183. Strength Training is Your Foundation for Running with Dr. Duane Scotti

The reason for that is strength training is the foundation of your running. You need to develop a strong running body so you can enjoy lifelong, injury-free running. And using the house building analogy, this is the step in the home building process that they actually clear the land, build a level it out, and then they pour the foundation. Are you constantly worried about getting injured or you don't know how to get faster as a runner? And you want to continue to run for stress relief. Then this is the podcast for you. Welcome to Healthy Runner, the only place that provides you with training tips, injury recovery, and prevention tools with actionable strategies by experts in the running industry so you can develop a stronger running body and feel confident that you can overcome any obstacle as a runner. I'm your host, Dr. Duane Scottie, avid runner, running physical therapist and coach, educator, founder of Spark Healthy Runner, where we help dedicated runners get stronger, run faster, and enjoy lifelong, injury-free running with the perfect online running coach, even if you've been told to stop running with an injury, or you think coaching is just for fast runners. Learn more about our signature coaching program at learn.sparkhealthyrunner.com. Every week on the show, we coach you to grow as a runner just like the process of building a strong, durable home that will last a lifetime requiring little maintenance. The design and planning is your mindset. The foundation is your strength training. The framing is your run plan. The electrical and plumbing is your nutrition. The insulation, drywall, and flooring is your recovery. The landscaping and exterior is your race strategy. If you master the six parts of growing as a runner, your running will be strong and last long hitting PRs well into your 40s, 50s, and beyond. Every week, we help a runner just like you build their dream home. I'm your host, Dr. Duane Scottie. Welcome to the Healthy Runner podcast. Before we get into this episode, if you are looking for nutritional advantage to increase mental focus, strength, and endurance, during those runs, and decrease the recovery time between those hard effort sessions, you will want to check out perform from the amino company. Later on in this episode, I will tell you more about perform and how it can help you stay focused, get harder workouts in and improve overall recovery on your journey of becoming a stronger, faster, lifelong, injury-free runner. Or you can check out the research for yourself at aminoco.com slash healthy runner. Did you know that strength training is the foundation for running success? Many runners underestimate the importance of strength training, but it can make all the difference in your performance and injury prevention. By incorporating strength training into your weekly routine, you can improve your running efficiency, endurance, and overall speed. Strong muscles provide a solid foundation for your body to generate power and per-power you forward. Today, I'm bringing you the ultimate guide to building the running success by unleashing the power of strength training. If you're a dedicated runner looking to take your performance to the next level, look no further. Strength training is the foundation for a well-rounded running routine, helping you become a more efficient, injury-resistant, and powerful runner in your running journey. Matter of fact, it's one of our six steps to growing as a runner so you can run fast and last long. In this training, I'm taking a deep dive into the benefits of incorporating strength training into your running resume. From increasing muscular endurance to enhancing core stability, this episode covers it all. Learning the essential tips for structuring your strength training sessions along with your running schedule, avoiding common mistakes and optimizing recovery to prevent overtraining. At Spark Healthy Runner, we will move that a well-designed strength training program is this secret ingredient to unlocking your fullest potential as a runner. Whether you're training for a marathon, a 5K, or just aiming to improve your daily jobs, this training has something for everyone. Prepare to get out of the injury cycle, challenge yourself, break through plateaus, and elevate your running game. If you're ready to take your running health and performance to new heights, success in running starts with a solid foundation, unlock your true running potential through strength training. Let's get started today. For those of you that don't know me, my name is Dr. Dwayne Scotty. I'm a running physical therapist, coach, educator, and founder of Spark Healthy Runner. And my mission is to preserve the health and longevity of runners everywhere by allowing them to get stronger, run faster, and enjoy lifelong injury-free running. In today's training, I am going to cover what is strength training for running. Should you strength train as a runner? Why is strength good for running? What does strength training do for running? Can strength training increase running speed? What is the greatest benefit of strength training for a runner? How long does it take to build strength for running? What strength training do runners actually need? Should I train legs if I run a lot? How do you mix up running and strength training? How many times a week should a runner do strength training? What is the best rep range for runners and should you strength train or run first? Such a common question I get. So the problem here, guys, is that seven to nine out of every 10 runners listening to this right now, will get injured. And one of the most common reasons for runners getting injured during a hard training cycle is not having enough strength in your muscles to tolerate the demands of running in what you are doing. And there are simple strategies we can implement to tolerate these demands that half marathon or marathon training affords us. Trying to grow as a runner is overwhelming. For instance, have you ever wanted to develop a strong running body so you can stay healthy and withstand the training cycle? Or have you ever wanted to run faster and run longer to conquer new distances or new goals that you have in your running journey, whether it is to hit a PR or run your longest race that you've ever run before? And if you don't do specific strength training exercises, here's what's at stake. Your legs constantly feel heavy during your runs and you just feel like they can't go any faster. You just keep getting injured every time you train for half marathon or marathon. You guess instead of following specific targeted exercises for runners, you might think that you're just getting too old for running. You're running just keeps getting slower. And that leads to frustration. And feeling constantly overwhelmed with the amount of information out there. And I don't want that for you. We let Spark Healthy Runner don't want that for you. And we have a plan on how to get stronger as a runner so you can keep doing the thing that you love and run for longevity. And it's not a plan that most adult runners are following. As a running physical therapist and coach myself, I've given thousands of runners a plan for optimizing strength for running. And our plan will work for you too. All you need to do is stay tuned and listen to this training. That's step one. Next, download our six steps to growing as a runner ebook. Third step, perform strength training consistently on a weekly basis and start feeling stronger, healthy and more confident in growing as a runner and conquering your next running goal. Back when I started running, I was age what, 31. And I didn't know what I was doing at the time. And I didn't know any of the things, really, regarding strength training for running. And I was frustrated because I wasn't getting any faster. And then I was constantly in the injury cycle. I went from having proximal hamstring tendon out for these, having runners knee, to having posterior tibial pain, to planar fasciitis. And since then, I have learned that there are six parts of your running journey that need to be optimized so we can run strong and last long. What are those parts? One is mindset. Two, strength training. That's what we're gonna be talking about today. Three is your actual run plan. Four is the nutrition and the fuel that we put in our bodies for running. Five, often on the estimated recovery. And six is actually implementing a smart and strong race strategy. So if you're listening to this, you most likely never knew that running as a runner is dependent on these six critical parts, but it does. Like most people think about running. They just go out and run. And it's the running that they focus on. And once I realize this, this resolution really set me free. After mastering the six parts of growing as a runner, I was finally able to stay healthy for really these past six years in my running journey. And I've been able to get PRs and the half marathon, run two marathons. And then recently this past spring in 2023, I actually ran my fastest half marathon time in seven years, shaving four minutes off and breaking through this plateau that I was stuck at in like 15 half marathon races. So strength training was like a huge part of that. And it's been a huge factor in my running journey and staying healthy during this whole time period. And I'm currently training for my third marathon. So I'm looking forward to that for sure. And most of all, I've been able to actually get out the door consistently on a weekly basis, no matter what time of the year, to get in my mental clearing runs all year through. And I know that's something that's very important to you because I know how important it is to me to clear my head, to reduce stress, right? To get all the benefits from a mental standpoint that running provides us. And when you execute the six key parts in your running journey, you're not only feeling more confident in getting stronger and faster, you'll stay healthy and enjoy the process of running again and cross some races along the way. So get the latest Spark Healthy Runner eBook free resource, how to go as a runner in six steps with a ton of supplemental resources, visuals and video content that will help provide context for what you will learn about today. So go ahead and download your free eBook. You can simply go to learn.spark, healthyrunner.com, forward slash grow. Now success in running starts with a solid foundation. So let's begin to see why your true running potential won't be fully unlocked until you embrace strength training in order to run. So what is strength training for running? Strength training that complements and supports a runner's training when they are hitting the pavement each and every week. So that's really as I view strength training, it needs to complement and support like what we're doing when we go out there and hit the pavement on a daily basis, weekly basis, right? So it needs to be specific to what we do as runners and target run specific muscles that are most active when they're running. Since running is a weight bearing activity, then we should be strength training utilizing exercises that mimic when your foot hits the ground as a runner. Our muscles help maintain the alignment of our lower body mechanics when we run and we function in a particular manner which is different from other forms of exercise. Let's say swimming or cycling, like nothing against those forms of exercise by the way, we're early sports, okay? I just had a bunch of triathletes just like give me snickers, silent snickers here. But running is unique in that it is weight bearing and that it is a unique lateral sport meaning we're always on one leg. We are more of our on two legs because that would be walking. So we are also using our muscles when we run in a fashion that is decelerating our body in motion when our foot hits the ground and then we're absorbing energy through our muscles, our joints, our bones, and then we're actually taking that energy and propelling ourselves forward to get forward movement so we can actually travel a certain distance, right? Therefore running is what we call a plyometric activity. So we are actually decelerating the body, absorbing force, bring ourselves forward. There are three different muscle contractions that occur when we run. So strength training for running should also complement your running depending on where you are in your yearly training cycle. Therefore strength training for running should be dynamic and constantly changing with the changes in your running season. It should look different during let's say your off season which we call the base building phase of training. It should look different for 5K training. It should look different for half marathon training. It should look different when you're peaking during your marathon training and it certainly looks different when you're tapering before release. So if you've been implementing some strength training and haven't been implementing those principles in which I just said, then you're gonna want to definitely listen to this episode for some more information here. So should you as a runner, strength train? The answer, obviously if you're listening to this is gonna be yes. And the reason for that is strength training is the foundation of your running. You need to develop a strong running body so you can enjoy lifelong injury free running. And using the house building analogy, this is the step in the home building process that they actually clear the land, build a level lit out and then they pour the foundation. So a broken or weakened foundation can't support the weight of a house as it should. And as a result, the house may move in one direction or settle and sink on one side. The home's framework pushes on the one side walls and the ceilings as it shifts and moves and this causes cracks in other noticeable damage. Like my house was born in 1953. We got some cracks in like the ceiling, right? So I've seen some of that like shifting that happens. So will we, as we look at why strength is good for running? In our six steps to growing as a runner, the strength training is your foundation for which all of your running is built from. The running is the framing of the house, right? And all of that is supported by the foundation, which is your strength training. So serious, like if you had serious foundational issues with your home, it puts your home stability at risk. This is why if a foundation wall collapses, you need to actually like hire a structural engineer or a highly qualified contractor to assess the damage. And it's like a big deal, right? Just like serious strength training foundational issues in your running training, do you put your body at risk from running? This is why you will need a medical practitioner who is highly qualified in running injuries to assess the damage and help you overcome that injury. I wanted to take a quick pause from this episode to talk about a topic that I am extremely passionate about. And that is strength training in order to run. So we can improve our performance by running faster or running longer. And we can also prevent the all-too-common stubborn running related injuries when we do the strength training. So do you want to know how I get in my strength training? How I remain focused for my gym sessions and how I'm able to recover after the hard marathon specific training that I've been working on? I've been using amino company's product perform for over two years now as a truly healthy pre-workout as opposed to some of those crazily highly caffeinated drinks that you're going to see out there that just give you jitters and then you wind up crashing. Perform is an essential amino acid-based formulation that I simply add to water, I throw to my shaker bottle, and I have it 30 minutes before a run or a gym workout. It tastes great and is extremely easy on your stomach. Perform helps improve mental focus, peak strength, endurance, reduces fatigue, and increases muscle protein synthesis so you can recover faster from your runs or your strength sessions. And I'm not just saying that from like an N is one, my personal experience. I actually brought on one of the leaders in amino acid research, Dr. Robert Wolf on the show back in episode 92 of the podcast. If you want a deep dive on the effects, the literature, tune in, listen to my chat or Dr. Wolf. You'll be as impressed as I was. And I wanted to make sure that I was putting something that was actually healthy into my body. And so I checked out the real research and the science on this product. And since you are a part of our healthy runner community, you can save 30% off by using the code HealthyRunner. Just head to aminoco.com-forward-slash-healthyrunner. You have to use this special link. You have to put in the show notes to get your 30% off and use the code HealthyRunner. Now go ahead and give a performer try. I know you're going to love it just as much as I have. Now let's get back into this episode. So you may be wondering why. Why doesn't Dwayne talk about stretching, having its own category in the six step plan? Like you might be thinking, I've always been told that runners need to stretch. I've always been told I have tight muscles and I've always been told that tight muscles causes injuries. So why does strength have its own category in our six step plan? The answer is really what does strength training do for running? And it's quite simple. Strength training really has two main benefits. Performance and injury prevention. And then it has some within benefits which we don't often think about, but it helps improve bone density. So any specially female runners who are in middle age years, and will have a family history of osteopenia, osteoporosis, grandma has had a history of fractures. Like this is especially important for you. And the other within benefit is it helps reduce the loss of muscle as we age. So the normal physiologic process, biology of aging, unfortunately, as we age, like I am 43 at the time of this recording, but as we enter 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, we start to actually normally lose muscle mass. So strength training can help reduce the loss of muscle, which is very protective for our bodies. Help can prevent, we just talked about fractures, right? Help can help prevent fractures. So, can strength training actually increase running speed? There actually is some research that shares it enhances performance. And there was a systematic review in 2018, Blagove and colleagues really looked at strength training at enhancing performance in runners and really talked about really improving running economy. And this is really the energy cost of running at a sub-maximal intensity, meaning that we could be more efficient as runners if we implement strength training. And we do know that, you know, most people think about some of these anaerobic benefits. So that's without oxygen. And running, we look at as anaerobic form of exercise, right? Not anaerobic, but we do know that strength training can help improve maximal speed and then also anaerobic capacity. So those are two ways in which strength training can actually improve kind of some of the anaerobic qualities. So getting the legs to turn over a little faster. And then honestly, once you're gasped in a race and you've like tapped out your aerobic potential, having some of this stored anaerobic ability in your muscles is going to be super helpful for you from like hitting the wall, being able to surge late in a race, being able to tap into a different energy system if you need to, right? And you need to like turn it on and finish strong in your race where you're passing people instead of people passing you. So however, what is the greatest benefit of strength training for runner? It's simply injury prevention. It really will keep you healthy. And we don't have sufficient evidence on these we call prospective studies in runners where you wind up implementing strength training for runners who haven't gotten injured and then you follow them for a long period of time. And then we wound up seeing who got injured, who didn't get injured. And was it because they were doing said strength training program? So we don't have any research yet. Those studies are very hard to conduct and I think there are a lot of limitations to that by the way because I think us as runners, if we're doing a training program, that feels pretty quote unquote, let's say easy. And isn't challenging our bodies. A lot of times, runners will take it up a notch and they go to the next level. So I think it's really hard to control all the variables in runners in terms of like intensity, how fast they're running. The piece is recovery wise. All those other variables that are important are six steps to growing as a runner. And we're looking at like two different, you know, forms like runners who are controlled group versus those that do a particular strength program and seem like who doesn't get injured. However, I will tell you through clinical experience and then also extrapolating a lot of the interventional evidence that we have in terms of the common running injuries. All of those, whether it's runners in the, it's Achilles tendon pain, it's proximal hamstring tendon opathy, right? The treatment for these conditions is really strength training. And the long-term fix for not having your planar fasciitis, your Iliotivio band, like come back the next training cycle or come back, you know, four months later, is really strength training. So this will be super protective for you, especially if you've always been in kind of this constant injury cycle. And if it's not the same injury, it's like a different injury. And again, like I said, that was moving when I first started in my running journey because I really didn't know much about running. I didn't know about those six steps. I didn't know what cover was important. I was running my easy runs way too fast. I wasn't properly progressing my long runs. I wasn't having them cut back weeks, right? Like I didn't really know what I was doing at that time, which a lot of us start out like that, right? So that's why I'm here today, really sharing this information with you. So I can fast track your process as a runner and lead to a lot less frustration in your running journey than some of what I experienced at the beginning of my running journey. So injury prevention is like super, super key. It's like strength training bullet proofs your body essentially. It like helps protect your joints. So for those of you who have been told you have arthritis in your knees, arthritis in your hip, maybe there's arthritis in your ankle. Maybe we've had a history of a liberal tearing your hip. Quite common. I had one or nine, right? Or maybe you have one or something, or what we call patella formal joint pain. All of this is like wearing away the cartilage in between the bones. And that helps like protect the joint from stresses and the stronger the muscles are, then the less force is transmitted to those joints that I just mentioned. So whether it's the hip, the knee, right? Whether it's the patella formal joint at the knee, the stronger those muscles are, it's going to take force, take load off being transmitted through the actual joint when you are running. The other thing that really bullet proofs is those that have had chronic muscle problems. Whether your muscles feel tight, you've got constant trigger points in your muscles. You've strained your hamstring, doing some interval runs. You've strained your calf muscle on a hilly run. You feel like you always have tight hip flexors, right? You have this like tightness in the front of your hip, then strength training is going to be super important for you as well. And then most importantly, like the most common thing that I really see in a lot of runners that I help or injured is, you know, pH to your proximal hamstring tendonopathy. It can always tendon off the posterior tibial tendon pain. So strength training really builds the strength and resiliency in our tendons to help prevent those common injuries that occur when we get in our 40s, when we get in our 50s, when we get in our 60s, because the blood flow isn't as good to the tendons, the tendons aren't as strong and pliable as they once were, in our 20s and 30s, when we were just starting out running. So simply put, you really can't get faster as a runner or get a PR if you aren't healthy, right? Strength training will keep you healthy during your training so you can put forth the work and reap the reward on Wednesday, like getting one of these medals here and being proud of your efforts. So how long does it take to build strength for running? Now, typically, let's say we'll begin or just starting out with strength training, it is going to take actually a full six to eight weeks for you to actually build strength in your muscles. If you're experienced with strength training, like myself, I've always been kind of the quote, unquote, gym rat since college days. So now I've been a physical therapist for over 20 years now. So ever since, you know, it's probably been 25 years, right? Since like freshman year, college days, I found the gym and started learning about strength training as I was going through all my physical therapy classes, one of the integrates, my anatomy, kinesiology, everything else alone about the muscles. I learned, and you know, actually, I'm cooperated in my gym workouts. So those of you that are experienced, it actually might take a little longer if you're really trying to look for like true strength gains. So it might take up to 12 weeks. And it's not that it's going to take you that long to feel like there's a difference, but the feeling that you're having in those initial days and weeks is really more of kind of more muscular changes. And it's almost like just feeling good from either getting a pump in the gym. If you're experienced that feeling like the blood flow going to your muscles and you're like, oh, I feel stronger. Or it's really you actually, you know, getting better motor patterns. And you're more muscular system starting to click a little bit. Your brain is sending the signals to the muscles and you're feeling it where you should be feeling it. So usually you're feeling that muscle activate. But for true physiologic change to occur in the muscle, that actually takes weeks. And if not months, so you need to be patient with this, all right? So minimum really true strength gains are going to come in six to eight weeks. And that's one of the reasons why I am not a big fan of runners taking, I know they're fun. I know it keeps it fresh, but taking different boot camp style classes or like Peloton classes for runners who have different instructors because you're doing something different every single class and you're not allowing your body to actually adapt to those movement patterns. Adapt to doing that particular exercise over the course of weeks and building resistance and actually building and leaping all the benefits that strength training really provides us as runners because you're constantly confusing your motor control system, right? So you're always in this constant state of confusion. And I know it's like super fun and you love different personalities, different like classes and instructors. And I get that, but if you're really looking to get those benefits of injury prevention and performance to actually build strength over time, it needs to be progressive and you need to allow your body to adapt to doing a particular set of exercises and then progress it over time and then you can change it. And typically you know, I recommend and in our strength training program for runners, it's really over a six week time period. Sometimes in the beginning phase, I'll do like four weeks of kind of these simpler, let's say muscle activation exercises, but then you should block it out in like six weeks because you need to give your body that allowance of like, hey, I know what's going on. I know how to perform these exercises at like two or three weeks and now we can increase the resistance and build so you get that benefit of strength training. So hopefully that makes sense to you. So if your strength exercises right now that you're doing feels more like a cardio class, then you're really not doing what your goal is to build like strength and a strong foundation that you need for running that we spoke about earlier. All right, you're really doing essentially another form of aerobic exercise, but you're just like swinging around a kettlebell or you're swinging around like a light barbell and you're doing like, you know, 120 air squats to a particular song and then you're like changing. And so if you're doing squats, like you should be doing it for strength which is not going to be like 100 reps because 100 reps is basically aerobic. It's not an aerobic and we're not going to build strength. So hopefully that makes sense. So what strength training do runners actually need? Strength training for running must include five key elements. It really needs to target your run specific muscles. So I'll kind of briefly really talk about six specific muscles. If we start the hips, hips don't lie, right? Like as Shakira says, so we really talk about the glutes, the glute marks, the one in the back. And then we side glute muscle, the glute medius that's your side hip support and then we move deep hip rotating muscles. So really three main hip muscles that honestly pretty much control everything down lower. So if you've had chronic foot and ankle pain, chronic knee pain, most likely it's because the hips we're not doing no job. So a really great video of like my top five exercises to target those hip muscles on my YouTube channel. If you want to check that out and we have a glute guide for runners on our site at learn.sparkhealthierunner.com if you want to learn more about that. So you get three hip muscles and then we got two knee muscles. So the ones in the front of the thigh that most people think about the quads especially if you've had a history of runners knee before we need to strengthen that muscle and then hamstrings especially if you've had a history of hamstring tendon pain or you get that like deep in your sit bone every time you sit and then every time you run up hills every time on a long run. And then lastly, your calf muscles which are often forgotten about trust me. I never trained my calves when I was started out working out in the gym and when I started my career when I started running, I was like, why don't we work my calves? I'm like running, doesn't that like work my calves? The calf muscles have the greatest percentage of muscle contraction at any of our lower leg muscles than we're running. So they actually require the most strength and the most endurance and they require them to be resilient. The only way we do that is through strength training. So it is super important that you strengthen your calf muscles and not only the bigger calf muscle you think about the gas shock which is on the outside but the deeper muscle, the soleus muscle which really controls the advancement of our lower leg, our tibia, one way running. So you need to actually strengthen both of those calf muscles in your strength training routine and simply put really for these purposes you need to do calf raises with the knee straight. Calf raises with the knee bent and there are different versions of calf exercises that we can get into but just to kind of keep it simple there. So target your run specific muscles, talked about that. Two, include weight bearing exercises as I mentioned before, running is fully weight bearing. So you doing a bunch of exercises on machines and gym, you know, the inner and outer thigh machines like classic every female runner I know, loves that machine, makes their inner thighs feel great, tones them up. Yes, however, your adductors do not function with your hip at 90 degrees because your hip is never at 90 degrees when you run. They actually function from a stabilization standpoint of your pelvis, when your foot hits the ground and keeps your pelvis and your leg sturdy. Your hip abductor muscle, same thing. That one is even more important. So the outer thigh machine, if you think of in the gym, that's gonna be super important for running and again, we never use that muscle at the angle of your hip when it's flexed at about 90 degrees like you would if you were sitting in that machine on the gym in the gym. It's really running our foot on the ground. So there are specific ways that we can strengthen that muscle in a weight bearing position. And then lastly, like quads, hamstrings, again, we can't just do the new extension or the leg curl machine in the gym. Not saying those are bad. I have started to integrate the quad one. Hamstring one is still can't go there. There's just so many other better extras as for runners to train their hamstrings that I can't justify myself doing the lying on your stomach or sitting in a chair and bending my knee down and up. So there are a lot of other ways. But like quads, you need to actually do some weight bearing quads strengthening as well, where there's squats, single leg squats will get into that. And that really brings me to my third point. Exercises in which are on one leg. Because when you're running, you're always on one leg. When we need our muscles to be able to function, like they do, when you're on one leg and you need that stability. Fuller include jump training exercise. As I mentioned earlier, running this plyometric in nature. That's how the muscles function. So we need to train our muscles to be efficient in that manner, to tolerate the demands of learning how to hit the ground. So you don't sound like a herd of elephants. And that you're like a sinking ninja, right? Where you're hitting the ground and being efficient and getting off of the ground. You're not spending a lot of time on the ground. The less time you spend on the ground, the faster you run. And the less forces are transmitted up through your joints, through your muscles, through your tendons. And then lastly, fifth point here, in really how we really, what does strength training do for runners, like what strength training do runners need to do is they need to really periodize to match the training cycles throughout the calendar year. So for example, you know, for our clients who have not done any strength training before, we have our, and this kind of gives you a little more sneak peek behind like what strength training looks like for runners. We have what I call the restorative phase. So we're all goals to restore fundamental running movement patterns. So in our coaching program, this really teaches our runners to activate and turn on their running specific muscles that I mentioned before, those hip stabilizers. For example, how to activate those muscles when we're standing on one leg. And the small little guys like that soleus muscle, right? That you normally wouldn't actually do in like a standard boot camp class or a crossfit class, or you're a Peloton for Runners class probably. So then what's really important is to not stay there because, you know, in the clinic, if you've ever been injured and you went and saw a good physical therapist, like they're gonna give you all those exercises for the most part, especially if you see a running specific physical therapist. But most times or a lot of times I found a lot of PT's, whether it is due to health insurance, running out of benefits, the cost just gets too high. Or they just don't want to bridge that gap. They just wanted to get you out of pain. And now they discharge you. They haven't bridged the gap to you actually getting back to healthy running. So the key is really taking those initial activation exercises and now progressing it into rebuilding your body to be more stronger and resilient in your running. And that's really in our healthy runner strength program, in our coaching program, that's when we go to like fees to you in our 16 week program, where we really progress the exercise to the next level, where you're not laying down for exercise at all anymore. We're all doing exercises where your foot's on the ground, like we are when we're running, we're integrating, strengthening it to more functional movement-based patterns, such as single leg squats, reverse lunges, stepping down from a step, right? We add in plyometrics, so jump training into your training in this phase. So those are really important and kind of give you a little behind the curtain look at how we structure out strength training for running. I hope you are enjoying this episode and it is providing value for you. I wanted to take a brief moment to share a story of a real runner like you who is struggling with a common problem that you may be facing. Here is one of our athletes who got the guidance, support and accountability from our healthy runner coaching team to get clarity and structure on the six steps to growing as a runner with personalized strength, nutrition and run plans. I hope their story inspires you that there is hope to either get over your running injury or to continue getting faster or running longer so you can continue to get in those mental clearing miles and enjoy your running journey again. Here is their inspiring story. This is Danielle and I want to take a moment to talk with you about my experience working with Dwayne and the Spark Healthy Runner Program. I have been a treadmill runner for many years and I ran my first half marathon actually as a virtual race on the treadmill. I then decided I wanted to conquer the marathon which would mean starting to run outside. I tried that and I got to about 12 mile long runs outside and my knee was not happy. I kept pushing through that and I ended up having to stop when I got to the 15 mile long run. I went through that cycle twice and at that point I just felt like maybe doing a marathon wasn't going to be for me, maybe I was too old. My knee just wasn't going to be capable of doing that distance and I was about ready to give up on that dream. Then I heard Dwayne and a couple of his podcasts and I thought this really could be the person that could help me conquer that goal. So I scheduled a call with him to see what he thought. After talking with him, I realized that maybe doing all the strength that I was doing wasn't necessarily the right strength. Working with him, I learned what strength I should be doing to support my running and I was gradually able to build up my long runs outside and the knee pain was gradually going away. Dwayne successfully coached me through my first half marathon outside so my first in-person half marathon and then eventually we got to the full marathon. I was so thrilled to be able to meet that goal and learn the proper strength to keep me strong and healthy to get those long runs in and be able to run outside pain-free. I know I would not have been able to reach this goal if it weren't for Dwayne and his strength program and the Spark Healthy Runner program. I am so grateful to Dwayne and everyone in the program for getting me to this point. I hope sharing that story inspired you and provided you some hope. If you want the one-on-one structure accountability and support from our Healthy Runner coaching team of experts, check out the behind-the-scenes video tour of our signature coaching program. You just heard about including other stories from runners who are just like you and we're struggling with the same sticking points before they signed up for our program. Just head to learn.spark, healthyrunner.com to learn more and book your strategy call with me today. Now let's get back into this episode. And it really could be, because I get this question a lot, like, do I need to go to a gym? Like, if you're really intimidated, you never enter a gym before. Like, no, you don't need to go to a gym. You can actually do body weight strength exercises in your home. And I would say 80% of the clients that we work with in our coaching program do that. However, if you like to go to the gym like I do, and you're more like efficient in the gym, it just works for you better, and we want to lift heavier, could go into the gym be used as well and target strength training for running? Absolutely. So, coming up next, guys, I'm going to share with you some actionable tips to implement strength training into your running. But, before I do that, if this training has been eye-opening to you at all, that you're surprised of all the benefits that strength training provides us as runners, and that there's a specific way to strength training for running. And, you know, you really want to incorporate more strength training into your training. If you're watching this on our YouTube channel, can you just do me a favor and hit that like button. Make sure you, like, turn on notifications, so you stay updated with all future videos that's going to help you be able to get stronger in your running. This will just allow me to create content like this. So, more runners, just like you and I, can continue doing the thing that we love and not getting injured, and, like, hitting our next running goals, we like to challenge ourselves, and enjoy lifelong injury-free running. So, if you need a world to me, if you can do that, hit that like button, please, and thank you. Should I train legs if I run a lot? This is another question that I get a lot and most runners, I find this as a common error in that they're thinking, I'm running, so I'm working my legs, and I mentioned, like, I used to think that in the beginning as well, and you didn't need to really do leg-specific strengthening. Maybe you just do your upper body. Yes, absolutely. We should train legs, even if you run a lot. So, running uses your leg muscles, so you're exercising them, but in a different way, and a different way than what the benefits of strength training provide. So, we are working those muscles aerobically. When we're a mood runner, your muscles feel sore after running, so you're like, I'm working my leg muscles. However, your body gets used to it fairly quickly within the first couple of months, honestly, of running, and this is why running actually gets easier. The more you do it, and over months, over years, over decades, now that I'm in my second decade of running, like running actually feels easier, and you become more efficient, and you expend less energy, which is a good thing from a performance standpoint, because it's all a matter of actually maintaining our energy levels and being more efficient at running races, early in the race, middle of the race. So, you have stuff left in the tank, and the race doesn't feel hard from the beginning. However, in order to continually get stronger as a runner and continue to grow in your running journey, we need to actually strengthen our legs with specific exercises that are not running. So, that is actually doing exercises for, like I mentioned before, with the foot on the ground, you're doing actual strength training exercises for your leg muscles. How do you mix running and strength training? This is another common question that I get, and, you know, you're like, how do I do this? And you really wanna think about what cycle of running that you're in right now? You also wanna consider what are your time constraints? Do you only have 30 minutes for exercise in a day, whether it is running or strength training? Do you have 60 minutes, do you have 90 minutes? Do you need two full rest days and rest of recovery days, like within a week, do two long hours at work, like you do two, 12, or three, 12 hour shifts, and you don't have time to exercise. Then, or, you know, you're taking the kids to like all their sports, right? So, my wife's always constantly, like, taking my girls to volleyball. I'll be able to get in a couple of days that I take them, but, you know, you like, you know, the carpool, right? And you're like, your kid's Uber driver, and you don't have that much time for strength training. So, all these things need to, like, be taken into consideration. And then, we also need to match the goals of the training cycle for what season you're in. Are you in a season of recovering from a stubborn injury? Then, you're gonna wanna prioritize strength training sessions more so than you're running. If you're in full bloom, let's say marathon taper mode, then you wanna prioritize running easy during taper time over strength training, because you're not going to get any stronger for your race at that time period during tapering. How many times a week should a runner do strength training? I'd really two times a week. They're during off-season time or base building. I often recommend three times a week, especially if you haven't done strength training before. Then, I recommend one time a week for most athletes during peak weeks of marathon training, or if you're training for your first half marathon. Then, we might even cut out strength training altogether. And this is the only time I ever recommend that, is like the one to two weeks leading up to a marathon or a half marathon race. So, when we're in that taper phase, when is the best or what is the best rep range for runners? So, how many reps should you do if you're doing strength training for running? And it does depend upon your intended goal. It depends upon the muscle. It depends upon the movement pattern that you're targeting in that you're training. So, for example, compound movements, such as the squat, the deadlift, this is more of a movement pattern. Yes, it is gonna focus on specific muscles. For instance, the squat's gonna focus more on the quad muscle, right? Yes, you're working the glutes as well. And then, we're deadlift. Pattern is gonna work more of the posterior chain. So, your glutes and the hamstrings, but yeah, you're gonna also work your quads, right? You wanna actually lift more load with these exercises given that you have proper technique and you wanna lift heavier. So, the reps for these can stay below five reps. You can do three to five reps if you're really, truly working power. So, you're really trying to lift heavy for power. And this is what I do for those particular movements. However, if you're doing exercises for standard strength gains and strength goals. So, let's say a reverse lunge, which is a fantastic exercise to target the glute max, right? Or, you're doing a single leg squat, which is a great exercise more for quad-based, also hitting the side hip muscle that hip abdoctor muscle I spoke of earlier. Then, you wanna be around the 10 rep range. So, anywhere between eight reps to 12 reps, usually. And if it's more of an endurance type muscle that you really want firing all the time when you're running. For example, the gluteus medius muscle or maybe the soleus muscle that deeper calf muscle I mentioned earlier. Then, you'll probably wanna keep the rep range even a little higher, like a 12 to 15 rep range. And that's not to say that I never target the soleus with lifting heavier weights and lower rep range. But I will say the majority of times throughout my yearly strength training cycle. I'm probably working the soleus muscle on a little higher rep range. So, it kinda depends. It's just like a lot of answers to questions, right? Which is hate that, it depends, answer. But hopefully that makes sense to you in your kind of reasoning process when you're looking at strength training. So again, notice how I didn't mention anything above 15 reps, because when you're doing 20, 30, 40, 50 of one exercise to a particular song, or just to hit like, you know, whatever the wad is of the day, you're not strength training anymore. Like, you're going to full-blown aerobic training, which your muscles are doing that when you run. So you're not complimenting your strength training to help improve your running. You're really just doing a different form of exercise and working your muscles in the same fashion, if that makes sense. So I love this next question. Should you strength train or run first? Like every single client asks this question. And the reason why it really was only one answer to this question, you are a runner first and foremost. If you're listening to this right now, you are not the power lifter who just like tuned in to watch this video, right? You are a runner. So you are a runner first and foremost. You need to actually have fresh legs for your running, because if your muscles are tired and fatigued, then it's going to affect your running mechanics. And then either your running is going to feel like crap, because you're going to feel like your legs were heavy. You had more energy, right? You felt flat. It felt so much harder for you. Your reading of perceived exertion was a lot harder. You were going on a slower pace. Or it can like mess with your mechanics so much that now you're really opening yourself up to one of the common running related injuries I mentioned before, because you really keep stepping in when you're running, because your hip muscles are just totally taxed and they can't actually function for you when you're running. So you want to run first and then do your strength training after. Trust me, your legs will thank you. I tried doing opposite during, you know, back in 2020 during the COVID days of quarantine. And I would do my, you know, strength training in the morning. And then I would either run with my wife like for a lunchtime break, because like, you know, all four of us were in the house. We just need to like get outside, right? For all of our mental sanity, girls were doing like school, you know, virtually, or at like the end of our day, maybe the end of the school day, like at 3 p.m. My legs felt terrible during those runs. So it is really, really hard to strength train first and then run. So depending upon your timing, I really recommend run first and then go right into strength training. You're nice and warmed up, you got blood flow in there, you can do a little mobility, you don't need to do activation, exercises, you can get right into the strength training. If you don't have time, then do your strength training when you get home from work later in the day, on that same day. But it kind of goes to kind of keeping the harder days hard and this kind of speaks to our recovery bucket. And in one of the six steps to growing as runner, we need proper recovery and then keeping your easy days easy. So I do like to combine those in terms of like run and then strength train after. So hopefully that makes sense there and trust me, your legs will thank you. So I know you do guys a lot here, just recapping all that you learned today. We'll be covered during the training. It was like jam packed. There's a lot of questions that I wanted to answer because these are common questions that many of you runners are struggling with and are really keeping you from really embracing strength training. So we talked about what is strength training for running. We talked about the demands of running and why strength training needs to basically function like your muscles function when we run. We talked about should you strength train as a runner? The answer is a definite yes, right? Why is strength training good for running? So we talked about those performance benefits, the injury prevention benefits and then the hidden benefits we talked about with bone density and then as we age, we prevent muscle loss. Why does strength training or what does strength training do for running? So we talked again, a little bit more details of those benefits can strength training increase speed. So we talked a little bit about that. One of the studies is systematic reviews. What is the greatest benefit of strength training for a runner? Injury prevention all the way, keeping you healthy. That's why you're listening to the healthy runner podcast, right? And how long does it take to build strength for running? We said it takes time. So you need to be patient, right? Don't have like this short-term memory loss. Don't be like Dory from Finding Nemo and just like, you know, look at the next greatest exercise and keep switching up your strength training routine on a weekly basis. We talked about what strength training for runners really looks like. And I gave you those kind of five key principles in which strength training should look like for runners. And we talked about, should you train legs if you run a lot? So we did, yes, talk about strength training, the leg muscles. Even though you're using those muscles when you run and we talked about how you mix up running and strength training, like how do you program that? How many times a week? Should you do strength training as a runner? Most two times a week, right? But it's going to vary. Could be either one, could either be three, depending upon the yearly training cycle. What is the best rep range for runners? So we got into details about that. And then should you strength train first or run first? So by listening to this training, guys, you took the first step, right? Remember the next step, go ahead and download your six steps to growing as a runner, ebook at learn.spark, healthyrunner.com, forward slash grow. And then third step, you need to perform strength training consistently on a weekly basis and start feeling stronger, healthy and more confident in growing as a runner and conquering your next running goal. And if you don't know how to integrate strength training into your busy schedule and we want clarity, you want focus, you want accountability and support that's exactly what we do with our Spark Healthy Runner coaching program. We teach you how to grow as a runner to not only crush your running goal, but avoid feeling frustrated because you constantly get injured or you're just frustrated that you're not getting any faster. And you just feel like you're getting older. Like we have had 50, 60, 70-year-olds in our program who've been able to unlock some speed and run faster than they were like a decade ago. And we act as your guide in mastering these six key steps in your running journey. Mindset, we cover, strength training, what we talked about today, right? We structure that all out for you as well as blend that with a structured run plan so they complement each other. And then really dial down your nutrition and your fueling for running, your recovery, as I mentioned before, often forgotten about. And then we raise strategy. So when you get the structure to execute the six key steps in your running journey, you'll not only feel more confident in getting stronger and faster. You'll stay healthy and enjoy the process of running again. Just like I've been able to do personally, as I mentioned for the last really seven years now, since I had knock on wood, right? I run a related injury, but now I'm starting to get faster and I'm starting to see those times that I saw in my mid-30s, in my young 30s, right? And I'm 43 now. So you'll be able to crush some races along the way, while still staying healthy. Just like a well-built home will require little maintenance, right, and bring you a lifetime of memories for you and your family so well you're running. So learn more about our Spark Healthy Runner Signature Coaching Program at schedule call now by going to learn.sparkhealthierunner.com forward slash coaching. Lastly, remember how I said that if you don't implement these strength training principles into your running, you're going to continue to get frustrated feeling lost. Your legs are going to feel heavy during your runs. You're going to keep getting injured. You're going to think you're too old for running and your running is just going to keep getting slower. So if you learned something today, if you didn't mind doing me a huge favor, copy this link wherever you are listening to it. Share it with a running friend who can use it. I want our running community to continue enjoying lifelong injury free running. And the only way we can do that is if proactive runners like yourself share this information with others so we can break the cycle and misconceptions about running and strength training within our society and that strength training is just cross-training. And you know, doing any exercise class is all you need for strength training. We know better than that. And hopefully you've learned something here today. So you are my healthy runner ambassador. And I thank you in advance for sharing this content and our mission with your running network of friends that you have. Thank you in advance for doing that. I greatly appreciate it. So as always, let's maintain a strong mind, a strong body through strength training and just keep on running until next time. Thank you, as always, for listening to the Healthy Runner podcast where we help you get stronger, run faster and enjoy lifelong injury free running. If you found this content valuable, here's five ways we can help you grow as a runner for free. One, grab a free copy of our six steps to growing as a runner framework at learn.spark. HealthyRunner.com forward slash grow. Two, follow our Instagram page at Spark Healthy Runner. Three, join our free group by searching Healthy Runner in Facebook for subscribe to our YouTube channel at youtube.com forward slash Spark Healthy Runner. Five, leave us a five star review so we can gain access to more experts in the running field and bring those lessons and trainings back here right to you. Don't forget, hit the subscribe button on Apple Podcast or the follow button on Spotify so you don't miss the next episode of Healthy Runner so you can maintain a strong mind, a strong body and just keep running. Lastly, if you've been struggling with the constant injury cycle, not eating the right foods for running or not getting faster as a runner and you are ready to invest in becoming a lifelong injury free runner, head to spark healthyrunner.com forward slash coaching to apply for a 101 signature coaching program. Thank you again, I really, truly mean it from the bottom of my heart that I appreciate you for listening and sharing this podcast with a running friend who can use the help. Now go and crush your run today. See you next week.