The Runner's Guide to Strength Training: Boost Your Performance

Having a good running exercise in your daily routine can be very effective in maintaining the fitness of your body. But, having run in your workout involves the cost of injuries that could result from running and it affects the desired benefits of running.

Running can be at time tough and hardworking but it can be made easier, effective, and beneficial with the assistance of strength exercises.

Do make sure that you know the difference between putting weight and strength exercises. Bodybuilding can at times be defined as putting on muscle mass but that is not advisable when it comes to running. Bodybuilding while increasing the muscle strength and not the weight is preferable because putting extra weight is proven to reduce performance and increase the pressure on joints that can result in injuries.

1. Increased strength.

Strength training for runners serves the purpose of giving strength to the muscles. Doing strength training can make the muscles stronger which can lead to reduced fatigue when doing any exercise especially running. When the muscles of the legs are not strong, a few miles or running can start pain in the muscles because the tissue fibers are not strong or thick. Compared to that if the tissue fibers are made strong by doing strength training, they won’t feel too much stress after running some miles.

2. Reduced fatigue

When we train our muscles in weight lifting, the muscles first use oxygen for respiration which is called aerobic respiration. But when the intensity of exercise increases, the body can no longer fulfil the supply of oxygen to the muscle tissues. In that case, the body tissues switch to anaerobic respiration. This means respiration without the use of oxygen. So, when we do strength exercises on daily basis, it makes our body habitual of using anaerobic respiration whenever the intensity is high. So, the switching becomes easier and this leads greatly to the reduced fatigue of our body when we run.

This is because when running, the oxygen is less, the body quickly shifts to anaerobic respiration and does not give the body the chance to have fatigue or be stressed out due to the lack of oxygen.

3. High muscle coordination

During running, various muscles of our body are involved. All these muscles are in coordination with each other. Thus, coordination of muscles is extremely important during running and also for the overall body functioning. Therefore, it is recommended to use health apps like "must motivate" during running and walking as it keeps a proper record of one's total steps and their overall fitness.

What happens sometimes is all the other muscles that are coordinating except the leg muscles are stressed out or the muscle fibers are torn. Since the main target muscles or the primary muscles in running are the leg muscles, so they become stronger during running while the other muscles are left out. Although, they do coordinate but are not stronger due to which they tear down easily because of high tension or stress while running.

However, if we train those muscles by adopting the strength training, they do get strengthen and coordinate in a better way with the leg muscles. This coordination improves the overall performance and running experience of an athlete. So, strength training is an essential factor in maintaining the good coordination of all the body muscles.

4. Reduced Injury risks

We all know that the movement of a human happens when the bones move. Such as during running or walking, the thigh bone or scientifically called the femur bone, and the calf bones known as the tibia and fibula bones. But, have you thought about how do these bones move?

What causes them to move?

It is the muscles attached to these bones that contract and relax and make these bones move. So, just think for a moment. Will the bones move better of the muscles making them move are strong or weak?

The stronger muscles will put less pressure on the bones and will make them move efficiently and effectively. So, strength training makes them strong and helps you in running or any other exercises.

Workouts for Strength

Now we will have a look at the exercises that can be added to our workout for strength training. There are many strength training exercises for runners but some of them have proved to be effective so we will just list them only.

1. Squats
2. Deadlifts
3. Planks
4. Lunges
5. And Pushups

These are the exercise that you can do to improve your performance as a runner. You can start with a few exercises because leg exercises are the toughest ones. Once you start with it, you can gradually increase the number of sets, the number of repetitions, and the weight as well.

However, increasing weights with a normal diet is sometimes not appreciated because that is something which may increase body muscle mass and increase your weight. This will eventually decrease your running performance because of the extra amount of weight added to your body.