Get the Most Out of Your Strength Work (including the SECRET to lifting heavy)

‘Do More Strength’ means nothing to anyone…

‘Do more strength’ is a phrase that is immediately obvious, yet means absolutely nothing at the same time.

It’s usually a throwaway comment meant in good faith but it’s not really that helpful for runners who already know it’s a good thing…

What exercises am I meant to do? Do I just do legs? How heavy should I lift? Am I lifting right? How many reps and sets? How do I progress? What shoes do I wear? When do I lift? How do I not compromise my running sessions? How should I feel after? Why is that gym rat staring at me? ahhhhhhhh!!

A lot of questions and it can be overwhelming.

I’m going to try and break this all down to give you more clarity and a swagger in your step in the gym 💃

Firstly, here is what strength training does for the runner:

• Increase power output of leg stride, improving efficiency
• Improve muscle and bone tolerance to the stress of running
• (and so you reduce the risk of injury)
• (also will make you faster)

Master the basics

Flicking through Instagram, you’ll see lots of people’s different versions of a gym session. You might be tempted to copy it but it’s worth remembering that everyone is at a different stage in their fitness ‘journey’.

Before you even touch a box jump, you want to nail down the basics of strength. Firstly, that means nailing down these basic moves (applicable to all athletes):

• Squat
• Deadlift
• Lunge
• Row
• Press

The reason I include upper body movements, row and press, is because weak points in your body will fatigue faster and put even greater stress on other muscles.

Like running, the key to getting stronger is to progressively overload our muscles – doing a little bit better every session (in terms of weight, reps, sets, speed, range of motion).

Like your running, we want to build up that base before we add on any fancy-schmancy speed work. Once you are comfortable with these 5 moves, you can layer on other strength stuff like calf raises, tib raises, crunches, etc.

Then even further down the line, you may want to add some explosive plyometrics but first, master the basics.

How often?

To anyone wanting to get into or progress their strength training, ask yourself: what is the minimum effective dosage?

It can be exciting starting out but starting slow, committing to as little as you can get away with is the best strategy to sustain the benefits of strength training and to not impact running too much.

What the minimum effective dosage is depends on where you’re at but a good starting point can be around 10 sets per muscle group per week, over 1-2 sessions.

Once it becomes second nature and you’re able to balance the increased fatigue, you can then gently increase your sessions – that can be in terms of reps, sets, number of sessions.

How heavy and how many sets/reps?

Like hard running sessions, lifting should be challenging but not have you in the bin every time.

For anyone starting out, a good place to start is lifting 3 sets of 10 reps for each exercise. The weight you pick up should always correspond to your reps.

1. Decide how many reps and sets you’re lifting for
2. Use a weight that (comfortably at first) challenges you for the selected reps

It’s also worth mentioning that you want to be mastering your form first before really loading up the bar – in other words, leave your ego at the door!

The secret to lifting heavy…

I was going to go through a form guide for how to execute each of the basic exercises but then I realised that there is one common theme across all of these that help you lift way more in a safer, effective way.

And that is to BRACE.

Using the squat as an example, as you’re descending, take in a massive breath and hold it as you explode back up.

Without bracing your body will be wobbly, like a playing card holding two bricks together.

By holding a big breath of air in, your core becomes more stable and the weight is able to move with such ease that you’ll wonder how you’ve held yourself back all this time.

You may have heard the cue to ‘engage your core’, well this is the same but wayyy easier to understand – BRACE = hold in a massive breath of air.

How do I know I’m pushing hard enough?

When I run, this is something I’m still trying to gauge… It’s a delicate balance of not stopping when you want to stop but also not completely throwing yourself in the bin.

It’s a similar story for lifting actually. To increase your tolerance, you need to be close to failure but not failing every set.

Here’s how to gauge it:

1. Pick an exercise, let’s say barbell squat
2. Pick your reps and corresponding weight to those reps
3. Set up a camera to film yourself (yh be that guy)
4. Perform your set
5. Watch the footage back and review the time/speed on your concentric (bit on the way up) for each rep
6. If your last 1-2 reps are noticeably SLOWER than the previous reps, then you’re pushing hard enough. If all of the concentric reps are at the same kind of speed, then either increase the weight or reps – you’ve got more in the tank 😉

If you can push hard enough in your strength sessions consistently, your body will eventually adapt to lift heavier for more reps, meaning that your running can benefit from this increase in strength.

So again, make sure your last few reps are noticeably slower than the ones before in that set.

There’s always more to it, but the basics will take you a long way.

Deep down, I think most runners are aware they need to do some sort of strength training but are sick of just being told to ‘do more strength’.

I hope that cleared up the ‘how to do strength’ for you and gives you a good base to push on with your strength training.

To sum up:

• Master the basic moves
• Find Your ‘minimum effective dosage’
• Pick a weight that comfortably challenges you for your planned reps
• The secret of lifting is to brace (hold your breath as you explode up)
• Your last few reps should be noticeably slower and harder than the first few in the set

I encourage you to put this into action to put yourself on the right track to gains in both the speed and strength departments. However, if you need help implementing this or want to know how to push on from the foundations – drop me a message below and I’ll see if I can help 🙂

Lawrence