How many times have you made great progress in your training cycle only to get sidelined by injury? Runners often try to find a balance between getting enough volume and frequency for improvement without going so far that they get injured. As your training age increases and you’ve accumulated “more miles” this can become quite challenging.
Running is one of the most repetitive sports that one can participate in. An average runner will take around 5000 strides during a 30 minute run. Easy math shows that if you ran 4x this week, you’re at 20,000 strides. If we compare that to another sport such as baseball, you could imagine how swinging a bat 20,000 times every week for the next year would probably cause some wear and tear. Further more, everyone recruits muscles differently. How you fire and relax the quads, hamstrings and glutes when you run may be significantly different than your training partner. This is part of the logic behind why people develop overuse issues.
Luckily, proper Strength Training SIGNIFICANTLY reduces the chance for injury and corrects muscular imbalances that are contributing to overuse and performance loss.
Need more convincing?
- Strength Training allows the body to “absorb force” which minimizes joint discomfort and chronic pain in the long run.
- Strength Training makes connective tissue and bone stronger.
- The right exercises will allow you to fix strength imbalances between limbs and muscle groups.
- Runners that train with weights have less body fat and cover more ground with each stride.
- Running can produce a high amount of oxidative stress. Incorporating strength training into your routine can increase your antioxidant status, which will help manage inflammation brought on by aerobic training.
We’ve compiled our 5 Favorite Exercises for runners. These exercises address some of the most common muscular imbalances caused by long distance running.
Heel Elevated Step-Up
Bulgarian Split Squat on Airex Pad
Belt Squat Walks
Reverse Hyper Extension
Tibialis Dorsiflexion
