How to Strength Train as a Runner for Maximal Performance Gains
It’s the complete opposite of what you think and that’s why you’re getting injured!
Before getting into today’s topic, I want to clarify something crucial to all runners. Resistance training is not cross-training…it’s just training. It needs to be a compulsory aspect of your overall training and should be viewed as an extension of your running. The work you put in the gym (or at home) will not only support your performance, but it may be the very thing that keeps you on the roads and trails as you fine-tune your body as an efficient machine, free of rust and missing parts.
Now that’s out of the way, I want to touch on a hot topic among runners these days. While we all know that resistance training is beneficial to running, when is the best time to do it?
It’s a damn good question and one that has a surprisingly clear answer.
While you may think resistance training should be done on off or easy days, this approach prevents proper recovery and will likely slow down your results. Why is this the case? Putting your body through a hard running workout (tempo, intervals, long run, etc…) will cause you to be incredibly fatigued the following day, but in the period right after, you’ll be in an elevated state…
