Strength Training

In today’s Extra Kick, Coach Dylan explains how to incorporate strength training to aid (and not detract from) your running!


Audio Transcript

Coach Dylan: Welcome back Runners Connect fans and friends. Here with you for another episode the Runners Connect Run to the top Extra Kick Podcast. I have a fantastic question that I’m going to answer for you all today.

Liz: Hi. My question is regarding strength training. I continue to have a hard time fitting it into my schedule and so over time just continue to run my miles without the strength training workout.

Should I do something drastic like focus on strength training and lower my mileage so that I can make sure I get it in?

I’m 37 with a running age of probably… I’ve been running since I was 10 basically. I have a high running age and just worried as I get older, that I need to really focus on strength training but just continue to have a hard time fitting it in.

I have three kids at home and all that. It’s just difficult to do and I’m wondering if I’m really cutting myself short. Thanks

Dylan: Liz, thank you for asking a phenomenal question and I’ll have to admit that this is probably the hardest thing to convince the diehard distance runners to do.

We spend so much time on our feet and it can be really tiring driving to the gym and getting in those supplementary exercises that just don’t seem practical and timely in our everyday lives.

I’ll be the first to tell you that I don’t spend enough time in the gym as I like to, or I need to. I have gotten much better over the years after spending time with some very knowledgeable people who have led me to partaking in the exercises that limit my time in the gym or maybe not even at the gym at all.

They’ve really taught me to get the most bang for my buck. It doesn’t also help that strength training didn’t exactly have the greatest reputation or the best representatives for such a long time.

It only seems, of recent, that we see more strength trainers and coaches focusing on distance runners. I’m glad the research and the practical information is there but it remains widely absent and runners’ daily regimens.

As individuals who partake in an activity that innately causes us to be prone to repetitive injuries, we should be taking an approach that prevents these injuries before it even happens instead of only doing the exercises when something hurts.

That seems to be a cycle of things, right?

I’m sure many of us are nodding our heads right now because I’ve been there but I’ve kind of come to the light these days and I try to get the best or at least one maintenance day during the week too is more optimal but one good day or even spending small amounts of time throughout the week, can be just as sufficient. I’ll touch on that in just one moment.

For all of us listening to Liz’s question right now, we need to spend time working on our strengths, mobility, and our flexibility in combination to our running.

Essentially, we gain several great benefits to working these aspects into our schedule, such as increasing the power and the resilience of our muscle. This helps build up our muscles as running is constantly breaking down.

Lifting heavier weights also provides incentives to our running economy and our efficiency as well.

For those who run marathons, you guys are also common with those dead legs that we get after about a mile 18 or a mile 20.

The fleeting of those ‘feel good’ early Miles slowly disappearing as your legs pound stride after stride. Well, strength training can help build the resiliency within those major mover muscles that will allow your body to be able to withstand the trauma and recover quicker too.

If you were to see most major marathon runners weightlifting programs, you would see that they are lifting heavy short reps in multiple times a week.

Renown coach and research scientists [00:04:06 C Magnus] recommends only spending 30-45 minutes in the gym working these major mover muscles to help influence the recovery and resiliency that weight training provides.

This, of course, keeps our bodies working more efficiently thus allowing us to be more injury resilient. Maybe this type of work just isn’t practical for you. I don’t love gyms and I sometimes feel odd and out of place.

I’m sure that this is common between us runners and maybe I don’t like lifting heavy weights or I don’t have a gym membership and now what do I do?

Well that would be a great question and I think I have an answer to it. We have a term called Pre-Hab or Pre-Habilitation as in rehab but before you get injured.

I do Pre-Habs daily either before or after my runs. For example, every single run, I do the lunge matrix. For those of you who don’t know what a lunge matrix is, we have a nice video on our website, so check it out.

But essentially, we do a lunge 5 or 10 times on each leg and just about every direction. Well this not only warms us up prior to the run, it also helps strengthen and open our hips which is essentially a mini strength training session.

A few other things I like to include are running drills such as A skips, B skips and leg swings. I had just purchased a third band to do exercises such as band walks, band squats monster walks, and hip extensions.

After a few runs during the week, I take my band everywhere I go, and I’ll do a to ten reps of these exercises and there are plenty more exercises as well. But these are just a few that I like to implement before and after my runs.

I’ll do these exercises about 2-3 times of 8-10 reps. This may take a whole 10 minutes to do and I’ll even add some active isolation stretching to top it all off.

You may take a total of 15 minutes of very small exercises to do just prior or just after your runs on only a few days of the week. It’s so simple. You can even add more exercises that you feel you may need.

Planks and squats are great, I love squat jumps as well, single leg squats too. These are all very important exercises that I like to do on alternating days or any given day of the week that just fits my schedule.

The exercises are seemingly endless, and we can fit these exercises so easily into our schedule because they don’t consume much time but they’re worth so much.

We are centrally working all the major muscle groups and small quantities to ensure our body is being healthy, stimulated, and worked.

I’ll try to do anything so that I can remain on two feet. For those of you who don’t have much time on your hands to get to the gym, lift heavy, or use gym equipment, I would recommend making small time investment and go get a fair band.

Just take a few minutes after your run from these exercises that stress the areas in which you may be feeling weak because I promise you it’s worth it.

Nobody likes to be sidelined with a running injury so why not keep it that way. Liz, I think you should try to implement just a few exercises to your training.

Start slow, pick a few exercises to work that area that may be more problematic to you maybe in your past or currently, and keep it light and you can add more over time.

Again, it’ll only take a few minutes before and after your runs. I understand time is a big commitment running but taking care of your body is possibly even more important.

If you really appreciate being on two feet and running as much as I do, you never want to have that regret of saying, “I wish I could have done this or I should have done that” while you’re sitting at home with an injury.

I think you should try to incorporate this. Add some little things over time and see where it goes. I think you’ll certainly benefit from this sort of work and it doesn’t have to be much, a little can go a long way.

Thank you so much for sharing your question with us.

Thank you all for tuning in today. For those of you listening that want to have your question answered by one of the Runners Connect coaches, head over to runnersconnect.net/daily and click the record button to send your question over.

We look forward to hearing from you soon. Enjoy the rest of your day.

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