Gym Workouts For Runners: Your Ultimate Guide
Updated: Oct 29
Gym workouts for runners: This could be the key to your next breakthrough!
In 2011 Mo Farah joined the Oregon Project, previous to this Farah was a good runner but compared to being a 4x Olympic Champion, 6x World Champion, and 7x European Champion, he was nowhere near the level he needed to be. Both his coach and Farah put the drastic improvement down to the runner-specific strength training that he was put through. Farah was one of the weakest athletes to ever join the Oregon Project, he went from this to being able to squat and deadlift over 1.5 times his body weight for 4x5 reps. This difference kept him injury-free, made his running economy improve drastically, and made him a lot faster over 5/10k, but mainly it increased his kick to make him near enough unbeatable- (50.89 second last lap for a 5000m). Gym workouts for runners will help to develop strength decrease the risk of injury and improve running performance.
Benefits of strength training for runners:
Improves running economy
Reduces injury risk
Improves your 'Power-to-Weight' ratio
Helps with weight loss
Improves your speed
Improves your power
Stops your training from getting boring
Check out this blog from 'Physio4Life': Strength training: How Mo Farah Went From 'Also Ran' to 'Unbeatable'.
5 principles of gym workouts for runners
1) Hard days hard, easy days easy
This principle is all about recovery. I believe in runners adding gym workouts for strength on the same days as your harder running sessions, what this does is it allows you to have a super easy day between those hard days. For example, you have your running session in the morning, and your running-specific strength training in the evening, and then the following day you can either rest or go for an easy run. That easy day is the day you get to recover and adapt from the hard work you have done.
You may also like: Post-Run Recovery: How To Smash Your Goals
2) Make exercises specific to running
You can make the strength exercises specific to running by making the movement more similar to a running action. A great rule for this principle is to make sure that you do exercises where one knee gets raised whilst the opposite glute contracts. What this does is it trains your body to drive up your knee whenever your glute contracts- this is ideal for running form and developing speed/power.
3) Strengthen your whole body
You run with your legs, your arms drive your legs and your core helps keep you stable so you don't waste energy- you need all of it.
Core also helps develop your overall speed a lot more than people realise. Your legs are obviously the main thing that you are going to target for your strength training, but developing your back muscles and biceps with rows will help to keep you running with good posture.
4) Periodise your strength training
Strength training for running should be periodised so that you train different types of fitness at different points over a period of time. I will discuss specifically how to do this lower down in the article.
5) Your running gym workouts should train for strength not size
When you run a lot you do not build up muscle the same as someone doing the same lifts who does less cardio. This is due to something called the ‘protein synthesis interference effect’ which is what we get when we run a lot and it stops us from building up heavy bulky muscles which we do not want for running.
However, your main goal is to get stronger, so to do this make sure you do fewer reps and take longer rests. 2-6 reps and 2-5 minutes rest is ideal for runners because means you can lift heavier, increase your strength faster and also build less muscle.
How to structure your strength training for running
All of the phases below should overlap somewhat. For example, during the 'Power' phase, you should still have 15% of your workout as 'Symmetry and Balance' and 25% as 'Strength' (very rough estimates).
To simplify gym workouts for runners then you can join the ATG Program which was created by Ben Patrick. This program will help to fix any long-term injuries you may have, develop mobility, and increase your strength and power.
1. Symmetry and Balance (1-4 weeks)
This is where you try to get rid of muscle imbalances and improve your balance. This should include unilateral strength movements, single-leg balance work, and a lot of stretching and foam rolling. The ATG program will have the perfect training for this phase, exercises such as the ATG split-squat are a game changer for runners.
During this period of training, you need to do some foam rolling regularly to sort out muscle imbalances and resistance band exercises to strengthen your hips.
If you would like a workout to copy for this period of your strength training then click this link: Mo Farah and Galen Rupp's Stability Routine.
2. Running specific strength work (4-12 weeks)
This is the bulk of what you are going to do and luckily it is the most enjoyable part. Exercise such as Nordic curls, squats, and deadlifts will be key in this phase.
Example workout for running specific strength work:
Nordic Curls: 4-6 reps, 3-4 sets, and 2 minutes recovery between sets
Squats: 4-6 reps, 3-4 sets, and 4 minutes recovery between sets
Single-leg kettlebell deadlifts: 8-12 reps, 3-4 sets, and 90 seconds between sets
Ab roller: 6-12 reps, 3-4 sets, and 90 seconds between sets
3. Power (4 weeks)
To simplify this, you will be doing similar movements to what you were doing in strength training but with less weight and you do the movement faster.
For example, if you usually squat 60kg for 5 reps, do 4-6 reps of 40kg but do the movement fast and powerfully.
4. Plyometrics (4 weeks)
This is effective jump training, things such as bounds, pogos, box jumps, and depth jumps are great for developing your power and speed.
For this phase you are only introducing plyometric exercises, don't overdo it. Simply adding 1-3 plyometric exercises to your gym routine is sufficient.
Read: Plyometrics For Runners.
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