Strength Training for Runners

Getting weaker as you age?

Losing your speed?

Getting injured more often?

Unfortunately, we lose about 1% of our muscle mass every year once we hit 30. So by age 50 you could have lost 20%! This means that we lose that explosive acceleration we used to have. Our movements will become slower, more laboured and less poppy.

This weakening also means that those niggles start to become injuries. Weaker muscles allow more stress to fall on the bones and joints, leaving us more vulnerable to shin splints, osteoarthritis and patellofemoral pain. Weaker muscles lose springiness in the tendons, increasing our risk for developing Achilles tendonitis or plantar fasciitis.

Worse still, recovering from runs takes longer. Remember when you used to play a weekend volleyball tournament? Six hours in a day, then go party till 2 am, then get up the next day and do it again! Those were the days. That fatigue is because we let our muscles get so weak that they get pulverized by our runs. It’s not that we’re old, it’s that we’re weak!

Well, fear not! Getting weaker as you age is not inevitable. In fact, no matter how old you are, you can be stronger next year than you are this year. In three years, you could be stronger than you’ve ever been!

Stronger muscles make faster runners who can recover quickly and get injured less often.

Strength training can be specifically tailored to the needs of recreational runners.

I can help you get stronger, faster and more resilient than you’ve ever been.

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Custom Strength Training Programs for Runners

I can assess your individual strengths and weaknesses as a runner and design a custom strength training program around your schedule that is specific to your needs.

Schedule a free discovery call today. We’ll talk about your running history, injuries, goals and the challenges you are facing.

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How does it work?

We’ll start with a free discovery call. This helps me get to know a little more about you as a runner and a person. These are some of the things we’ll chat about.

What are your running goals?
Do you have any specific injuries or recurring issues?
Why are you interested in strength training?
What do you want to get out of it?
What equipment do you have access to?
How much time do you have?
How will we fit it around your running?

The answers to these questions will help me to design a custom-tailored strength program for you. This program will help you address any strength imbalances, flexibility deficits and areas of vulnerability. This will help you overcome recurring injuries, improve your performance and capitalize on the many health benefits of strength training.

After the discovery call, we will schedule one-to-one video appointments during which I will help you learn the proper technique for all of your exercises. We can get you up and running with just one appointment. You will receive your custom exercise program via an app that will have videos demonstrating all of your specific exercises.

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Strength training for a Healthy Life

Adults aged 18–64 years … should do muscle-strengthening activities at moderate or greater intensity that involve all major muscle groups on 2 or more days a week

World Health Organization

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Common Objections from Runners

I’m a runner, I hate the gym.
The fact is that heavy resistance produces all of the benefits described above. It doesn’t matter whether you use weights at home or in a gym or just find some heavy rocks to pick up. We can talk about how to make this work for you. However, you will often see bodyweight exercises recommended for runners, this is a mistake. Runners are generally too strong to see any significant strength benefit from bodyweight exercises.

I don’t have any equipment.
We can do some good core strength and technique optimization work with just your bodyweight and some resistance bands. However, if you are serious about capitalizing on all of the running performance, injury prevention and general health benefits discussed above, we’re going to need to get you some weights. It doesn’t matter whether you use dumbbells, kettlebells, sandbags, cinder blocks, even the dreaded gym membership. Whatever works for you.

I don’t have time
This is where the custom program really comes into its own. Many of my runners have been surprised by how well we can structure a strength training routine that fits with your current running training and other commitments. We can periodize your strength training for example, so you get stronger in the winter and do maintenance through the summer. We can streamline your workouts, using compound exercises and small but heavy sets of 3-5 reps. Condensing your strength routine into 15-30 minutes. We’ll make it work.

I will get bulky
This is never a problem. Increasing muscle size (hypertrophy) is extremely difficult to do. Just ask any body builder. In my experience, runners stay pretty much the same size, they just get leaner and stronger. This is also what has been observed in the research trials looking at strength training in runners (Blagrove 2018). Strength training does help with body composition though, seems to reduce fat storage around the abdomen (Allman 2019, Hunter 2002).

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Hopefully, reading about all of the benefits of strength training for runners has captured your interest. If you’d like to discuss how we might help you realize these benefits, book a free discovery call today.

After a few weeks, you’ll be feeling stronger. After a few months, you’ll be running faster. In a few years, you’ll be healthier and fitter than ever.

Strength training is an investment in your future.

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