Letsrunners- If you've ever had to take time off of running for injury, what method of cross training did you prefer? (i.e. swimming, water running, biking, elliptical) How much cross training (i.e. minutes, miles) did you do weekly? Essentially, what is the best way to stay in shape while you are unable to run?
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first question is this: what kind of injury? that will dictate a lot.
The best kind of cross-training you can do is anything that's pain free and doesn't aggravate the injury. A femur stress fracture is going to be quite a bit different than plantar fasciitis, for instance.
There's two components here: running specificity and cardiovascular maintenance. The ski erg, for instance, does a great job of keeping your cardio in tact, but does NOTHING to help with running specificity. Same with swimming.
Deep water running/aquajogging is about as run specific as you can get, but I've always had issues keeping my HR up in there.
If you are a mountain/trail runner, then step mill is probably the best. If you are a road athlete, step mill probably not helpful at all.
If you can stay weight bearing, then do that so your muscles/bones can still get a bit of impact (makes the return easier). Hence why elliptical would be better than a spin bike,
Assuming no limitations and all are pain free, I'd do a combo of elliptical, step mill, and aqua jogging.
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