Strength Training and Running

When it comes to the topic of endurance and strength training there are many opinions, many approaches and much research. There is no doubt that strength training can have a beneficial health impact. In recent years the Australian national exercise guidelines have come to include two weekly strength sessions in addition to the aerobic training recommendations that are in place.

Despite these health benefits, lets look at this from a running point of view. Is there any value of completing strength training as a method to improve your running performance?

The key point here is that if you want to run well, then you have to run. No amount of strength training will help your running if you arn't completing enough running sessions. To further this point, running is your priority and that means you can't have strength sessions causing fatigue for your key running session. It would be better to start your strength sessions fatigued as a result of a hard running session than vice versa. This means your weekly training structure must be well thought out. An example might be:

Monday - Day Off

Tuesday - Intensity Session in the morning; Strength training in the afternoon

Wednesday - Aerobic Run

Thursday - Intensity Session in the morning; Strength training in the afternoon

Friday - Aerobic Run

Saturday - Intensity Session

Sunday - Long Run

Now to look at the impact of this strength training. Lets break it into three categories:

1. Weight training - this is what most people refer to when they think of strength training. While benefits are associated with running, it is important to ensure these sessions are not leaving you sore and overdone. They should be focussed on high rep strength endurance. One of the keys to this type of work is the eccentric loading associated with lowering a weight. It is this type of eccentric muscular activity that results in post-session soreness when you run. It is most prominent when running downhill, running fast or running when fatigued. Thus strength training is especially important for the marathoner. Additionally, it is difficult to get enough of this training from running alone, so strength training can assist.
2. Stability and Basic Strength - this is the type of work you can do at home and the type of exercises your physio will give you during injury rehab. These sessions arn't focussed on strength gains as much as stabilisation. The main goal here is injury reduction. The benefits of this type of training are less direct; their aim is to keep you injury free and out there running. At the bare minimum, I would recommend all runners complete this type of training on a regular basis.
3. Plyometics and explosive training - Plyometrics are a type of power training focused around jumping activities. The research has shown that this can be very effective in improving running performance by reducing ground contact time. Foot strike during running slows us down, so if we can reduce the contact time we can run faster. This benefit is largely driven by improvements in the stretch short cycle which aids us in getting some spring off the ground after ground contact. So there is no doubt that it can be beneficial, but it is also demanding on the body and therefore increase injury risk. For this reason, it is recommended you have a solid running background,  or even better, a strength training background.

So what does this mean for the runner? Strength training can be beneficial, when not overdone. The challenge is fitting it in. Don't sacrifice a run to fit it in, but at the very least aim to complete 2 stability sessions at home (or at the end of your runs) each week.