High Rep Low Weight "Strength" Training - Has anyone had success?

Define "success" Don't know what your looking for. High strength with low weight high rep tng? I've benched 245 off of just doing a lot of pushups before. Is that what your talking about?

There was a recent study that came out that purported that high rep/lower weight is as beneficial as lower rep/heavier weight. You can achieve the same benefit. But that is doing the highers reps to failure.

I've done a lot of swings over the years. Sometimes focusing on going heavy and just hitting 20-50 reps. Other times getting 100 a day and even doing workouts focusing on 300+ reps for many weeks.

In my experience, you don't gain much mass from swings. The key swing muscles (hamstrings, glutes, back, traps, forearms) will get denser and feel as if they have gotten a little bigger. The scale will show at most a pound or two of change. This is one of the reason weight class athletes, like fighters, enjoy kettlebell work so much.

So if you are running a fair bit and hitting swings hard, you should be fine. Gaining weight for most of us is really difficult. You need to eat so much, lift heavy, and also rest a lot.

That said, I do feel like my running is not quite as easy and natural if I'm lifting too much. It's not so much the one or two pound difference that does it (I think) but more the strength and tension in the muscles that makes relaxing on a long tempo run or a race just a little less natural. So right now I'm running more and just lifting twice a week. Not for very long, either. I do think this is one of the areas where training history and your personal muscle fiber breakdown can really produce different results for different people.

I had great success when i used to be more disciplined in the weightroom. Granted i was more disciplined with running too...

But if by high weight low reps you mean the 5x5 philosophy than yes.

Here is a link to recent review of strength training for runners.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29249083

In general here are a few "rules":

1. Muscle strength: Lower reps (less than 5) seems to favour absolute strength versus mid (10-15) or high >20 reps.

2. Muscle size: number or reps doesn't seem to matter. Someone referenced Bret Contreras and his work with Brad Schoenfeld support this. Meaning just train a movement and try to come close to muscle failure.

3. Frequency: 2-3x/week seems sufficient. More is not better.

4. Go to failure? Not necessary for the most part but you should get close. Meaning you have 1-2 Reps in Reserve (RIR). Meaning, you can't do much more than 1-2 more. However, some studies suggest if you aren't doing a lot of volume (e.g 1-2 sets) you might want to go to failure.

5. Improvements in running economy: Most strength studies suggest you can see improvements between 2-5% in running economy. What is unclear is whether it is better to take the extra time strength training and just run more. Some studies suggest that strength training might be a better choice if you are already running a lot.

6. What is BEST for runners aka why does strength training help performance? We don't know yet. We think that increasing tendon stiffness or passive joint stiffness is important. To get this we need to train heavy (>70% of max or 12 or less reps). So to cover all your potential bases it seems that you might want to:

- train 2-3 days per week

- basic compound exercises for the entire lower limb (squats, deadlifts, hip thrusts and calf raises)

- do 1-3 sets of each

- do 4-12 reps for each set

- train close to failure

Good luck,

P.S you can also try plyometrics which so similar improvements in economy

I agree with everything you said....except hip thrusts and calf raises aren't compound movements .

Also, nothing occurs in a bubble. I would say 3x a week is too much. 1-2x week for a distance runner is fine.

Basic lower body compound movements. At least 85% 1RM. Progressive overload. Sets of 5 leads to sets of 3s leads to sets of 1-2s at 90-95%.

Incorporate plyos. Start easy and basic. Move toward more complex. Less is more. Focus on explosive movement, not repetitive movement with plyos, IE: 3 sets of 3 box jump with long rests is better than three sets of 10 with minimal rest.

Alan

Glamour muscle with running fitness. IASIP

You lift weights to get strong and/or big. If you want to improv wrote:

You lift weights to get strong and/or big. If you want to improve your endurance, run more.

I call total BS on your post. Posterior chain strength training is an essential compliment to running. Anyone who has done it will agree. Your form will improve especially in late stages of a race when you're super tired, your finishing speed will improve, your running economy will improve...yadda yadda. There's a reason top athletes have been doing it for years (i.e. Seb Coe).

Focus on dead lifts, Bulgarian split squats, glute bridges, Swiss ball hamstring curls...also for your upper back and posture do wall slides, band pull-aparts, DLs and split squats work in the three set and 3-8 rep range, everything else you can do high reps (15-30 rep range). You will add on a little bit of muscle mass working out like this, say 1-3lbs. You won't get bulky and the extra muscle will not slow you down, quite the opposite.

For all other work, core and upper body it's ok to do lengthy sets of pushups, abdominal work, shoulder work. Or you can lift heavier with 3-6 reps..honestly it doesn't matter much, both will make you a little stronger without adding any mass. I like to mix it up, a couple weeks at high weight/low rep and then 4-6 weeks at higher reps. Is all good.