Ankle Weights

Audio Transcript

Coach Claire Bartholic: Welcome back to the Runners Connect Run to the Top Extra Kick podcast. Today’s question is from Arjen and it is about ankle weights.

Arjen: I’d like to gain some more strength in my legs and I’m considering purchasing some ankle weights to wear while I’m running. What are your thoughts on this? Are these okay to wear on recovery runs and even long runs?

Claire: That’s an interesting question Arjen, and it’s one that has come up before. It seems like it would be a good idea to make running a little bit harder by attaching some light weights to your ankles, while you run.

When weights are attached to your ankles, your leg acts like a lever. A small weight so far from the core of your body, generates a lot more resistance than if the weights were attached closer to your torso.

Wearing ankle weights throughout the day can strengthen your calf, quads, and hip muscles, because you have to work more to flex and move your leg.

Wearing ankle weights while exercising, causes your heart to beat 3-5 beats per minute faster, and increases the amount of oxygen that your body needs.

The specific benefits of wearing ankle weights during daily activities has not really been measured, at least none that I could find.

Wearing ankle weights throughout the day could provide some benefits to your legs and cardiovascular system.

Before you click that “buy now button” on a shiny new set of ankle weights, let’s talk about the negatives.

Wearing ankle weights while running or even walking, increases your risk of injury. By increasing the weight of your legs with weights, you are increasing the stress on all of your joints especially your knees, hips, and ankles.

To compensate for your unnaturally heavy ankles, your running form will have to change to simply be able to pick up your feet fast.

Your feet will also land harder with each step, causing a chain reaction all the way up to your hips and even up your spine.

The changes in the way you run and move with ankle weights, may also lead to injured ligaments and tendons.

If you already have joint problems to begin with, or you start to develop joint pain, wearing ankle weights is simply not a good idea. Skip the ankle weights, Arjen.

What are some better ways to gain leg strength for running? Well, the simple answer is more running. Slow easy runs build leg strength over time.

Adding in some short sprints or strides at the end of an easy run, will make this process happen even faster.

To do this, stop and catch your breath after an easy run and then run hard for just about 20 seconds with excellent form and then stop.

Fully recover for a full minute or two and then repeat for a total of four times. The next way to build powerful legs is to incorporate hills into your runs.

It doesn’t have to be anything formal are structured, simply run up and down hills every chance you get.

To add even more challenge, try a hill repeat workout.

After warming up for 20 minutes or so of easy running, run hard up a steep but runnable hill for 30-45 seconds and then walk or jog back down for recovery.

If you are new to hill repeats start with four to five repetitions.

As you become advanced, you can alternate your 30 second efforts with 75-90 second repeats and your legs will be burning, I guarantee you.

After you’ve done that for a few months, take it to the next level by adding a few miles of a tempo run after a good set of hill repeats.

Hill repeats are fantastic strength workouts, but you don’t want to be doing them every day or week.

Once or twice a month is perfect. You’ll also want to incorporate some good old-fashioned strength training into your routine to get some nice strong legs.

But I don’t want you lifting weights while running at the same time. To start, skip the weights altogether and do some body weight work.

Lunges, squats, stair stepping, and planks, all contribute to your leg strength. It’s good to get into either a short Daily Strength training routine, or a longer 30-60 minute session once or twice a week.

I’ll bet that the reason you want stronger legs is because you want to be a faster and more durable runner.

An important piece of that is not just pure strength; it’s explosive power. This is where plyometrics or jumping exercises come in.

Skipping, hopping, and jumping will all make your legs powerful and fast. My favorite way to get in my plyo’s, is by jumping rope.

Just 10 minutes every other day will do the trick. We have several examples of these types of exercises on our site at runnersconnect.net as well as a full-strength training program designed specifically for runners. Check it out if you’re interested in learning more.

I hope I’ve convinced you Arjen, that there are far better and safer ways to get nice strong legs for running than using ankle weights.

Thanks for sending in your question today.

We’ve almost come to the end of the episode today but if you’re still out there on your run and you need something else to listen to you, can just switch on over to the audio book you just downloaded from Audible.

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Have a great run today.