Six Steps Toward Successful Strength Training

When a race season draws to a close, and we begin planning for our next year in running, inevitably, some questions come to mind:

“What should I race next year?”
“How can I stay injury-free?”
“How do I best prepare for peak performance and enjoyment, especially if I get into a bucket-list race?”
“How do I train to promote both running and health longevity?”

When clients ask me similar questions in the clinic, my answer is strength training. The data-driven benefits of strength training for running performance, injury prevention, and long-term strength and functional maintenance are compelling. Weight training:

may reduce overuse injuries in endurance athletes by 50% (1)
significantly improves running economy and performance (2)
may be superior to other training modalities, including cardiovascular exercise, to improve muscle size and strength as we age (3)
is safe and highly effective for muscle growth and strength improvement, even at older ages (4).

So, if weight training is so overwhelmingly positive, why aren’t all runners beating down the doors of gyms everywhere? There are a few reasons:

Weight training — both the equipment and other gym goers — can seem intimidating at first.
Weight training seems complex. What to lift, how to lift, how much, when, and how often are all variables that can confuse and paralyze runners from starting out.
Weight training can make us sore and impede our running. A common refrain, especially among more competitive runners, is that soreness from strength training impairs training and racing in the short term.

Those fears are reasonable, but they needn’t be true. Weight training is an amazing fitness modality and running training and racing multiplier. This article by Corrine Malcolm outlines all those benefits and provides strength training recommendations for runners.

The reward for weight training is stronger running and racing. Photo: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi

Six Steps for Successful Strength Training

The key to obtaining those benefits is simply starting out. As a practicing physiotherapist, coach, and runner, pragmatism trumps precision, let alone perfection. Get in the gym. Get started, and then keep going. Here’s my pragmatic, six-step way to do that.

Step 1. Warm Up Quickly

The body should get warm, mobile, and neuromuscularly activated prior to initiating a weight-lifting routine. A warm-up could include some indoor cardio exercise such as a treadmill walk or jog, spin bike, or elliptical. It needn’t be long! As little as five minutes can generate warmth and fluid flow — both blood and fascial hydration.

I prefer a non-cardio warm-up that combines active motion with passive stretching, such as my yoga-centric morning mobility routine. Or, simply, you can lift weight immediately after a run. If so, I recommend those runs be both short and easy, as longer, faster runs may cause excess fatigue and impair the performance and potential benefit of the subsequent weight training session.

Lastly, I recommend performing some core-centric neuromuscular facilitation — exercises that help connect the brain to the muscles by activating neuromuscular pathways. My two favorite such exercises are the:

Diagonal Chop for the deep anterior core
Short and Long for the glute and pelvic stabilizers.

Doing so makes sure your stability system is awake and active — enhancing stability, decreasing the potential for injury, and accentuating the action of the mover muscles, resulting in a better workout and training effect.

This combined warm-up should take no more than 10 minutes. Then, you’re ready to lift!

Recommendations

Get warm with light cardio and/or stretching.
Do some core stability neuromuscular activation.

A short, easy run can serve as part of your warm-up prior to weight training. Photo: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi

Step 2. Pragmatic Programming

While plenty of data and experiential evidence suggest that ideal strength training programming splits muscle groups into separate days — upper body versus lower body, or flexion-based versus extension-based exercises — my schedule is more pragmatic. I lift the whole body during every session, getting a little of everything. The reasons are multi-fold:

to avoid getting overly sore in any group or, worse, being constantly sore in at least one body area, day after day
to be flexible, allowing a missed day or two without going too many days without working specific groups.

As such, my regular strength training routine follows this format:

One heavy lower-body exercise
One heavy upper-body exercise
One lighter, running-specific, lower-body exercise
One lighter, running-specific, upper-body exercise
One core exercise.

This is followed in a circuit format. Heavy exercises include heavy weight with minimal-to-moderate control. Lower body examples include back squat, deadlift, and leg press; upper body includes bicep curl, pull-ups, bench press, or shoulder press.

Light, running-specific exercises involve lighter weights or bodyweight, and often include running-specific actions, such as single-limb or gait-mimicking movements that require more stabilization and control. Lower body examples include split squats, step-ups, or lunges. Upper body might include rows (both double-arm and unilateral runner rows that mimic arm swing), push-ups, or shoulder raises.

In order to both add variety and allow me to lift different groups on consecutive days, I alternate. Upper body alternates between pull/flexion — like bicep curls, pull-ups, and rows — and push/extension — such as bench press and shoulder press.

Lower body exercises might alternate between quad-dominant exercises — such as back squats and leg press — and hamstring-dominant exercises — like Romanian deadlifts. For core stability exercises, focus on alternates between flexion/abdominals and extension/the back.

Recommendations

If you are new to weight training, struggle to maintain a routine, and wish to avoid acute soreness that might derail your primary activity, try a hybrid, whole-body approach! Later on, you can shift to a specific body-part-per-day schedule.
Doing both general and running-specific lifting exercises will double dip the benefits: heavy loading of the key muscle groups, followed by more moderate loading in a challenging, running-specific movement.
When in doubt, ask an expert! This could mean a session or two with a personal trainer, or consulting online resources for both programming and form tips.

The author demonstrates correct posture for a deadlift, one of the lower body exercises you can work into your routine. Photo: Joe Uhan

Step 3. Set Your Volume

How much volume you need for optimal strength development is variable. For general and endurance strength gains (5), the widely accepted recommendation range is:

6 to 12 repetitions
2 to 4 sets of each exercise
6 × 75% of 1-rep maximum — the heaviest weight you could perform once
1 to 2 minutes rest in between*
2 to 3 sessions per week

* This can be circumvented using the circuit approach, to make your strength training the most efficient.

When it comes to repetitions, I like to use the “annoyed-plus-2” metric: do as many repetitions, with slow, controlled form, until you get annoyed. This is where the effort gets pretty hard. Then, do 2 more repetitions. These couple of extra reps challenge your brain and body to push harder, yet seldom hard enough to strain or compromise form.

If you get to 10 to 12 repetitions with minimal “annoyance,” it is time to increase weight, even if that drops you back to a rep range of 5 or 6. Gradually work your way back up to 8 to 10 reps.

Lastly, frequency: 2 strength training sessions per week is the minimum to maintain strength, but it would be difficult to gain strength with that frequency, unless those sessions are high volume, with 4 to 5 sets of high-intensity or high-repetition work.

Three days per week is more ideal, and — with a lower work volume (2 to 4 sets) — less likely to result in day-after soreness. But if you lift with a hybrid program (described above in Step 1), it is very possible to lift on consecutive days.

An example back-to-back program might include:

Monday: back squat, bicep curl, split squat, row, abs
Tuesday: deadlift, bench press, step-ups, shoulder press, and back extension bench.

Lifting with this plan would allow one to lift several (4 to 6) days per week. Though this may seem extreme, my anecdotal evidence — clinical, coaching, and personal — finds that consistent, near-daily strength training provides not only great gains, but avoids significant soreness.

Recommendations

Get to the gym! Three to 4 days per week is preferable, can be easier to stick with than 1 or 2 days, and results in greater gains with less soreness.

iRunFar’s Meghan Hicks demonstrates a bicep curl. Photo: iRunFar/Meghan Hicks

Step 4. Determine Your Intensity

First, intensity. Less experienced runners and weight-lifters tend to have one thing in common: they run too hard and lift too easy. In the gym, perhaps because they fear injury, soreness, or getting “too big,” many runners don’t lift with enough intensity or volume to make progress. And while most running miles should be easy — mostly enjoyable and social — most weightlifting should feel somewhat difficult and routinely uncomfortable.

The intensity metric: “Make a face.” If you are lifting weights without a furrowed brow, pursed lips, or a strong mouth exhale, you may not be lifting hard enough. Excessive face and neck tension isn’t the goal. But the weight should be heavy enough that — near the end of the set — breathing is forceful, it feels really hard, and your face is, in the least, displaying the discomfort.

Recommendations

Start easy, then “make a face” and “get annoyed.” Once initiated into a routine, challenge the intensity and volume by venturing into discomfort. The goal should be very light to minimal next-day soreness.
Avoid super-soreness. Significant soreness that impairs short-term running training and performance indicates too much volume and intensity. Back off, but stay consistent.

Step 5. Lift Slowly and in a Circuit

Having outlined the volume and intensity above, how, exactly, do we lift? How long should a set, or an individual repetition, take? And how much rest do I need between sets?

First, consider rep speed. The best gains — with the least injury risk — are made when weight is lifted slowly with efficient form. Indeed, the main metric of “work” is the weight multiplied by “time under tension” — the amount of time it takes to perform the movement. And while certain disciplines are performative — doing the weight and reps as fast as possible — less overall strength development is done at faster speeds and injury risk is much higher.

Lift slowly, with efficient form. Efficiency is dependent on each exercise, but a good rule of thumb is that movement should be limited to the muscle group(s) in question, with little extraneous exercise. The biggest offender is postural sway. If your spine sways forward and back or side to side, this signals inefficiency and a potential injury risk.

Second, follow a circuit. Many runners struggle with the weight room because it takes so long. You lift for a short period, then you’re expected to sit or stand around and rest? Most runners are not wired that way. Neither am I. And I’m also a pragmatist, with miles to run, a full-time job, and places to be.

The solution is to lift in a circuit. This means lifting weights in a rotation of several exercises. I’ll lift one muscle group and while resting that group, immediately lift another. Since most of my strength days are hybrid — lifting both upper and lower body — this means I do a leg exercise, then immediately follow it with an arm or trunk/core exercise. This allows the leg muscles to rest, but allows me to continue the session with hardly any downtime.

I may perform 3 to 5 total exercises in this way — A, B, C, D, then back to A. Circuits don’t necessarily create the greatest strength and muscle bulk gains, but it is pragmatic: I get the work done, and get in and out of the gym quickly.

Recommendations

Lift slowly. Each repetition should take, at minimum, two whole seconds by lifting for one second and lowering for the other.
Try the circuit. If your gym isn’t too busy, pick three to five exercises and lift in a circuit. Core, leg, arm, leg, and arm is my typical pattern. Perform two to five laps of the circuit for a full workout.

Rob Krars taking on a circuit routine, before the 2015 Western States. Photo: Myles Smythe/Michigan Bluff Photography

Step 6. Pump the Protein

Strength development — both in sarcomere size and quantity — occurs after those muscle cells are damaged and repaired, but the body can only effectively do so if you supply those muscular building blocks.

For various reasons, the majority of people are protein-deficient. Basic recommended daily allowances are less than half a gram (0.5 grams) per pound of body weight, per day. In my clinical opinion, active people looking to effectively heal from orthopedic injury — involving compromise of muscle and connective tissue — need a lot more than that: at least a full gram of protein (1.0 grams) per pound, per day.

I also apply this recommendation to highly active, healthy people. Eat at least 1 gram of protein/pound if you are active every day via hiking, running, lifting, yoga, or have a physically demanding job.

Protein fuels and helps rebuild, but, on its own, it hardly ever “bulks.” Large volumes of lean protein are not converted to fat, nor do they prevent the burning (and subsequent loss) of fat. In fact, it takes a lot of supplemental energy to digest, break down, and recombine proteins for cellular use. As such, and confirmed with new research, there is no ceiling for lean protein intake.

Recommendations

Eat more protein. If you are at all injured or injury-prone, often inflamed or pain-sensitive, or struggle with fat loss, then ingest more protein. Just be sure it is relatively lean, well-sourced, and minimally processed.
Consider supplementation. For those who are busy and have high activity levels, supplements will help you reach your protein goal in an efficient way.

If in doubt, eat more protein. Photo: Shutterstock

Conclusion

Strength training is a wonderful adjunct to running. In addition to preventing injury, it can amplify our training and propel performance to new heights. And, believe it or not, it can be empowering and fun!

Like running, weight training can be as simple or complex as you make it. But just like running, the first step is the most important one: get started! Get to the gym. Start lifting heavy things. Then, also like running, keep going, even when it seems too hard.

Call for Comments

Do you keep up with your strength training?
Is it something you enjoy, or a chore?

Notes/References

Lauersen JB, Bertelsen DM, Andersen LB. The effectiveness of exercise interventions to prevent sports injuries: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials, “British Journal of Sports Medicine” 2014;48:871-877.
Yamamoto, Linda M; Lopez, Rebecca M; Klau, Jennifer F; Casa, Douglas J; Kraemer, William J; Maresh, Carl M. The Effects of Resistance Training on Endurance Distance Running Performance Among Highly Trained Runners: A Systematic Review. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 22(6):p 2036-2044, November 2008. | DOI: 10.1519/JSC.0b013e318185f2f0
Lu, L., Mao, L., Feng, Y. et al. Effects of different exercise training modes on muscle strength and physical performance in older people with sarcopenia: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Geriatr 21, 708 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-021-02642-8
Marzuca-Nassr, Gabriel Nasri, et al. “Muscle mass and strength gains following resistance exercise training in older adults 65–75 years and older adults above 85 years.” International journal of sport nutrition and exercise metabolism 34.1 (2023): 11-19.
Tan, Benedict. Manipulating Resistance Training Program Variables to Optimize Maximum Strength in Men: A Review. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 13(3):p 289-304, August 1999.