I am sitting in traffic on the way to the coffee shop dictating this post. I knew I didn’t want to type a lot today so I’m getting this started in the car. I want to save my coffee time for some good old fashioned journaling I need to do. Pen on paper.
I’ve been thinking about how great it would be to find somebody, not a coach per se, but another person who is on a similar journey to talk through the questions and the successes and believe me, failures of this process.
Right now, I have a lot of questions with respect to strength training. I’ve had a trainer, I know a lot of exercises. I have done Insanity a hundred thousand times (I love you Shaun T but I wore myself out on these videos!). What I’ve never had is someone to help me design a runner specific strength training program. Sure, I can research and do this on my own but I want to know what works for others!
In my current training schedule I have four days of running, two days of rest (or light yoga) and one day of cross. On my shorter mileage days I like to do weights at the gym before I run but I find that if I do a leg day to close to a long run day it makes my run day a lot harder, or if I do arms/abs I end up running out of time if I still want to run. I am strong but I want to be stronger. Should I trade one of my shorter run days altogether for strength training?
I listen to a lot of running podcasts and this episode of Run to the Top – If You are Serious About Your Running, Time to Get in the Weight Room with Jay Dicharry got my wheels turning.
A lot of people discuss and emphasize how crucial strength training can be for runners. I have to note that a lot of people also disagree with that claim. Jay is an experienced, athlete, coach, researcher and author. Jay has books that dive deeper into the topic but what I like about this interview is that he summarizes by identifying 3 categories of exercise that are especially beneficial to runners, and why.
Jay’s list includes:
- Postural endurance
- Strength training
- Explosive training
Give the podcast a listen if you’re into this sort of thing. Here is also a link to Jay’s blog.
I’m curious to all of you runners out there, what do you do to incorporate strength training? Do you have any exercises in each category that you recommend? I’d love to hear from you and share ideas on this topic.
Berkeley Lake, taken on my run this morning.
Namaspunk 