WEIGHT TRAINING FOR RUNNERS

My opinion on the benefit of weight lifting for runners was formed many years ago when my high school weight room was filled daily with football players and throwers, not a runner to be found.  The reason for this seemed simple enough.  Weight training produced an increase in body weight and a decrease in flexibility.  Improvement in running would not be enhanced by either.  Fast forward half a century and the myths generally associated with strength training are long gone and attitudes toward weight training have changed dramatically.  It is now widely recognized that an increase in muscular strength reduces body fat, increases power and decreases the likelihood of injury, and despite opinions of yore, are good for today's runner.

There are some general guidelines associated with weight training for runners.  First and foremost, you can't expect to hit the gym and right out of the gate achieve max weight and/or max repetitions.  Like running, weight training relies on a solid base on which to build.  Muscles, joint and ligaments require a period during which they become accustomed to the new effort and the demands placed on them.  Patience is a requisite or injury will occur.  A buildup in both weight and repetitions will follow as you gain strength.  Another important guideline is that it is difficult to conduct weight training and running on the same day.  I would therefore recommend that weight training workouts be performed days on which you don't run at all or run short and easy.  Like our running sequence of alternating hard and easy days, target specific weight training (e.g. upper body, legs) should not be done on consecutive days.  Recovery is as important to strength training as it is to running.

The foregoing is an excerpt of something I wrote several years ago, after becoming a proponent of strength training.  This element of training has been validated by a number of reputable sources.  The following link is a Runner's World article which addresses the subject in detail and is well worth reading:

  http://www.runnersworld.com/race-training/strength-training-misconceptions-for-runners