What the hell is a strength workout?

Flex your muscles for the camera at the end of your repeat 200s. Make sure you only do about four of them so you still look like you got a lot of energy left.

and I dont mean squats wrote:

I hear a lot about people talking about a workout that will make you stronger (not something in the gym a running workout). I’m kinda sure these are intervals from 600-1600 but I’m not sure. What makes some workouts strength workouts opposed to others?

Long repeats, not so fast, short recoveries. Or fast continuous runs.

A workout where the total distance run at a hard pace is about three to four miles.

12 -16 X 400

6 X 800

5 X 1000

3 -4 X 1600

The rest interval is about equal to the time of each rep

Makes you a stronger runner.

The idea is to increase the average pace as the training progresses.

If you can run these paces faster, you will likely race faster in middle and longer distance races.

In context of long distance running, strength means ability to hold your pace for longer time.

It is essentially how good your speed at lactate threshold is relative to your event and others at your event. Some people use the words "stamina" or "endurance" for the same concept, which leads to a lot of confusion.

When someone says runner X is very strong in 10k, it means his speed is lacking (relatively, for 10k), but his strength/endurance/stamina makes up for that, so that he would run much better half than 5k, even though 10k could be his best event. In that half he would probably be considered not "strong", but "fast". So it's all relative.

TLDR: Strength training is essentially LT training, 10k pace and slower.

Runners use the term "strength" in place of "stamina" often. So next time your read or hear about a "strength workout" just think of stamina.

Looking at this issue of "strength" from a naive perspective, you would expect that it has something to do with stronger slow twitch and intermediate twitch muscles, giving you more power when you need it for various accelerations and joint bracing. Slow twitch fibers can be broadly strengthened by variety of pacing and uneven terrain or surfaces: fartleks, strides, rolling roads and different trail conditions, and lots of mileage. Intermediate twitch fibers should be trained for greater endurance by doing workouts that recruit those fibers - higher intensity repeats or intervals or hills, threshold workouts. You can do cross training to get similar fibers "swole", but not necessarily the right fibers, the ones actually recruited during a tough run, but probably close enough to help.

I railed against the use of the term "strength" in this context from the time I was in a grad program in exercise physiology...then I gave up and moved on to other things.

It does still bug me to hear the term used inappropriately.