Strength Exercises are crucial to having a strong core. They will help hold your running form to deliver a powerful drive to help propel you forwards.
Strength exercises will give you a strong core to help you hold your running form longer and deeper. Your upper body will prove invaluable in delivering a more powerful arm drive helping propel you forward faster. There is no doubt though that developing stronger legs is a priority for runners.
Deadlift
The deadlift is a great exercise for developing powerful glutes and hamstrings and will also work lower back and calves. Form is key to ensure you are lifting safely and effectively. It’s worth spending the time to perfect your technique and make the deadlift a regular part of any leg session.
Work in the 8-12 rep range and gradually build up the load. You want to feel your muscles working on the last 2-3 reps. Engage your abs and squeeze your glutes, keep your back straight and drive through your heels.
Start off with a Kettlebell and progress to a barbell when confident with the technique and weight. And again start with lower weight and working 8-10 reps to develop good movement patterns. Over time reducing the reps to the 4-6 range going for higher weights and more power.
Single Leg Deadlift
The single leg deadlift should be your ‘go to’ exercise. You will very quickly uncover any imbalances and dominant sides with this exercise. We are only ever on one leg when we run so vital we train that way.
This exercise will strengthen the glutes, hamstring and calves on each leg independently. Stand tall with weight focused on one leg and hold a kettlebell on the opposite side. Drive your none weight bearing leg backwards keeping it straight, hinging at the hip and allowing the kettlebell to travel straight down towards the floor. Remember to engage your glutes and drive back up to start position performing 8-10 reps.
Rear Foot Elevated Split Squat
Split squats again have the benefit of training our legs independently forcing our weaker less dominant side to work. With one foot elevated on a step or box, step forward to open up your stride.
Working with body weight, dumbbells or kettlebells, keep the weight through the front leg and drive the rear knee down to within a few inches of the floor. Push through the heel of the front leg and return to start position. Similar to the Deadlift this is a great exercise just light weights or even body weight for 10 or more reps or progressing to using a barbell racked across the shoulders and taking the reps down to 4-6 reps.
Hip Thrusters
The Hip Thruster is possibly the king of glute focused exercises. They require power to drive the hips through to extension. This exercise can be performed with body weight, or using a free weights.
Squeeze your glutes at the top but keep the load constant by not fully returning to the floor at the end of each rep. Remember to keep your back straight and chin tucked to ensure the load is taken by your glutes and not lumbar.
Calf Raises
Its easy to neglect our calves in a strength session, but given the huge role they play in tolerating our running load and the amount of injuries that relate to calf and achilles issues, we should never underestimate the importance of regular calf strengthening.
Calf raises or heel lifts are a great way to really focus on developing this key muscle group. But its important to understand the role each element of our calf complex plays in running to understand how we best do these exercises. These soleus muscle which sits lower and deeper to more prominent gastrocnemius muscle actually plays a more significant role in distance running, has more slow twitch muscle fibres and assists with deceleration at ground contact and drives us forward at toe off.
To really target the soleus muscle, keep your knee bent and raise your heel off the ground on to the ball of your foot using kettlebells and working to around 15 reps.
Strength Exercises Summary
It’s very easy to get overloaded with information and plans which may lead you to procrastinate. You need to find what works for you, in your environment, time available and equipment. My recommendation would be to pick 5 exercises, create a routine of 3-4 sessions per week. Once that habit is established you can start to add/change your routine. ?
See YouTube for plenty of examples of other running exercises which will help build strength.
See my other post on 6 key strength exercises for runners if you want further strength ideas. Furthermore, see my guide here on apps which can help establish a good routine.
