If you run for more than pleasure, heart health, or to burn calories, you likely want to improve your running speed or increase your cardiovascular endurance, depending upon your goals. You might even run 5K’s or longer distances, like a marathon, and want to improve your time. What role does strength playing play for you? Could it make you a better runner?
We focus most on what we’re good at or what we enjoy. If you love running, you may spend most of your time running short or long distances to improve speed or endurance. Strength training might take a back seat to racking up more miles. Here’s why you still need strength training, no matter what distance you run.
What Are Your Running Goals?
If you run shorter distances and compete in events like 5K’s, you need speed and power. Research shows that strength training improves maximal sprint speed and performance in races. That’s a good thing, right? One study found that endurance training combined with explosive strength training boosted peak running performance on the treadmill and also improved 5K running performance.
However, it’s not just sprinters and guys and gals who run shorter distances that need strength training. Studies show that strength training improves running economy by 2-8%. When you have a better running economy, you use less oxygen to run a specific distance. Running economy, along with aerobic capacity (V02 max), and lactate threshold are the three main factors that determine running success. You can throw mindset too! If two runners have the same V02 max, the runner with better running economy will have an advantage. Therefore, one-way strength training can make you a better running is by enhancing running economy. As your running economy improves, you’ll perform better in events like a 10K.
What about Changes in Body Composition?
One concern that runners, especially those who run long distances have, is that strength training will bulk them up and reduce running economy. However, studies show that long-distance runners who strength train don’t gain significant muscle mass or become bulkier. That they run longer distances in combination with strength training may create enough of a catabolic state to prevent excessive muscle gain.
What Type of Strength Training is Best?
Many runners assume that they should lift lighter weights and do higher repetitions, but research suggests you’ll get the most benefits if you work with weights of between 60% and 80% of your one-rep max. Compound exercises, like squats and lunges, that work multiple muscle groups and target the muscles in the lower body are important for running performance.
Squats are a more quad-dominant exercise than an exercise that works the hamstrings. To be a high-performing runner, you need hamstring strength for balance. In fact, hamstring strength plays a critical role in how fast you can run. When your hamstrings are strong, hip extension is more powerful and you can run faster. Plus, many females are quad dominant and need hamstring work. Deadlifts are an effective exercise for the posterior chain, including the glutes and hamstrings. Single-leg deadlifts are ideal for working on strength imbalances between the two sides.
Don’t Forget Your Core!
You also need exercises that strengthen your core since strong core muscles help generate power for sprinting and faster runs. Plus, a strong core creates pelvic stability, and that improves running economy. It would seem that a strong core would also lower the risk of injury, but there’s a lack of strong evidence that strength training lowers the risk of running injuries. What are the best exercises for the core? Planks and their many variations are an excellent choice for core strengthening. In fact, a study of 667 runners, including some competitive runners, found that over 70% did core training exercises.
Don’t neglect your arms either. When you run, you use your arms to drive you forward. They need to be strong and have good endurance too. Too often, runners develop strong muscles in their lower body and have an upper body that’s weak by comparison. Include push-ups and their variations and rows in your strength training routine to hit the muscles in your upper body.
Make room for plyometric exercises in your routine too. According to Runner’s World, plyometrics improves running speed by boosting the elastic properties of muscles. When muscles in your legs are more elastic, they bounce off the ground faster and with greater speed, so you spend more time off the ground. Studies show that plyometric training improves running economy too.
What are the best plyometric exercises to improve the elastic properties of your muscles? Squat jumps, depth jumps, box jumps, and depth jumps are good options. Start with squat jumps and work up to more advanced movements like depth jumps or box jumps.
Balance Your Training
Even if you love to run, keep your training balanced by including strength training in your routine. If possible, strength train on days you don’t run so fatigue doesn’t limit performance for either. You might run three days a week and do an hour of strength training three days. That leaves you a day of rest. Include some form of plyometrics in your training too as it will improve your running economy as much, and as one study finds, more than strength training.
The Bottom Line
Now you know why you can’t ignore strength training even if you’re a serious runner. Whether you compete or run recreationally, strength training can improve your running economy and performance. Plus, you’ll be a more well-rounded athlete too. Everyone needs the benefits that strength training offers, even runners.
References:
- British Journal of Sports Medicine 2017;51:831-832.
- com. “How Strength Training Makes You Faster”
- Journal of Applied Physiology. Volume 86. Issue 5May 1999. Pages 1527-1533.
