How Strength Training Has Improved My Running
Working out to run better
I used to believe all you had to do to get better at running was to run more. But during my 1st half marathon, I was plagued with back and knee pain. After some research, I realized that my back and knees had started compensating for the weaker muscles.
My two defaults were either pure strength training or pure running. I never thought that I could complement my running with strength training. But it turns out strength training does wonders for our running ability.
Strength training enables us to strengthen our muscles and joints, which reduces our injury risk. It also improves our coordination and running economy, enabling us to run more efficiently.
All together running and strength training sounds like a lot of training. When I started my running journey again, I was doing 4 strength training sessions a week. It quickly became apparent that I did not have the time to run 3 times a week and maintain 4 strength sessions. I flip-flopped between the idea of decreasing the number of strength sessions because I was concerned that I was going to lose the strength.
Eventually, I did come to a good compromise and settled on 2 full-body strength sessions — instead of the traditional upper and lower body splits. I’ve also added a…
