Why Runners Need to do Strength Training

Strength exercises are important to create good running form and avoid injury. These videos show you how.

Running is often believed to be purely about endurance, or aerobic fitness, but muscular strength also plays a major role. Strength exercises are important to create good running form, avoid injury, and become a more balanced runner. Here's a primer on strength training for runners, including five sets of exercise videos to show you how to do them.

Why do strength training?
While runners often work mainly on their aerobic fitness, strength training (also called resistance training) is an important training tool. Just consider: when you run, two to three times your body weight is borne by one leg at a time. That means you need considerable leg strength to achieve speed and mileage.

Regular strength training corrects imbalances that occur naturally in the body, such as left-right differences, unequal knee flexion and extension strength, and imbalances in overall muscular strength. Correcting these imbalances reduces the risk of injury.

Another reason to work on strength is that it improves your overall running form, making you a more efficient runner. This is especially important for long-distance runners who want to maintain their form throughout a race. When you're running a marathon, good running form may be easy at the start when you're full of energy, but it's towards the end when you're tired that it really counts!

When to do strength training?
To obtain the best results, perform strength exercises regularly, for instance two or three times a week. Do your exercises on lighter training days or on rest days. If you follow a training plan, it's best to build strength in the earlier phases and ease up on exercising as your endurance training increases. Short and middle distance runners can maintain strength training right through.

What to focus on?
As a runner you will of course want to work on your leg strength, but it's also important to develop your core muscles (chest, shoulders and back) and pelvic muscles. Training your foot and lower leg muscles (shins, calves and plantar muscles) helps to improve your push-off strength and also reduces the chance of injuries.

How to do it?
When you start doing strength exercises, pay close attention that you're performing the exercises correctly. Some tips for effective strength exercising:

Perform strength exercises two or three times a week.
Start with few repetitions and build up step by step.
Don't hold your breath while exercising. As a rule, breathe out while using strength.
When performed correctly, you should feel a burning sensation in the exercised muscles.
Once you are comfortable with the exercises and you have good form, you can add weights to create more resistance.

Basic Leg Strength Exercises for Runners