If you’ve lifted weights for any amount of time, then you know that progressive overload is the thing you need to be pursuing. This is one of the fundamental tenets of strength. If you don’t lift heavier weights or do more work over time, you will not get stronger.
The Problem
Sounds easy enough. However, when I ask most people what they lifted on any given exercise in the last few days or weeks, they always have a hard time telling me. Not that they need to have their numbers memorized, but they don’t even have something they can reference in order to check their progress.
If you’re squatting 200 pounds for 3 sets of 5 today, you need to be using heavier weights or do more reps/sets next week or month. But if you can’t remember if you were squatting 185 or 225 last, how are you going to make intelligent decisions in the gym?
In part 1, we explored common technical faults and injuries of running that can be remedied with strength training.
As mentioned in the previous post, running is a strenuous activity. Proper technique requires a certain level of strength.
In this post, we will go over the various performance gains runners can expect from strength training.
Improved energy efficiency/running economy
Running economy is essentially how much energy a runner expends at a certain pace. Multiple studies have shown that running economy improves with strength training. While the exact mechanism isn’t fully understood, we can make a few intuitive leaps.
First, an improvement in strength will decrease the perceived difficulty of all tasks. A stronger individual will find a given task easier than an individual who is weaker.
Second, an improvement in muscular strength and conditioning will improve energy use and efficiency. With decreased strain will come decreased energy usage. If the overall task of running becomes easier to perform, the overall energy expenditure is lowered.
Third, an improvement in strength will improve technical efficiency. Deviations in running technique caused by weakness will worsen running economy. Good technique exists for a reason: It is the intersection of optimal performance, energy efficiency, and injury prevention. As we deviate further from good technique, energy efficiency will plummet and injury risk rise.
To be sure, a systematic review and meta analysis (one of the highest levels of evidence) in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research confirms that strength training will greatly benefit running economy.
Improved Propulsion and Take Off
Running can be crudely described as your legs continuously pulling and launching you forward. The moment that your foot leaves the ground is the take off phase of running. The ability to propel your body forward takes tremendous strength and power.
Now, no one actually runs like this but this image illustrates the importance of strong glutes and hammies for running. Do you think he would be able to do that with a pancake butt?
If we improve the force output and power of the legs, we can vastly improve the take off phase of the running cycle. The glutes and hamstrings are the primary muscles responsible for forward propulsion. A program with a good variety of squats, deadlifts, Romanian deadlifts, hip thrusts, good mornings, hamstring curls, split squats, and box squats will be very beneficial here. In addition, a good mix of plyometrics will help with improving power.
Improved Management of Ground Reaction Forces
For every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction. When your foot strikes the ground, the ground needs to push back up into the foot. Think about running on solid ground versus running on a soft mattress. The mattress will push back with less force than the solid ground. This is called the ground reaction force.
Running produces tremendous amounts of ground reaction forces, 250% of bodyweight by certain measurements. Needless to say, if you don’t have the eccentric strength and tendon strength to manage this, then you are working much harder than you should and will likely get injured at some point.
The heel strike produces large amounts of ground reaction forces.
The usual suspects for a good lower body strength program (squats, deadlifts, lunges, etc) will work well but if bounding, reaction, and eccentric strength are a problem, you should also do include a variety of plyometric exercises like skipping, broad jumps, jump roping, box jumps, and (for more advanced trainees) depth jumps.
One simple way to figure out if you need some help with managing and absorbing the ground reaction forces, perform the single leg hop test.
Hop forward as far as you can with one leg and land on the same foot. Do the same on the other side. If you can stick the landing without wobbling too much or losing your footing, you have good control and strength to manage the eccentric forces. If you are very wobbly, lose your footing, or there is a large discrepancy between your two legs, then you should probably spend some time lifting weights and jumping.
Lifting weights will improve all aspects of sports
As you can tell, lifting weights is not just for the meatheads and body builders. The myth that lifting weights will make you inflexible and slow needs to go the way of the dinosaurs. There is ample evidence to suggest that lifting weights will improve almost every aspect of athletics.
Remember this: A stronger human is harder to kill, harder to injure, and will outlast others who are weaker.
Further reading
Balsalobre-Fernández C, Santos-Concejero J, Grivas GV. Effects of Strength Training on Running Economy in Highly Trained Runners: A Systematic Review With Meta-Analysis of Controlled Trials. J Strength Cond Res. 2016;30(8):2361-2368. doi:10.1519/JSC.0000000000001316
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.
The shoulder is a complicated region of the body. It contains the most mobile joint in the body (the glenohumeral joint, or the ball and socket we all associate with the shoulder) that must also be strong and stable or else risk injury during heavy movements and exercise.
The fitness and sports industry has come up with many ways to strengthen, rehab, and prehab the shoulder, and for good reason. There are many muscles to address and if injured, shoulder rehab can potentially become a lengthy and complex process.
People often use cannabis as a sleep aid, saying that it allows them to fall asleep faster. Until recently, we didn’t have a good understanding of how weed affects sleep. However, emerging evidence shows that using cannabis as a sleep aid could be detrimental to sleep.
Former pot heads always tell me about how much better their sleep is after they abstain from weed for at least 2 weeks or quit completely. They also say that their brain fog disappears, their anxiety is better, and their memory improves significantly. Funny enough, all of these can be tied to the improvement in sleep quality.
Chronic use of cannabis has two distinct effects on your sleep.
If you’re looking for exercises to lose weight, you’ve probably heard from somewhere that you need to do cardio. Go out and run, jog on a treadmill, hop on an elliptical, or ride a stationary bike for an hour. Do that everyday for weight loss.
Nope.
That sounds like hell to me. Boring, time consuming, and probably ineffective hell.
Here’s the first thing you need to know about cardiovascular exercise for fat loss: medium does not exist.
Exercising for weight loss/fat loss needs to be intense.
Medium intensity, long duration exercise like jogging is not conducive for fat loss, athletic performance, or calorie burn. The science is clear. Jogging only results in disappointment.
The weight room is my happy place. I like to think that it will welcome anyone who has any inkling of interest in lifting.
But… I often forget that for the uninitiated, it can be a bit scary and intimidating. You can feel very vulnerable… You’re doing big movements on display in front of everyone!
This can feel even worse if you feel like you’re unsure of what you’re doing.
So let’s go over some basics to get you through your first day in the weight room.
There is literally just one question you need to ask yourself when deciding how to design a fitness or strength program:
What is the ultimate goal of the program?
I know, I know. This is probably the most cliche and overused advice in the book but cliches exist for a reason. Let me illustrate this point with a story…
Modern society has gifted us with many miraculous advancements. We can instantly send messages across the world, access an unprecedented amount of information (and misinformation), and darkness is no longer a large part of our natural selection.
However, this modernity has robbed us of a vital part of our health…
Testosterone is known as the chief male hormone. It’s usually associated with “being a man”, muscle gain, and general… manliness?
I often struggle to talk about testosterone in conventional ways and in terms of machismo because my interest and concern usually has to do with optimizing health and performance. While some woke-minded folks may say that testosterone is fueling machismo and ruining society, low levels of testosterone is associated with a plethora of health problems ranging from poor sexual health, decreased lean body mass (and an increase in fat), low energy levels, and even cognitive issues.
