Boost Your Run: 9 Strength Training Benefits Every Runner Should Know
As a runner, your focus is often on building endurance, hitting new distance goals, or shaving seconds off your race time.
But one of the most overlooked aspects of running performance is strength training.
Many runners shy away from lifting weights or incorporating resistance exercises into their training regimen, thinking it might make them bulky or take time away from running.
However, strength training can be a game-changer for your running performance and overall well-being.
Here’s why every runner should consider adding strength exercises to their routine:
1. Improved Running Economy
Running economy refers to how efficiently you use oxygen while running at a given pace.
The better your running economy, the less energy you expend, which allows you to run faster and for longer periods without fatiguing.
Strength training improves muscle function, enhances your neuromuscular coordination, and increases your ability to produce force with less effort.
This means you’ll be able to run more efficiently, conserve energy, and potentially increase your speed.
2. Injury Prevention
Runners are prone to overuse injuries due to the repetitive nature of the sport. Strengthening the muscles, tendons, and ligaments can help protect your body from these common injuries.
For example, strengthening your hip muscles, glutes, quads, and calves helps stabilize your joints, reducing the risk of shin splints, IT band syndrome, and runner’s knee.
Stronger muscles also improve your body’s ability to absorb shock, reducing the stress on your bones and connective tissues with every stride.
3. Better Posture and Running Form
Many runners struggle with poor posture or form, particularly during long runs. Weak postural muscles can cause slumping, overstriding, or excessive forward lean.
Strength training helps address these issues by building a strong core and stabilizing muscles, leading to better posture, proper alignment, and a more efficient running stride.
With improved form, you'll not only run faster but also experience less muscle fatigue and strain.
Alex, at the Margaret River Ultramarathon 2024
4. Increased Power and Speed
Strength training can help you develop more explosive power, which translates to increased speed.
Exercises like squats, lunges, and plyometric drills help to build fast-twitch muscle fibers, which are responsible for short bursts of speed. Whether you’re sprinting for a PR or pushing up a challenging hill,
stronger legs and a powerful core will enable you to tackle these efforts with more force, resulting in faster times.
5. Improved Balance and Stability
Running around Margaret River often means running over uneven terrain.
This demands a great deal of balance and stability. Strength training exercises can significantly improve your stability and coordination. Whether it’s maintaining good form during a long run, staying steady on a trail, or running through a downhill stretch,
stronger stabilizing muscles help prevent falls and improve your ability to adapt to varied running conditions.
6. Enhanced Mental Toughness
Strength training builds not only physical resilience but also mental toughness. The discipline of lifting weights or performing challenging resistance exercises teaches you to push through fatigue, overcome discomfort, and stay consistent with your training. These mental benefits can carry over into your running, helping you to dig deep during tough workouts or race-day moments when fatigue sets in.
7. Faster Recovery
While running places a lot of strain on your muscles, strength training can actually aid in your recovery. Stronger muscles are more capable of handling the stress and wear-and-tear of running, reducing the overall breakdown of muscle tissue. Moreover, strength exercises can help improve circulation, which enhances nutrient delivery to muscles and accelerates the healing process.
As a result, you may find yourself recovering more quickly between hard runs, allowing you to train more effectively and reduce the risk of overtraining.
8. Long-Term Longevity
As runners age, muscle mass naturally declines, and bones become more brittle. Strength training helps to counteract these effects by maintaining muscle mass and improving bone density, which are key factors for preventing injury and preserving mobility.
By adding strength exercises into your training routine, you’re investing in your long-term health as a runner, ensuring that you can continue running for years to come without suffering the consequences of muscle weakness or joint instability.
9. Better Body Composition
Strength training helps to increase lean muscle mass, which in turn raises your metabolism and helps with fat loss.
While running can be an effective way to burn energy, combining it with strength training will give you the best of both worlds: the endurance benefits of running and the muscle-building benefits of strength training.
This can result in a more balanced body composition, improved power-to-weight ratio, and enhanced running performance.
How to Incorporate Strength Training into Your Running Routine
While running should remain your primary focus, integrating strength exercises doesn’t have to be time-consuming or difficult.
Here are a few ways to include strength training in your weekly regimen:
Two to three days per week: Aim for strength workouts two or three times a week, with at least one rest day in between to allow your muscles to recover.
Focus on key muscle groups: Prioritize exercises that strengthen your legs and core, such as squats, lunges, deadlifts, planks, and push-ups.
Build around your running program: Make sure not to do a challenging running session soon after a heavy weights session. This will make you run fatigued and more likely to create an injury.
Cross-train: Incorporate functional movements that mimic running mechanics, such as step-ups, bounding, and box jumps, to improve your explosiveness and agility.
Seek professional help if you need it: It can be really worthwhile to seek a professional to help you with this part of your program. Refresh Physio offers one-on-one sessions to help assess your strength and build a program around your requirements.
We also run small group sessions in our gym to help supervise and appropriately progress your exercise program.
Incorporating strength training into your running routine offers a wide range of benefits, from improved running performance to reduced injury risk and enhanced overall fitness.
It’s an essential component for any runner looking to take their training to the next level and ensure long-term success.
By committing to a balanced regimen that includes both running and strength exercises, you’ll unlock your full potential, become a more resilient and efficient runner, and set yourself up for better results, whether in training or racing.
