As a runner, you can be forgiven for thinking that your workouts should all be running - right? It’s not quite that simple. You can help yourself run faster and further and hopefully ward off the dreaded running injuries by doing some strength training between runs.
Why should runners do strength training?
1) Improve biomechanics (how you move) and increase muscle efficiency.
Every time you hit the ground whilst running you need force to propel you forward and the further forward you go, the faster you will become.
In order to run smoothly and the most efficiently, you need good biomechanics. Regular strength training can improve mobility in your hips, ankles, and upper back.
Flailing arms and a swinging torso will also slow you down; to help control your movements you also need to work on your top-half and increase your core stability. Running-specific exercises can retrain muscle recruitment patterns and make sure that the right muscles are engaged on your run.
2) Decrease the chance of injury.
A force equal to around 3 times your body weight is placed through each leg as you run. To help minimize the chance of injury and absorb that force, you need stability, and incorporating strength training will help with this.
3) Potentially reverse Sarcopenia
Who? what? where?
Your muscles grow larger and stronger from birth until around 30 and then...... yep, it's all downhill from then. Sometime in your 30's you start to lose muscle mass and their function decreases and this is age-related Sarcopenia.
However, all is not lost. Strength or resistance training, which doesn’t require more than your own body weight, engages the muscles and causes a surge in growth-promoting hormones, these in turn signal the body to produce more muscle tissue and strengthen existing muscle tissue.
What is Strength Training and how often should I do it?
Good questions, I'm glad you asked.
Strength training is a form of exercise completed against resistance. You can use your body weight, resistance bands, or weights.
How many strength sessions should a runner do? The distance of your runs will be the best way to determine this. For the purpose of this post, we are looking at new runners and 2 times a week is recommended but if you only manage once a week to start with, that is going to be a whole lot better than none.
Strength/resistance workouts should not be high rep with your eyeballs bulging out your head - think quality, not quantity; the main focus is on good form, so don't try a workout after a long run and try to concentrate on mobility and co-ordination.
Below are two great YouTube videos on strength training for runners and both are fine for beginners and as you find it easier you can adapt the exercises to increase their difficulty.
And so endeth today's post. I hope it helps, please comment below if you have any thoughts.
more soon, keep safe xx
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