If you want to do a weighted exercise that helps running, do kettlebell swings.
I honestly doubt that heavy squats & deadlifts do marathoners any good.
Yeah, I know it's not a popular take on this thread, but for long distance it's not about having more power or how much you can squat. For preventing hamstring injuries, I suspect that things like single leg deadlifts with or without weights will be far better than heavy squats.
If you want to do a weighted exercise that helps running, do kettlebell swings.
I honestly doubt that heavy squats & deadlifts do marathoners any good.
Yeah, I know it's not a popular take on this thread, but for long distance it's not about having more power or how much you can squat. For preventing hamstring injuries, I suspect that things like single leg deadlifts with or without weights will be far better than heavy squats.
Actually there are a lot of exercises that can be done with kettlebells.
KB Swings cover the entire posterior chain. And if you're doing sets of them with minimal rest, you're getting cardio work as well.
I use 2 kettlebells that pretty much cover my needs - a 16 kg & a 12 kg.
Bulgarian split squats, with or without weights, are also good for runners. Below is just one thing that I found but there's a lot out there.
The marathon is 99% aerobic. Injury prevention aside, spending time and effort maximizing that 1% is essentially inconsequential to your finishing time.
I don't buy for a second that weight training actually prevents injury. The African runners do little to no weight training compared to the USA.
I've heard this "the African runners do..." argument so many times. Many, many of these east African runners have grown up living extremelydifferent lives from us. A lot of these athletes grew up with an agrarian lifestyle. They do a lot more walking. They don't have the same creature comforts we have. They might build a fence or feed the cattle. They don't spend their entire day sitting at a computer or watching TV to go run for 60 minutes every day. Kids are out and about playing soccer more often than their western counterparts. They're significantly more athletically developed than most westerners at a young age.
You're telling a bunch of desk jockeys who have never done a day of manual labor in their life that they should train just like the Kenyans and to you, that means being weak and skinny and unathletic. You couldn't be more wrong.
Look at the hey day of American distance running, those guys couldnt do 100 push ups between them. The fact that times from back then would still be competitive on a national scale tell you all you need to know about lifting weights.
Marathon running is about running. You wont squat your way to a PR. Take that time and run more.
And how many mins behind guys like Rupp and Farah are they? Tells you all you need o know about lifting.
Kenyan Running Drills with Coach William Koila and his group which includes WR holder over the 1000m - Ayanleh Souleiman.-- -- -- Many of you have asked if t...
A lot of you are asking me for some advice on weight training. In this video, I show you a few simple exercises I do to help with conditioning and strength. ...
Yeah, I know it's not a popular take on this thread, but for long distance it's not about having more power or how much you can squat. For preventing hamstring injuries, I suspect that things like single leg deadlifts with or without weights will be far better than heavy squats.
Actually there are a lot of exercises that can be done with kettlebells.
KB Swings cover the entire posterior chain. And if you're doing sets of them with minimal rest, you're getting cardio work as well.
I use 2 kettlebells that pretty much cover my needs - a 16 kg & a 12 kg.
Bulgarian split squats, with or without weights, are also good for runners. Below is just one thing that I found but there's a lot out there.
Personally out of all the different resistance exercises out there, none has been as much of a benefit to my running as the simple kettlebell swing. From the way it stretches/strengthens the hamstring to the explosive high hinge movement strengthening the glutes, quads, back and core. Especially the time component, just 5-10 minutes with kettlebells will give you a good strength workout vs half a hour or doing a bunch of other stuff. I'm choosing the kettlebell.
I don't buy for a second that weight training actually prevents injury. The African runners do little to no weight training compared to the USA.
I've heard this "the African runners do..." argument so many times. Many, many of these east African runners have grown up living extremelydifferent lives from us. A lot of these athletes grew up with an agrarian lifestyle. They do a lot more walking. They don't have the same creature comforts we have. They might build a fence or feed the cattle. They don't spend their entire day sitting at a computer or watching TV to go run for 60 minutes every day. Kids are out and about playing soccer more often than their western counterparts. They're significantly more athletically developed than most westerners at a young age.
You're telling a bunch of desk jockeys who have never done a day of manual labor in their life that they should train just like the Kenyans and to you, that means being weak and skinny and unathletic. You couldn't be more wrong.
The kids that spend the entire day on the computer or watching TV, never go out for XC and track, so their existence is irrelevant to this thread.
I've heard this "the African runners do..." argument so many times. Many, many of these east African runners have grown up living extremelydifferent lives from us. A lot of these athletes grew up with an agrarian lifestyle. They do a lot more walking. They don't have the same creature comforts we have. They might build a fence or feed the cattle. They don't spend their entire day sitting at a computer or watching TV to go run for 60 minutes every day. Kids are out and about playing soccer more often than their western counterparts. They're significantly more athletically developed than most westerners at a young age.
You're telling a bunch of desk jockeys who have never done a day of manual labor in their life that they should train just like the Kenyans and to you, that means being weak and skinny and unathletic. You couldn't be more wrong.
The kids that spend the entire day on the computer or watching TV, never go out for XC and track, so their existence is irrelevant to this thread.
Patently false. I ran in college and did nothing but played video games and watch tv and smoke weed in my free time in high school lol. Joe Schmoe club runner ride a desk chair all day for his office job in midtown and has zero strength. This is the reality for the vast majority of non-super-serious runners.
The marathon is 99% aerobic. Injury prevention aside, spending time and effort maximizing that 1% is essentially inconsequential to your finishing time.
You are comparing apples an oranges. A measure of the energy systems used has nothing to do with contributions of attributes un-related to energy systems. It's like saying, since the marathon is 99% aerobic, the fact you have feet only contribute to 1% of success and if you cut off your feet, don't expect any more than 1% impact to your marathon results. Your statement was nonsensical.
The marathon is 99% aerobic. Injury prevention aside, spending time and effort maximizing that 1% is essentially inconsequential to your finishing time.
I’m a big believer in lifting for distance runners, at least during certain parts of the training cycle. I generally have high school track runners lift 2x per week Dec-March. April-early May, it moves to more like 2x every 10 days, then max 1x per week late season. It doesn’t hurt their running, seems to help with injury prevention, and contributes to overall health.
Despite that, I’m not convinced it will actually make you faster. Up to a certain point, strength seems to help prevent injuries, but that probably has more to do with strengthening connective tissue and stabilizer muscles than the primary strength gains. If you’re comfortably squatting 200lbs, you’re probably to the point where adding more weight won’t help your running much.
5x5 is a solid training protocol, but a little too much volume for a runner imo.
Do you really think that a heavy routine once or twice a week is not gonna affect running on the other days? Yes, sprinters need to be strong. So, it makes sense for them as they do very low volume but for distance running it’s not gonna help.
I’ve never heard of Kenyans or Ethiopians squatting heavy.
We’re not doing bodybuilder style training that causes extensive muscle damage or going to CNS failure like a power lifter might. As long as they keep the reps low and don’t go to failure, they’re fine for their easy runs the next couple of days, and completely recovered by their next workout day.
The “Kenyans don’t do it” argument doesn’t hold much water for me. There are a lot of factors at play that make the starting points different.
As for benefits (worth noting I work with high school girls):
1) Develops basic athleticism (possibly more important that aerobic conditioning for girls who show up without prior sports experience)
2) clearly sends the message that female runners need to be strong, not just skinny.
3) increases bone density
4) temporarily increases testosterone
5) strengthens connective tissue and stabilizer muscles (including the core—I think heavy squats are probably a better core workout that most core circuits)
6) Might make them faster by increasing max muscle fiber recruitment
I'm a 2:45 marathon runner and can squat 205lb for 5 sets of 5. I'm wondering how beneficial to my marathon fitness squatting/deadlifting heavy will be. I know it can help prevent injury, improve power and speed, running economy, etc, but what I don't have is a rough idea of how beneficial it will likely be. As in, I could be convinced by the argument "it's great, since you haven't squatted much it could be key to levelling up you marathon performance" or "it may make some difference, but likely not much, and if your goal is just the marathon you'd be better off spending the time recovering". Can anyone give me insight on this?
0% beneficial. Lifting heavy weights are for people that are trying to avoid the real work that needs to get done for Marathon training.
Do you really think that a heavy routine once or twice a week is not gonna affect running on the other days? Yes, sprinters need to be strong. So, it makes sense for them as they do very low volume but for distance running it’s not gonna help.
I’ve never heard of Kenyans or Ethiopians squatting heavy.
We’re not doing bodybuilder style training that causes extensive muscle damage or going to CNS failure like a power lifter might. As long as they keep the reps low and don’t go to failure, they’re fine for their easy runs the next couple of days, and completely recovered by their next workout day.
The “Kenyans don’t do it” argument doesn’t hold much water for me. There are a lot of factors at play that make the starting points different.
As for benefits (worth noting I work with high school girls):
1) Develops basic athleticism (possibly more important that aerobic conditioning for girls who show up without prior sports experience)
2) clearly sends the message that female runners need to be strong, not just skinny.
3) increases bone density
4) temporarily increases testosterone
5) strengthens connective tissue and stabilizer muscles (including the core—I think heavy squats are probably a better core workout that most core circuits)
6) Might make them faster by increasing max muscle fiber recruitment
It doesn’t matter what holds water for you. The best in the world at this particular sport don’t do any heavy lifting. If you think they would be even better by heavy squatting and dead lifting the burden of proof is on you.
We’re not doing bodybuilder style training that causes extensive muscle damage or going to CNS failure like a power lifter might. As long as they keep the reps low and don’t go to failure, they’re fine for their easy runs the next couple of days, and completely recovered by their next workout day.
The “Kenyans don’t do it” argument doesn’t hold much water for me. There are a lot of factors at play that make the starting points different.
As for benefits (worth noting I work with high school girls):
1) Develops basic athleticism (possibly more important that aerobic conditioning for girls who show up without prior sports experience)
2) clearly sends the message that female runners need to be strong, not just skinny.
3) increases bone density
4) temporarily increases testosterone
5) strengthens connective tissue and stabilizer muscles (including the core—I think heavy squats are probably a better core workout that most core circuits)
6) Might make them faster by increasing max muscle fiber recruitment
It doesn’t matter what holds water for you. The best in the world at this particular sport don’t do any heavy lifting. If you think they would be even better by heavy squatting and dead lifting the burden of proof is on you.
So you're just going to ignore the video of Mo lifting weights posted above? You're gonna ignore Oregon's strength coach having written one of the most influential books on the subject while training some of the best American runners of our generation?
Lifting heavy is not a requirement for success longer distance racing. But plenty of people find ways to make it beneficial to their training at all levels.
A common fallacy I see is people always say "Look at the very best in the world," and refer to the literal tippy top of the iceberg. You can probably argue that all of them are so talented that they'd be world beaters off of dogsh!t training. Look at more than the very best, go look at college kids who are probably faster than you. Go look at local elites. You'll see a mix of strategies, and some really use strength training to their advantage, and some don't.
I remember hearing in an interview somewhere that Meb Keflezighi would do HEAVY deadlifts, but drop the weight at the top instead of lowering it back to the ground. Took this approach to build the strength and reap the efficiency gains without putting on muscle. As on the way down, you're tearing the muscle fibers which is the stimulus for hypertrophy whereas on the way up you get the strength stimulus without the hypertrophy stimulus.
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