What's a good weekly gym schedule for a serious high school distance runner?

Seriously mate? wrote:

Get a girlfriend. Pound that poon into the ground 3 days a week. No need for a gym unless you're into the whole getting caught in public thing.

Proud of yourself azzhole?

Ignore the trolls. Also, in the future you probably want to split up your writing into smaller paragraphs - it was really difficult to read without my eyes getting lost (although at least it's not one of those one-sentence-that-is-300-words-long posts).

That aside, this is probably an okay schedule. I think you also might want to think about periodization of your routine, so you might do for example general strength/muscle development or whatever for a month (just building a little bit of muscle, some strength, getting used to the movements), then implement barbell movements with heavier weight to increase the max you can lift for two months or so (doing heavier squats, learning to hang clean, stuff like that), then as your final competitions approach transitioning over to power (I think this comes down to plyometrics and doing barbell movements quickly).

I don't know about the bench and would like an answer too. I think there is some debate? Not sure. It might help for sprinters, and thus for speed? As long as you don't put on much mass? No idea.

There are lot of pretty good posts here on that exact thing if you look for it; I'm just regurgitating it and probably getting it wrong so don't listen to me very carefully, honestly.

Any post by Alan/Runningart2004 is good stuff.

I mean good advice on periodization, not the bench.

2 to 3 days a week is enough. You don't need to have upper or lower body days, you're not a busy builder you're training for athletics. You're goal is to increase overall strength and muscular balance which may help you run faster but will certainly help with longevity and injury prevention.

In a given week you'll need:

Upper body push, upper body pull, lower body hip hinge, lower body knee dominant exercviseof moderate volume and intensity.

Pull: rowing or pull ups

Push: bench press or push ups

Hinge: dead lift variations

Knee dominant: squat variation

Keep it simple, you're still growing

I meant to say before that you're not a body builder. My young son's summer program is:

Day 1. Hang cleans

1 legged split squat

Rowing

Push up variations

Day 2. Box jumps

1 legged Rdls

Goblet squats

Assisted pull ups

Bench press

I like to have my athletes lift twice a week and do body weight core exercises 2-3x a week. Don't stress about bulking up. If you are running a ton, it's rare you'll eat enough calories to add a ton of mass. Do you have any imbalances or issues with your running form that you are trying to correct? If so, this is a great time to build a foundation to correct it. For some good resources on developing a strength plan for distance runners (and for your specific needs), Jay Johnson has some good videos and blog posts online and Jay Dicharry has great books.

When you start lifting, good form is really important. I really like using high weight/low reps with my athletes, but we do about at least a month's worth of bodyweight and dumbbell exercises to learn how to activate the right muscles with the correct form before transitioning into heavier weights.