Weightlifting for a high school 800/1600 type

you can do legs if you want extra strength but bro personally i like tons of upper body stuff and tons of abs it really helps with speed and power. you get tons of leg strength from running as well, but some extra cant hurt...and the ladies love the pecs/biceps stuff yeya

Run more mileage. 35-40? Instead of lifting weights concentrate on building up your mileage.

If you can, look at the article about strength training in the October 2005 issue of Running Times, by Jason Karp. This is very similiar to the program that I use for high school distance types.

The main idea is that during the offseason or early/mid base you do some work in the gym on peak strength. You can do upper body work year round if you want, but it doesn't work year-round on the legs when you are also doing high lactate running workouts (too long to recover). I would do squats in particular, 2 sets of 6 reps (not to failure) with 4-6 minutes rest, which is in the 80-85% of 1 rep max. You can also make significant gains in upper body if you do this, and you do it for a few weeks. What you get from this lower body work is higher strength levels, and greater ability to accelerate, and this turns into higher top speed when you start doing sprint/anaerobic work on the track.

Later, when you start to crank up the track intervals, you do what is known as ballistic weightlifting, or conversion to power if you follow Tudor Bompa. You do 2-3 sets of 8-10, but at 30-50% of 1 rep max, and you do the lift part of the exercise as rapidly as possible. This is like plyometrics, and it is not nearly as taxing as conventional weight lifting. This is the only type of weight lifting actually shown to increase running performance in experienced runners, and it does so through improved running economy.

WAIT! That doesn't make any sense! You are "putting in milage now" and running 35-40 miles a week? Where is the milage? AND you want to know if you should spend time in the warm weight room so you won't have to go out there in the cold and run?

Does your school have a debate team? Team chess maybe? Titley-Winks would be nice.

If you were a serious runner and had the capability to dream a big dream, you would be running 10 miles a day during the week and 10 miles twice a day on Weekends. You would make one day your KILLER-DAY where you race that 10 mile run for time. You would be the most aggressive streek of bundled up power anyone in your town has ever seen. You would be similating race conditions, turning your body into a machine that can take the 800/1600 out at a pace only the very brave dare follow.

But then, lifting weights is nice too. You get to talk to people and stay warm there.

I know you didn't ask about this, but in regard to your mileage, it sounds like you're doing the right thing. Everyone on this site tells anyone who asks advice to "just run more" or "run 100 mile weeks," but there's more to it than that. Especially coming from a football background, 35-40 mpw is some OK basework. Later on in your running career, doing more miles may make sense (although you might not get great results form it then, either- not everyone does), but for a guy who hasn't been running that long, erring on the side of caution and building up your mileage slowly is a good thing.

In regards to what you actually asked, Speed Kills' ideas on weight training look pretty good.