A Science Backed Guide To Weight Lifting for Runners

My favorite at home runners strength routines:

The training planner sheet I use to plan all my training:

Ready made training plans to help you PR in your next 5k:

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[Tom-lkpb]

As a 'hybrid' athlete, I'd please emphasise to not squat heavy in trainers. Either use weightlifting shoes or flats/even just in socks. Much much better stability.

[defeqel]

If you are a beginner in terms of strength training, DO NOT go with heavy weights, learn technique first and that happens with more repetitions (e.g. 8-20 per set), and concentrate on your core muscles as those are what stabilize you in both running and strength training. Body weight exercise like squats and lunges are also great, and you can get great benefits from doing the eccentric movement slowly and from increasing the range of motion (ie. go lower when squatting). Also, training a single leg at a time can help improve strength balance and reduce the risk that comes from bigger weights.

[iverallgrove]

One of the best strength & running videos I have ever watched! Thank you

[thedolenorway]

Heavy weights with few repetitions is great in theory. The disadvantage for inexperienced weightlifters is that the injury risk becomes high when the movement pattern is not well trained. I don't think 8-12 reps is a bad place to start until you get the hang of the exercises. You can build quite a bit of muscle doing low rep ranges as well, the trick to building less muscle is to stop the set early instead of pushing to failure.

[TheMegaMrMe]

Just doing more reps won't immediately make you bigger. You need to eat at a surplus and train like that consistently to see such results. The risk of being too big is not real. If it would be that easy, everyone in the gym doing bodybuilding would be happier

[luffyluck]

I honestly don't even care if strength training improves performance or speed. I only do it to help prevent injuries. I do the 6-12 reps thing though 😅. I use 24kg kettlebell and do a 30-45min workout that target the "whole body" twice a week. I feel like if I was going heavier I would most likely injure myself. Coming back from injury, I'm 2 years injury free so It seems to be working fine for me so far.

Not looking like a long noodle is a plus for strength training.

[kaih.]

Even experienced lifters do take care with low repetition/heavy weight lifts (such as squats/deadlifts). These are difficult excercises to get right (high risk, high reward).
Careful please, especially if one has not a years long experience in lifting. Clearly this is very potent for well trained/well instructed runners.
Great video!

[piercecleary]

Love seeing you reference quality studies 👌🏼

[nikitaw]

Single leg physio exercises as a beginner have made my running feel a lot better.

[ajw]

Really good video! One thing to also consider doing is switching in some lifts where you work in one leg at a time. Things like single leg Romanian Deadlifts really help build stability muscles and can help prevent injuries.

[theelvisphoto]

When I do weight training it is not to get faster, but rather to become more resilient to injury and to reduce ”aches after many minutes of running”.

[Julian-pjzi]

Bloody hell Göran, 150k subscribers!! I've not watched your vids for about a year or 18 months as not been running but I'm sure you were on "only" about 10k back then! Congrats 👌👌🚀 thanks for the vid, I'm back in the game again and training.

[arnthorla]

I'm a bit worried about the shoes you are using when lifting. Seems like they are decreasing your stability, this will get more pronounced as the weight gets heavier. To keep things simple and stable I find it best to lift without shoes.

[RunSensible]

This video is absolutely fantastic. Well done!

[Rich_]

I'll give this a try! I usually do a lot of bodyweight training like box jumps, squats, and planks, which takes 20 minutes or more. It will be interesting to see if a super short workout can be just as effective

[MartinMikulas-lc]

Takk Goran, for the very insightful video. It is really important to stress the importance of weight training, not only from the direct performace increase point of view but also as an injury prevention. If we consider injury in runners lifespan, then the overall percentage for performace "boost" would be significantly higher than 4, 6%, considering how many training units you miss when you are injured.
Looking forward to you new video :)

[Ryan.Thomson]

Great video! I just wish I'd seen it before I uploaded my weight routine for runners 😂

[cf]

Love the scientific aproach. Subscribed!

[adrenas]

So glad you made this video. You're the jeff nippard of the running community if that makes sense

[danniseliger]

As a former coach and physio I approve! 😂

This I think id close to being the ideal supplementary strength programme for running. I would do it in a trap bar deadlift instead. Slightly better movement pattern for running, easier to learn, you can load it heavier and you can be more explosive in a triple extension (extending hip, knee and ankle simultaneous, as you do in running).

But pretty close to perfect ❤