Gym Workouts For Runners: Your Ultimate Guide

Updated: Jul 31

Many runners fear that if they start lifting weights they will gain loads of muscle- since starting the gym I can assure you don’t have to worry :(

Mo Farah and Galen Rupp strength training when they were Gold and Silver Olympic Medalists

Gym workouts for runners: This could be your key to your next breakthrough!

In 2011 Mo Farah joined the Oregon Project, previous to this Farah was a good runner but comparatively to being a 4x Olympic Champion, 6x World Champion and 7x European Champion, he was no-where near the level he needed to be. Both his coach and Farah put the drastic improvement down to the runner specific strength training that he was put through. Farah was one of the weakest athletes to ever join the Oregon Project, he went from this to being able to squat and deadlift over 1.5 times his body weight for 4x 5 reps. This difference kept him injury free, made his running economy improve drastically, made him a lot faster over 5/10k, but mainly it increased his kick to make him near enough unbeatable- (50.89 second last lap for a 5000m). Runners doing gym workouts for strength will see a decrease in the amount they get injured and also will be able to improve their running performance.

Principles of gym workouts for runners

Hard days hard, easy days easy

This principle is all about recovery. I believe in runners adding gym workouts for strength on the same days as your harder running sessions, what this does is it allows you to have a super easy day between those hard days. For example, you have your running session in the morning, your running specific strength training in the evening, then the following day you can either rest or go for an easy run. That easy day is the day you get to recover and adapt from the hard work you have done.

Make exercises specific to running

You can make the strength exercises specific to running by making the movement more similar to a running action. A great rule for this principle is to make sure that you do exercises where one knee gets raised whilst the opposite glute contracts. What this does is it trains your body to drive up your knee whenever your glute contracts- this is ideal for running form and developing speed/power.

Strengthen your whole body

You run with your legs, your arms drive your legs and your core helps keep you stable so you don't waste energy- you need all of it. Core also helps develop your overall speed a lot more than people realise (for a great core routine click HERE). Your legs obviously are the biggest thing for running strength training, but developing your back muscles and biceps with rows will help to keep you running in an optimal position, for example.

Periodise your strength training

Strength training for running should be periodised to train different types of fitness at different points over a period of time. I will discuss specifically how to do this lower down in the article.

Your running gym workouts should train for strength not hypertrophy

When you run a lot you do not build up muscle the same as someone doing the same lifts who does less cardio. This is due to something called ‘protein synthesis interference effect’ which is what we get when we run a lot and it stops us building up heavy bulky muscles which we do not want for running.

However, your main goal is to get stronger, so to do this make sure you do less reps and take longer rests. 2-6 reps and 2-5 minutes rest is ideal, this means you can lift heavier, increase your strength faster and also build less muscle.

How to structure your strength training for running

All of the phases below should overlap somewhat. For example, during the 'Power' phase, you should still have 15% of your workout as 'Symmetry and Balance' and 25% as 'strength' (very rough estimates). BTW, the ATG Program is a perfect program to follow for running

1. Symmetry and Balance (1-4 weeks)

This is where you try to get rid on muscle imbalances and improve your balance. This should include unilateral strength movements, one leg balance work and a lot of stretching and foam rolling. The ATG program will have the perfect training for this phase, exercises such as the ATG split-squat are a game changer for runners.

2. Running specific strength work (4-12 weeks)

This is the bulk of what you are going to do doing. Things such as nordic curls, squats and deadlifts will be key in this phase.

3. Power

Doing similar movements to strength but with less weight but do the movement faster. For example, if you usually squat 60kg for 5 reps, do 4-6 reps of 40kg but do the movement fast and powerfully.