Strength training is recommended by many coaches and runners as it plays an important role in the preparation of runners. With these training programs, you can get faster, reduce the risk of injury and have a beautiful athletic look.
Runners are often accused of not wanting to go to the gym. Between strength training and additional running, they most often choose the latter, arguing that increasing mileage plays a crucial role in developing running abilities. Even when it comes to strength training, most often it consists of working with your own body weight, aimed at developing the muscles of the core and strengthening the hip. These are indeed very important points in the preparation of the runner, which will help to significantly reduce the risk of injury, but this is not enough to load all those stabilizer muscles that are involved during the run. In addition, training with weights involves a large number of muscles, which increases the efficiency of running and reduces fatigue. In order to improve your fitness and lay a good foundation for weight training, you should perform bodyweight exercises such as pull-ups, push-ups, squats on one leg (possibly with support) and lunges. When you have prepared your body properly, you can begin to master traditional strength exercises such as deadlifts and barbell squats. The rep range per set should be 5-8 reps with 60-80% of 1RM (rep max is the weight you can lift once). This approach will allow you to use type 2 muscle fibers (fast-twitch), which are responsible for speed-strength qualities. By developing this type of fiber, runners are able to produce more energy and better absorb the force of impact that occurs when the foot hits the ground. Strength training should be done twice a week – this will provide the necessary muscle load, but there will not be a significant increase in muscle mass, which could affect your results. To avoid fatigue or overtraining, plan your workouts as follows: strength training followed by a rest day or light running session. Below is a training program for runners in the gym, which includes two sessions. Please note that part of the exercises rotates every week. Also, do not work to complete muscle failure or heavily load yourself, otherwise this will affect the quality of your main running training. Break between sets – 1-3 minutes.