Runners don’t lift. Lifters don’t run. I’m sure many of us have heard this dichotomy before, along with many other silly myths like lifting weights will make runners slower or inflexible.

This is silly nonsense.

Runners are missing out on a lot of potential gains in performance if strength training is neglected. This is because running is a relatively strenuous activity that requires a certain level of strength to tolerate.

Simply put, most people are not strong enough to effectively run with good technique.

There will be two immediate benefits to strength training for the runner. In this post, we will explore a few of the common injuries that runners tend to run into (no pun intended) and how strength training will help prevent them. In part 2, we will explore the performance gains from lifting weights.

Benefit 1: Lifting weights will decrease injury risk

Running is a very technical activity. When that technique is not utilized, especially for long distance runners, the risk of overuse injuries will creep in.

There are a few common injuries and technical faults that lifting weights will help correct.

Excessive knee valgus

The first common problem runners have is preventing the knees from caving when your foot contacts the ground. This is also known as knee valgus. With normal running technique, there should always be an opening between the knees when being observed from the front or back. This is called maintaining the knee window. When the knees start to cave in, this window will become narrower or completely disappear. This can also cause excessive wear on the knees.

While a simple technical correction may be sufficient to fix this problem, it is often the result of weak hips. Specifically, we want to look at the gluteus maximus (the main glute/butt muscle) and the gluteus medius (the glute muscle on the side of the hips). Among other things, these muscles will prevent the knees from caving inwards.

Here are some exercises to address this problem:

1. Deadlifts
2. Romanian deadlifts
3. Good mornings
4. Squats
5. Lunges
6. Bulgarian Split Squats
7. Hip thrusts
8. Monster walks/crab walks with bands

Hamstring strains

Runners need to avoid hammy injuries like the plague. The hamstrings are the muscles on the backside of the thigh.

There are two main causes for hamstring injuries in runners.

First is technical. Over striding is a technical fault where you reach your foot too far forward during your stride. This will place excessive force on the hamstrings and the back of the knee. When our striding foot contacts the ground, it should be almost directly underneath the hip. Some coaches will give the poor cue to “open up the stride” and unknowingly cause this problem.

The second cause of hamstring injury is weakness. A deficiency in strength is one of the main predictors and causes of injury. The hamstrings are one of the primary muscles involved in running and if they are not strong enough or prepared for the task, the likelihood of injury will be high. The risk further increases during sprinting and uphill running.

This is a case where the cliche of the weak link in the chain holds true.

Runners need strong hamstrings.

Here are some exercises that will strengthen the hammies.

1. Deadlifts
2. Romanian deadlifts
3. Stiff legged deadlifts
4. Good mornings
5. Prone hamstring curls
6. Nordic hamstring curls
7. Revers hypers

Quadriceps/patellar tendinopathies

Tendinopathies are what we used to call tendonitis. Same problem, better terminology.

A quadriceps tendinopathy is a pathology of the quadriceps tendon characterized by sharp pain felt at the top border of the knee cap.

A patellar tendinopathy is pathology of the patellar tendon/ligament. This is the thing that connects the bottom of your knee cap to the tibia.

Both of these problems can be a massive pain in the ass if they start. Tendon problems are especially problematic because they tend to take a long time to resolve.

Tendinopathies tend to occur when the tendon (the thing that attaches muscles to bones) are too weak, when poor mechanics or technique is used, or if the muscle is too weak. Strength training will not only strengthen the muscle but also the tendon.

If we strengthen the quads (the big muscle on the front of the thigh), we can help prevent these problems from happening in the first place.

Here are some exercises to strengthen the quads.

1. Squats
2. Lunges
3. Single leg squats
4. Bulgarian split squats
5. Sissy squats
6. Spanish squats
7. Leg extensions
8. Wall sits

So many reasons to lift…

Of course, this is not a complete list of injuries that runners will encounter, but if we address these problems early, we can prevent a lot of future grief.

There is a saying that I like: “A stronger human is harder to kill.”

We can make an intuitive leap that a stronger human is also harder to hurt. The evidence has shown this time and time again. No matter how many fancy “prehab” techniques and products come out, the bottom line is that strength will ALWAYS be the foundation of fitness, performance, and injury prevention.

In part 2 we will address the various performance gains that runners experience from strength training.