How Does Strength Training Compliment Running?

Running is one of the best ways for strengthening your cardiovascular system & improving circulation while making the foundation for different fitness activities. While strength training, develop your muscles, and let your body burn fat reserves effectively. Combining strength training & running leaves the best effect on the running performance – while pushing your body to some higher level.

Strength training offers incredible huge benefits to runners. Stronger muscles, high power deliverance while running, strengthened connective tissues (tendons & ligaments) and reduced injury risks. A stronger core helps in stabilizing your upper body. It minimizes your side-to-side movement – & enables you to better hold the by the end of the race as you begin to get tired. By strengthening your arms, the arm drive will improve. The arm drive will help in injecting more power into the stride. Buy a premium quality running tracksuit from here. You do not need to be a runner or a lifter. The good thing is you can be both.

What happens when you run…

Running is a cardiovascular activity. Means it involves transporting & taking in oxygen. While you run, your heart rate escalates, your breath quickly & gets warmer. It makes your cardiovascular system work hard. Cardio exercises are very effective for improving your aerobic fitness. You will start seeing improvements in your heart function, lungs & blood. Your joints & ligaments also get benefited by cardio activities. Not too many muscle adaptations come by running, improvements in your strength & endurance are associated with resistance training. Well-known thing regarding cardio, especially running in particular, is it burns the highest numbers of calories in one hour of exercise. At a moderate running pace you burn around 300-400 calories in 30 minutes.

What happens when you Strength Train…

Strength training is a kind of resistance training. It’s primary aim is to elevate your muscles by exerting ability. For doing this, you can train your body for lifting heavy weights while working against higher resistance. There’re so many adaptations that your body gets adapted to as the result of strength training. It enables your brain to send the right signals to your muscles in order to make them contract. Also your muscles start growing in size to produce a higher amount of force. And that strength will help in forming a solid foundation, it will give you plenty of stability & endurance to your muscles too.

You get to burn less calories by strength training than cardio in a 30 minute session. But the boost of metabolism you get lifting weights improves your metabolism in the long term. Means you will be needing more calories for maintaining weight & muscle mass.

Building strength & running at the same time?

The answer to this question is a definite yes. Building a large amount of muscles requires you to consume a large amount of calories. For bulking up your muscles you need to consume large portions of protein. It helps your body in building bigger muscles. Most of the people do running to lose weight and an essential step for that is cutting your calories. It is impossible to be in caloric surplus & a caloric deficit at the same time. Building muscles and losing weight simultaneously can be tricky. Running & strength training complement each other in an effective way. Developing strength & endurance by working with heavy weights is highly beneficial & can be achieved effectively alongside having a running routine. Being better at these activities will improve your overall fitness.

How strength training benefits runners?

Runners need to rely on their muscles for preventing injury which is often caused by this activity. Running itself is a havoc on the joints especially if the muscles are not strong enough. A beneficial training program incorporates weight training along with running miles. Without strengthening the muscles & building endurance your knees, calves, and glutes will start niggling. Pain & tightness in these regions affects your long run performances.

Strength training workout that compliments running

Perform following exercises for improving your overall strength. Make sure you take a 90 secs rest interval between every set & 2 minutes rest before you move onto the next workout. While following this workout routine, keep on concentrating on your running form, then completing the workouts.

1)   Press-ups (perform 10 reps of 2 sets)

Benefits: This exercise strengthens your chest, arms and shoulders, and is very effective for improving posture & arm drive while running.

Start performing this exercise by lying face down on the hands on either side of the chest. And both of Your toes tucked under. Then press onto the hands, raise your body from the ground. Make sure you keep the body straight throughout the motion & avoid stretching the neck. While the arms are fully extended, lower the body back down, closer to the floor and repeat. 

2)   Dumbbell row (perform 2 sets of 12 reps on each side)

Benefits: It strengthens your upper back for balancing out your chest strength.

Start performing this exercise by placing the left knee & hand on the bench. While your upper body is horizontal. Then hold a dumbbell with your right hand, extend your arm fully towards the ground. Then pull the weights up closer to you, keep both of your elbows closer to the waist, while lowering yourself to the starting position.

3)   Tricep dips (Perform 2 sets of 12 reps)

Benefits: Help in strengthening your arms & shoulders. It helps you in maintaining an upright running posture.

Start this workout by sitting with the heel of the hands at the edge of the bench by placing your fingers over the edge. Then take your weight off the body with both of your arms then bend at your elbows, and lower down yourself. After that push yourself back up by using both of your arms and repeat.

4)   Walking lunges (Perform 2 sets of 8 reps)

Benefits: This exercise improves your single-leg balance and boosts the stability & coordination while running. Also help in increasing your stride length and enable you to run fast.

Start this exercise by standing on your feet firmly opened shoulder-distance apart. Then take a big step in forward direction by using one of your legs & lower the body & your rear knee towards the ground to make sure they don’t make contact. Also keep the front knee over the ankle & your whole body upright. Then push-off the rear leg while stepping the front leg in backward direction to meet the rear leg. Then repeat this exercise on your alternating leg. To make this exercise more challenging, try holding a dumbbell in both of your hands, you can choose the weight that is suitable for you. For engaging your core try holding the medicine ball in both of your hands. While you lunge, keep both of your arms straight ahead. While bringing the ball overhead. Then lower it down back to the position from where you started.

5)   Step-ups ( Perform 2 sets of 5 reps)

Benefits: This exercise strengthens major muscle groups, reducing the injury risk, Improves the flexibility and enables a more efficient running stride. Start this workout by standing on your feet opened wider than your hip-width, and your toes pointing outwards. Then lower yourself and bend at your knee & hip, like you are going down while sitting on a chair. Then keep the knees over the ankles while focusing on bringing your bum back. After that, lower yourself into the sitting position. And push yourself up by your heels & return to the standing position. For increasing difficulty, try holding a kettlebell at the level of your chest height or rest the barbell across the upper back.