Learn how to add strength training into your running plan.

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Full Transcript

We’re going to talk about strength training today, and we all have heard that it’s important, but there’s a lot of different ways to go about it and it can be fairly complicated

in this video. I’m going to explain to you exactly how to program string praying for the endurance app. And stick around until the end. So you can learn how to get a free strength training workouts that you can put into your own strength training, courtesy of reinforced running. Okay. So we have all heard that strength training is important, but it is, there are a lot of different ways to train for strength.

And as an endurance athlete, it doesn’t have to be complicated. And there are some principles that you can stand by that will get you the best results. And that’s exactly what we’re going to take you through in this video. But first I want to kind of give you a general background of what strength training is and some of the language that’s used when talking about gym based workouts.

So there’s typically three different modalities in strength, training, there’s training for power. There’s training for hypertrophy, which is muscle growth and there’s training for endurance. So power training is trying to engage in maximum muscle, and that is anywhere from that one to five rep range lifting, very heavy hypertrophy training is the process of putting on muscle and that’s anywhere from like the eight to 12 to 15 rep range lifting as heavyweight as possible.

In those specific weights and then endurance training is anywhere from the 15 plus using lighter weights and just doing a lot of repetitions. And as an endurance athlete, you might think that endurance strength training is going to be the best bet for you when you hit the gym. And this is a really common mistake.

I see athletes make all the time. Because when you’re working in that rep range, really what that’s doing is setting up your muscular endurance to help with the specific type of training when you start to get into power or hypertrophy. So really it’s not that beneficial for the endurance athlete, because most of the endurance we get is through our sports specific training.

If we’re doing running or OCR or cycling or swimming, that type of endurance will translate much, much better than doing. Light shoulder presses. Um, so really that’s more of like the base foundational phase for someone who was going into a traditional strength training block. So as an endurance athlete, leave that alone.

Don’t touch those lightweights. Don’t do heavy or high reps. You’re really just wasting your time. And hypertrophy is the process of putting on muscle. And for most of us, we probably could get some benefit of added muscle. When you add muscle, you can then work that muscle for power and becoming a stronger.

Athlete, but with anything it’s going to also add weight to you as you do run or you cycle, and that’s not always advantageous. So there is a happy medium between there, but you shouldn’t always train in that eight to 15 rep range because there is a purpose for it. And it’s not typically going to help for your endurance performance as much.

So it should be really specific based on your situation, if you need. To add a little bit of muscle, then work in that hypertrophy zone. But for most of us, we are, are, we just want the muscle that we have to work at its absolute highest rate. And that’s where powertrain is going to come through working in that one to five rep range, specifically more, three to five rep range says we don’t want a one rep max that often as endurance athletes, cause that might put us at a greater risk of injury.

So, but we do want to lift. As heavy as possible using big compound movements and a compound movement is anything that uses multiple joints and multiple muscle groups. So thinking things of squats, bench, press pull ups. Uh, lunges, deadlifts. These are really where you can lift the most amount of weight and have your body working as a system to create the most power as possible and how this helps it does help your running efficiency.

It makes things easier. It increases your power output. So your power to weight ratio is increased. So therefore you can do more work with less energy. Plus one thing that is huge when it comes to power lifting, is that you get a. Hormonal response from lifting such a heavy weight that is going to help you recover and get stronger.

And that’s when you lift heavy weight, you you’re going to get a response to release more growth, hormone and more testosterone. And these are anabolic agents that rebuild the muscle. And that’s, what’s the best part is that it’s not localized. So if you need to recover from your run, And you lift heavy.

You’re going to get these recovery agents released into your system. So that’s going to help you recover from the lift and also from your running. So that in itself is a reason to lift heavy so you can get that hormonal benefit. So when you go to the gym, you should want to get anywhere from four to eight different exercises that you are looking to hit.

For a specific response. So the compound movement should always be at the top. And then once you do that one compound movement, you’re probably good for the day because it is exhausting and it is going to require the most amount of attention and focus. And you want to do it at the beginning of the workout.

For that same reason, you’re going to be the most fresh. We’re going to lift the heaviest weight and starting off, right. With a compound movement when you’re energized and ready is going to help get you a bigger bang for your buck. So that’s where you should always start. The first workout should be something like a squat lunge or deadlift of every strength workout.

And then from there is where the exceptions roll in when it comes to lifting for power. And that’s when you lifting for a lateral movements and bilateral movements, and also trying to work on your balance. And that brings us to our second movement that I want you to focus on during your strength training sessions, as endurance athletes, we typically are moving forward and we don’t typically go side to side.

So at the gym, it’s important that you’re using your side to side muscles. So doing exercises like curtsy lunges, side, lunges and banded sidesteps are really going to help engage in those muscles and help you create better balance. These should be in the higher rep range as they are small muscles, and you won’t be able to lift as heavy.

And if you do go heavy, moving in a different plane might put you at injury risk. So be somewhere in that eight to 12 rep range when using the lateral movements. Then you want to focus on a bilateral exercise, which basically just means single leg and a single leg exercise is going to be a little bit more sports specific when it comes to running and endurance.

And it’s also going to help create coordination and balance. So this could be anything like a box step up or a reverse lunge or a forward lunge or anything that is just going to be on a single leg. Look at a single leg, Romanian deadlift. So this is a great way to help. Keep yourself better proprioception and help your balance as well as your coordination.

And then interspersed throughout your strength workout, you should add core movements and the core movements that you should focus on as an endurance athlete should be those like planks side planks, hollow holds and side flake, long leg ones. Yeah. Uh, leg lifts and these movements, they’re going to help get you the most solid foundation and really those deep core muscles that are gonna help stabilize throughout the run and, and less about the aesthetic that comes from a crunch or a bicycle crunch or a leg lift.

So really working on the things that are going to help engage the most muscle in your deep abdominals, as opposed to the surface level of them. So I did make a copy here just for you to kind of look out what this looks like in practice. So you can have an idea of when you go to the gym. What it should look like.

So here is a basic week. Typically I would have two quality sessions in two light sessions, the light sessions. It would probably only take 10 to 15 minutes. And just with the help with your movement practice and your recovery, but really we’re looking at workout one, a workout, 2.1, a workout 2.2. And as we’ll go through what we’re seeing.

So the main lift after the warmup is going to be a heavy. Goblet squat, which is holding the weight in front of you, so that you puts you in a better position and also helps stabilize that core. And from there, uh, a front rack carry a carry is a great core exercise that is also very functional and then a single leg RDL.

So right here, we have a core workout with our bilateral movement. And then on the next one it’s side plank with leg lifts. So this is a core movement as well as a lateral movement, because you’re going to be hitting your. Uh, your hip adductors as they move up and down and they’re there there’s video examples.

So you can, you can check those out, look it up and see what, what that looks like. And at the same time that the quadruped pet rock fat, which is more of a core foundational movement. And at the end, we’re doing more of the single leg, the bilateral movement and doing the single leg glute bridge and ISO hold, and then a HollyRod.

So some core movements all the way throughout, and this is what’s called super sets and super sets is just taking two different movements and doing them back to back without rest. And usually you want those to be opposite movements so that you’re not stressing something over and over. So doing something like bench, press and pushups, which are full chest, it’s not as advantageous as doing something like pushups.

And, um, I pull up just different, different muscle groups there, and that is a typical look for what a workout should look like. So there is going to be four different working sets here. And that will probably take about 45 minutes all said and done. And after each one of the super sets you want to rest about 60 seconds, the rest for your compound movement should be anywhere from 90 to one 20, since it should be heavy, it should take a lot out of you.

And think of it as a fast rep, when you’re doing a like 400, 200 workout, you almost want full recovery by the end of it so that you can hit it hard again. And then for the second workout of the week, the second quality session, you’re gonna start with an elevated back lunge, elevated back lunges. When you’re just going to sit on a, uh, plates or a box and step backwards to get a little bit more range of motion.

So you want this to be heavy as well. This could be held in the front rack or down low, whatever you can get. You can do a standing press. So this is going to be an overhead press, which for runners is going to be more about core stability and then ring row, which again is more about balance. So hitting that upper back to make sure that we are balancing everything out.

So box step ups is again in that bilateral motion that quadrupedal tap is going to be also a lateral motion and a core exercise, core exercise, and then a movement exercise with the. Standing pelvic tilt. So this is a general look at what a week would look like for a strength training program for an endurance athlete.

So if you like what you see, there’s a link down right below where you can get your own strength training that you can put into your current endurance training. That’s going to give you about four workouts that you can progressively overload each and every week. So it’s about a month worth of strength training for completely free.

Just hit the, hit the link and have it sent directly to your inbox. And thanks for watching the video today. I hope there’s some good takeaways for you. Hit subscribe, hit that bell. So you get all the notifications so you can get the latest from reinforced running when it comes to nutrition, strength, training, and endurance training.

And I’ll talk to you soon.