Lifting discussion

Building up your quads by doing lunges and squats can help prevent knee injuries by lessening the stress on the knees. But definitely not heavy weights. Riding a stationary bike can do the same with the added benefit of a cardiovascular workout. I used to do long workouts (up to 80 miles) on a stationary recumbent bike at hard intensity and it really helped out a lot on threshold runs.

I think any benefit from upper body lifting is negligible but you look less emasculated.

Yeah we do squats ( just regular no weight ) and lunges forwards and reverse too, I feel like that helped too. What do you think about upper body lifting?

Schumacher the Shoemaker wrote:

Yeah we do squats ( just regular no weight ) and lunges forwards and reverse too, I feel like that helped too. What do you think about upper body lifting?

For a high school runner, I would say fine but no bench presses - worthless for you- to be honest - I do a ton of push-ups - and doing a few 100 push-ups every other day - with pull-ups too - is really all the upper-body workout you need.

One more suggestion. I played basketball in high school so I had a lot of speed. But I think a lot of high schoolers neglect improving their speed. If you have a stadium nearby - run up the ramps all out. This is really so great in increasing your speed and makes your faster running seem much more comfortable.

I agree with the pushups and pull ups comment, but that many pushups can be time consuming and demanding. I typically bench press and just focus on maintaining the strength to bench my weight (130lbs). So I often do 3 x 10 @ 95lbs on bench twice a week to maintain decent upper body strength, plus 2 x max pullups.

Cool thank you - I'll start doing pull ups in addition to what my coach has me doing.

For the record I am a 10k runner in the spring.

If you're going to lift weights you might as well improve and benefit from it.

More aerobic forms of weight lifting, like body weight exercises and circuit training are reasonably safe and have injury resistance benefits, but the research has not shown much benefit to running performance.

Traditional weight lifting, with heavier weights (6-10 reps, 2-4 sets, that sort of thing) has actually shown benefit to performance with distance runners in improvements to running economy and time to exhaustion. And you still get the injury resistance....I would venture a guess that you'd get even a little more.

Have fun....

Bump

Yeah great idea: ask a bunch of nobodies on the internet instead of trusting your actual real life coach.

This thread is full of clowny uninformed responses, by the way.

Some benefits of lifting heavy is muscle fatigue resistance and using your full lung capacity. Too many runners don't even use their maximum breathing abilities and thus can't keep up to their aerobic abilities. Lifting extremely heavy can help you breath deeply and cut through the tape first when you would have otherwise been tired from exhausted muscles. Don't worry about seeing your muscles get bigger; size and strength are not really related. Work on getting stronger, lift heavier weights less times.

I agree with kungfu. I lift for a few reasons.

The main reason is that I enjoy it. I run a decent amount of miles, 70-80mpw. I am 5'11 and weigh 150lbs. I have some muscle, a lot if you compare me to "elite/sub elite" distance runners. I am not good enough to do anything really special with running. I just life improving, and how I feel when things are going well with my running. But I DO NOT want to be a scrawny distance runner. So I lift. Upper and lower body.

I lift based on strength building parameters, which usually involves less reps but more weight. ie; Squat 200lbs 5 reps 4 sets rather than 150lbs 10 reps 3 times.

I believe (Emphasis on believe, because I have no actual proof) that lifting this way for my lower body prevents injuries. I always feel better when I lift twice a week.

I do squats(weighted), calf raises (some sets weighted, some sets not), underhand and overhand pull ups, incline bench, Captains chair leg raises, side curls(obliques), push ups, leg kicks while lying on my back, hurdle drills once a week. I throw in other lifts and more core occasionally but these are my main lifts.

Summary: Does lifting help running? Maybe. Idk. It helps me, in my opinion. And I don't look like a tiny distance runner. Would I be faster if I cut out the upper body lifts? Theres a good chance I would be. But Its not worth losing muscle mass.

Lifting doesn't do anything to benefit you. It just makes u buff and slow. Don't do it. Just squeeze in two short runs

We have evidence that HEAVY squats (3-4 sets of 6 reps) for a few weeks results in RE gains of 5-8 percent, which results in 5K time improvement of a few percent.

Lifting light weights is useless, unless done rapidly (30-50% 1 RM as fast as possible) at the end of western periodization:

hypertrophy -> strength (6 weeks) -> power (light weights lifted rapidly)

There is no published data of lifts other than squats resulting in performance improvement. But lifting and plyometrics on different days produces greater performance gains than either alone.

What he said ^^^

If the main lifting goal is improved strength and power in the leg muscles then while the focus should be squats, squat variations, and plyos there needs to be some minimal upper body work (even if its just dips/pullups).

Alan

coach d wrote:

We have evidence that HEAVY squats (3-4 sets of 6 reps) for a few weeks results in RE gains of 5-8 percent, which results in 5K time improvement of a few percent.

Lifting light weights is useless, unless done rapidly (30-50% 1 RM as fast as possible) at the end of western periodization:

hypertrophy -> strength (6 weeks) -> power (light weights lifted rapidly)

There is no published data of lifts other than squats resulting in performance improvement. But lifting and plyometrics on different days produces greater performance gains than either alone.

I believe Verkhoshansky has published some work about lifts other than squats helping performance. What comes to mind specifically is increasing the maximum force capacity of the calves, which helps with high impacts seen in sprinting and triple jumping especially.

Personally, I feel that in addition to the strength gains in the muscle, increasing the strength of the skeletal system is extremely beneficial.

Lifting heavy stimulates growth hormone release. GH is a PED.

Sweet guys thanks for all the advice, im going to call my coach today and talk to him about some of this stuff. I'll be sure to keep you guys posted about what he says and how I feel moving forward.

Pleasantly surprised to see so many pro-heavy-lifting responses here. The "conventional wisdom" about hi-rep-low-weight was never backed up by any evidence whatsoever. Lifting heavy is good for you, good for running, and fun.

You won't bulk up unless you (1) really try to and (2) have the genetics for it. I respond relatively well to weight lifting, but you have to consume a ton of protein and a meaningful surplus of calories to bulk. If you don't want to put on tons of muscle, just don't do this, and you'll end up lean and cut.