golf club) and frontal (soccer goalie Hope Solo facing forward and shuffling laterally to block a shot). Multiplanar moves have a laundry list of benefits. They engage more muscles, so you tone more quickly from every angle. They may help improve agility by 10 percent, according to research from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Why does being nimble matter? The ability to move quickly and easily can contribute to a bigger calorie burn. And these moves help prevent muscle imbalances, thereby lowering injury risk, which is to say, they'll keep you working out.

Try it:
Pick one exercise from each group below to create a mix-and-match multiplanar workout.

1. Sprint, squat or lunge: Your choice here covers the sagittal plane. For the squat or lunge, do 2 sets of 12 reps. Pick sprints and go 30 seconds all-out with one-minute recoveries; repeat 5 times.
2. Side shuffle, star jump or side raise: Now you're working in the frontal plane. Choose the shuffles or jumps and work for time: 45 seconds on, one minute rest; repeat six times. If you opt for the raises, perform 2 sets of 12 reps.
3. 180 jump, wood chop or bicycle: Your third move is in the transverse plane. Here, you'll work for time again. Go 20 seconds hard, 10 seconds rest; repeat 8 times.

Yes, Gabby Douglas loves flying into a double-flip on the gymnastics floor, but ask her to do it Monday through Sunday and she may just flip out. That's because athletes know that more isn't more. "Pros are phenomenal rest takers; it's everyday exercisers who often don't have enough confidence in their routines to take a day off," says David Epstein, author of The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance. Built-in rest days are physically necessary for your body to get fitter. When you work out hard, you create tiny tears in your muscle tissue; those fibers can't rebuild and strengthen if you're asking them to go at it again the next day, Holland explains. So see, we're not saying you deserve a rest; it's part of your training! That also means no junk workouts. Skip kickboxing if you're still dead from yesterday's MetCon class. Don't run 30 minutes longer than you'd planned, just to make up for eating brownies the night before. That seemingly innocuous extra work adds up and can keep your body from being able to do crucial muscle repair; it may even edge you into overtraining—an ugly, plateau- and injury-inducing zone.

Borrow a page from the pros and...

• Schedule rest days: Yep, right into your Google Calendar or smartphone, just like you would a workout. You want a breather at least every three to four days, Rooney says, to prevent muscle fatigue from intense workouts, or 24 to 36 hours after a workout that makes you body-crushingly sore. (That's when delayed onset muscle soreness, or DOMS, tends to strike, and when your muscles need the most reprieve.)
• Don't just sit there: Athletes foam-roll, stretch, take ice baths. OK, maybe that last one doesn't sound so appealing, but Fran-Bieuzen, Ph.D., who has studied contrast water therapy, says alternating your shower temp between super cold (50 degrees) and hot (crank it to 100), for two minutes each, may help ease muscle soreness, too.
• Do lie there: For at least seven hours. You need that sleep to capitalize on the gains you made in the gym. Some 80 percent of your supply of human growth hormone, what's created in your brain's pituitary gland to repair and strengthen muscles, is produced while you snooze. Regularly get less than seven hours a night and you're limiting your potential gains. "In fact, among some professional coaches and trainers, sleep is now being considered an 'advantage metric,'" says Epstein. Follow all six of our strategies and it's advantage, you.

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