800M lifting schedule

Without direct knowledge of your weaknesses all you can hope for is a cookie cutter program. By the way, is there such thing as a 800m specific list of strengthening exercises?

Lift twice per week after your workout or later that day and one more day with calisthenics/ploys/hill sprints … you should also be dong core and hurdle drill type accessory work.

How old are you, do you have experience strength training, and what equipment do you have access?

I am 19 years old I attend a university so I have access to all equipment. I have lifted in the past but it was not very intense of a schedule. My weakness is my lower legs and hips.

I dont know you, so I wont give you a descriptive program. However you need to do the following:

A squat variation-

A hinge variation-

A vertical press-

A horizontal press-

A vertical pull-

A horizontal pull-

For you add calf raises- with knees extended and with your knees bent

Whether you choose for your horizontal push a push up, dumbbell bench press or barbell bench press is up to you. Whether you choose pull ups, chin ups, assisted or not, or lat pull downs is up to you.

Whether you choose 1 legged Romanian deadlifts or 2 legged trap bar deadlifts is up to you and what you are comfortable with.

But do each movement and a bit more pulling than pushing.

Try to learn olympic movements or at least variations of them as they will help with overall athleticism.

Include plyometric exercise and other jump training.

Squats, pull-ups, and push-ups. These are the only three strength exercises you need for your entire body. They all work the core very well. It’s all about keeping it simple, functional, and time efficient. Your focus is running not bodybuilding.

Twice a week Heavy Squats (80% of 1 rep max) after a hard run (5 sets x 3 reps w/ 3 minutes rest)

Twice a week Pull-ups and push-ups (4 sets x Failure w/ 3 minutes rest) You can do these any day of the week you want. You can even separate the days you do them or do them in the same session.

M- Pull-ups

T- Workout + Squats

W- Push-ups

T- Pull-ups

F- Workout + Squats

S- Push-ups

S-

Or

M- Pull-ups & Push-ups

T- Workout + Squats

W-

T- Pull-ups & Push-ups

F- Workout + Squats

S-

S-

Or

M-

T- Workout + Squats, pullups, and push-ups

W-

T-

F- Workout + Squats, pull-ups, and push-ups

S-

S-

Focus on good form.

Impossible to say without knowledge of your past lifting, your current level of athleticism, etc... BUT, I would advise you to lift 2–3 times a week. Try to lift after hard running sessions so you can consolidate your stress and take your easy days very easy.

Developing a good back squat and a good deadlift are a must if you want to seriously progress. Keep the weight on the light/medium side for a while and watch a lot of videos (or find a strength coach) until you're confident your form is solid. From there you can stack on a little weight and begin to learn variations on these two lifts, e.g. RDL, SLDL, SLRDLS, front squat, tempo squats, overhead squats, bulgarian split squats, etc... A handful of sets in the 3–8 rep range are just fine, e.g. 4x5 or 3x8. While you're doing this kind of work, keep something explosive in there. Trap bar jumps, depth jumps, skips, high knees, etc...

Once you can squat and deadlift and have a decent front rack position, learn to clean. Start with things like hanging high pulls and clean pulls. Keep the weight light, this is all about speed. Find a smart strength coach who's worked with T&F athletes unless you're very dedicated to teaching yourself. Eventually you'll be able to do a proper hang power clean, what I, and many others, consider to be a sort of gold-standard exercise for general athleticism and explosiveness.

Some runners take it a step further and learn to power clean from the floor, as well as snatch and jerk, and I can certainly see the benefit, it just comes down to how much time it takes for you to learn these and if it's worth the effort. I'm of the opinion the a traditional deadlifts can largely be tossed aside in favor of power cleans from the floor, assuming you're proficient at them. Deadlift variations like SLRDL and RDL are still useful for mobility and balance though.

As far as upper body goes, you can't disregard it, but it's not hyper important. You'll hit plenty of upper body if you're in the habit of front squatting and cleaning regularly. I see a lot of runners, myself included, with tight chests and weak backs/shoulders. I rarely bench, when I do it's usually single arm with a DB. I tend to focus on pullup and chinup variations as well as overhead press.

Then there's periodization. That depends on your racing calendar. There's entire books written on this subject but the general plan a noob could follow is:

* Spend a month or two getting the hang of the lifts and slowly adding weight, making sure form is perfect

* Two months training with "heavy" weights, learning to produce a lot of force

* 1–2 months emphasizing power and speed. Think fast cleans and big jumps with long rest