Weight-Training Exercises For Runners

Weight training can seem counterintuitive to runners: The more muscle you have, the heavier you are, thus the more weight you have to carry around when running. While that's true, it doesn’t mean you should swear off weight training all together.
In fact, runners need weight training even more than you may realize. “Strength work accomplishes three big goals for runners,” says Jason Fitzgerald, USATF-certified running coach, founder of Strength Running in Denver, Colorado. “It prevents injuries by strengthening muscles and connective tissues; it helps you run faster by improving neuromuscular coordination and power; and it improves running economy by encouraging coordination and stride efficiency.”

So for all you runners out there I urge you to go lift some weights.

My favorites are:

Squats (all variations)
Deadlifts
Stiff-deadlifts
Toe-raises
Planks
Chins

Are Shoes Really To Blame For Running Injuries?

The injury rate in running is high. No one knows exactly how high, but whatever the exact number is, it’s a greater number than is seen in virtually any other form of exercise.
This unfortunate discrepancy was pointed out in a 1998 study involving triathletes, who, of course, do a lot of swimming, cycling and running. Researchers from Straffordshire University in England found that among elite triathletes, 62.1 percent of injuries suffered during a five-year period were caused by running, 34.5 percent by cycling and only 3.4 percent by swimming.

Among mid-level triathletes, the numbers were 64.3 percent, 25.0 percent and 10.7 percent. And among recreational triathletes there was a bit of a shift toward swimming, with a breakdown of 58.7 percent running injuries, 15.9 percent cycling injuries and 15.4 percent swimming injuries.

 Why is the injury rate so much higher in running than in swimming and cycling? The traditional explanation is that running causes more injuries because it is a high-impact activity, whereas swimming and cycling are non-impact activities. But in Born to Run, journalist Christopher McDougall popularized a provocative alternative explanation first proposed by Steven Robbins in the 1980s: that modern running shoes inflate the injury rate in running by promoting unnatural stride mechanics that place undue strain on the tissues of the lower extremities.
For all the evidence adduced in support of this argument, it remains fundamentally unproven, for one simple reason: only a formal, prospective study comparing the injury rates in shod and unshod runners showing a significantly higher injury rate in shod runners could prove it, and that study has not been done.

For my part, based on the evidence currently available, I do believe that running shoes became generally overbuilt in the 1980s and remain so today. Runners are generally more likely to get injured in overbuilt running shoes than in more minimal shoes, although the limited historical data on injury rates suggests that the injury rate in running did not increase between immediately before the era of overbuilt footwear and today. However, I believe it’s absurd to suggest that running shoes are entirely to blame—or even mostly to blame—for the high injury rate in running.

To blame it all on shoes, you must overlook other factors that are more than plausible contributors to running’s high injury rate, namely (in shorthand): body weight, sedentariness, hard surfaces, and popularity. Let’s take a closer look at each of these factors.

Body Weight A study conducted a few years ago under the auspices of USA Track & Field garnered a lot of attention because it found that stretching had no effect on the injury rate in a large population of runners. But another very interesting finding in that study was almost completely overlooked. One of the very few factors that did correlate with injury risk in this study was body weight. Simply put, the heavier a runner was, the more likely it was that he or she would get hurt.
As everyone knows, we’ve gotten a lot fatter over the past 30 years—runners included. Undoubtedly, this is one contributing factor in the high rate of injury observed in running today.

Sedentariness The Tarahumara Indians of Mexico have been idealized as a kind of prelapsarian perfect people who run the way humans were meant to run, who run like all humans supposedly used to run and who never get injured. Chris McDougall believes that the reason for the apparent low running injury rate among the Tarahumara is their minimalist footwear. I’m not so sure.
I think a much more important difference between the Tarahumara and Joe American Marathoner is that the former are highly active outside of running in diverse ways, whereas Joe American Marathoner runs 45 minutes a day and sits on his bum or lies prostrate the other 23 hours and 15 minutes.

Being active in diverse ways outside of running actually encourages healthier running. An active lifestyle outside of running helps prevent most of the muscular and postural imbalances that are so common in our society and that contribute to injuries because of reduced joint stability.

Ultramarathon man Dean Karnazes told me in an interview that a recent game of tennis left him so sore the next day he could hardly get out of bed. All of that unaccustomed lateral motion on the court challenged muscles that Dean never uses in 100 miles a week of running. Those unassuming little muscles in the ankles, lower legs, groin and hips could help us run healthier if, like the Tarahumara, we did use them sufficiently in other activities to render them strong enough to play a role in stabilizing our joints during running.

Hard Surfaces Another key difference between the Tarahumara and us is that the former run on dirt, whereas we run mostly on pavement. I believe the fact that the Tarahumara run on surfaces soft enough to permit comfortable running in minimalist footwear is more important than the fact that they wear such footwear. In other words, I believe that pavement is a bigger problem than our shoes, and that we would get injured just as often in huarache sandals on pavement as we do in our running shoes.
This is all speculation, because injury rates on different surfaces have never been formally compared. A few years ago there was a message board thread on letsrun.com concerning personal experiences in injury rates during periods of running mostly on dirt compared to periods of running mostly on the roads. It was completely one-sided. Virtually every runner who had a basis for comparison and who volunteered his experience said he ran much healthier when running mostly off-road.

Popularity Yet another key difference between the Tarahumara and ourselves is that they are a unique population of running specialists, whereas we are not. There is no evidence to support this dewy notion that today’s Tarahumara are the last vestiges of a lifestyle that was once universal to humanity.
Long-distance running was probably never a population-wide practice in early human societies as it is among the Tarahumara. Rather, it was the province of a select few specialists. Consequently, the genetic underpinnings of the gift for long-distance running were never terribly widespread in most human cultures from our very beginnings until today.

The practice of long-distance running is more widespread in our culture today than it has been for centuries. As we know, participation in running has increased tremendously over the past three decades. Most of that growth has come from the bottom, as it were, with millions of slower, non-competitive types flooding into the sport.

I’ve been a part of the running scene since the early 1980s, and I can tell you this transformation has been striking to witness. When my dad was running road races back in the day, those events were filled with runners—relatively fast men and women (mostly men) who ran primarily because they were good at it. They were running specialists. Today, the starting corrals are dominated by what we might call non-runners who run. They are not running specialists.

Which is great. However, the same genetic package that gives a person the ability to run relatively fast over long distances also gives a person the capacity to run a lot without breaking down. Naturally gifted runners get hurt much less often on a per-mile basis than less gifted runners. Therefore, the high injury rate seen in running today is certainly due in part to the fact that, as whole, today’s running population is less “born to run” than yesteryear’s.

Back To Tradition If weight, sedentariness, hard surfaces and popularity all contribute to running injuries in our society today, how much blame is left for overbuilt running shoes?

Let’s be real: running’s high-impact nature is indeed the true reason the injury rate in running is so high. Footwear characteristics do affect the amount of impact the body absorbs during running and how that impact is absorbed, but it does not change the fundamental high-impact nature of the activity. Thus, if you fall for the seductive idea that running shoes are entirely to blame for all running injuries and that getting rid of your shoes will enable you to run infinite distances without injuries forevermore, you’re bound to be disappointed.

If you really want to reduce your injury risk as much as possible, by all means, consider your footwear, but also lose weight (if necessary), switch to soft surfaces and do stuff besides running to strengthen those stabilizing muscles.

Running science - How to plan before and during a race

When planning to run a race, make sure you have used your new running shoes at least 5-8 times so you know that they feel good. Never buy new shoes the same day as the competition! :)


How to plan your run

First 30%: The most common error is to go out too fast in the beginning. Spring rather calmer. You should feel the day's form and become hot enough.  

Middle 30-60% in the race: You usually have good flow, stamina has not begun to put an end yet. It is important that you enter the speed you have planned and can keep it.  

The end is close 70-90% left: Repeat your running mantra, visualize the finnish and get mentaly read for the last and fastest run. This is the toughest part of the race (well maybe not, for me the first part - signing up and getting prepared is the hardest)

The last 10%: Just run! Run as fast as humanly possible. The end is so close that it is only to run as fast aspossible to finnish the race!

Diet before a race

If you belivie Carb loading before competitions and races is a most, than you are wrong. When training before a race your body will start to prepare and you will train your body in the ability to store glycogen.

Training to run a race - Two weeks before the race

Increase the amount of training and practice to run faster after each run.
Test run: 4x1,5 kilometers in faster tempo. (running a total of 5 kilometers in a rapid distance).
10 days before the race, you can insert a run longer than the competition round.
The week before the race/run/competition - cut down on running. Do some quick short runs and some slow distance rounds. For example:
4-5 days before the race, you can run a tougher intervals up a hill or mixed 1-2-minute intervals with fairly high speed. 3-5 intervals with long rest. You should exercise at the peak of your capacity, without pressuring you. Rest a day after.


Run a of 4-6 kilometers. It should not be a test, but a way to know that the form is there.
Rest, walk, swim or jog slowly the last 1-2 days before the race, 3-4 kilometers is enough.


Good luck!

Are you also looking for some shoes that will help you run

There are hundreds of reasons to start running. All you need to start running is a pair of good running shoes, shorts and a t-shirt. Almost everyone knows how to run, maybe you don't have the perfect form yet but you know how to run - don't you? So there is no reason really not to start running on a daily basis. Start of running slow and up the tempo and learn to master your own running technique! If you start running you will not only benefit from a better health, but you will probably be less stressed. So running could have good effects as a stress relief. If you are looking for one of the best workouts then running is what you should do. Running makes you stronger, faster and harder. But to get better you need two things 1. Good shoes for running 2. Better cardio and technique

Shoes that help me run faster

running shoes

Finding a good workout tempo and rest period between sets 

 If you workout with several muscle groups at the same time, something you do when you use your own body weight (with or without additional weights), you build a body that gets the whole package. That is strength, stability and coordination, which will help you in everyday life.

Don't soly work out on machines, if so you will only isolate the large muscles groups which makes you not workingout the smaller once and stabilizing your muscles. Instead of machines do classics such as deadlifts, lunges, squats and the plank which are all super excercises. When you feel that you control these excercises than add the weights or test different variants.

Rest periods suck! Catch your breath, let the strength get back and then continue

To catch your breath after a heavy exercise is given, but to take a break that is sufficiently long to you and training mates have time to discuss the world's problems? Not so effectively, alas! - Muscle Growth requires exhaustion and after five minutes, the muscle recovered. After a minute the muscle will be more or less fully rested.

How long you should rest depends among other things on how you set up the pass, and how heavy weights you are driving. But the shorter the rest you have between exercises, the more you burn. Run a circle where you rest 20 seconds between exercises and sets!

It's easy to become self-conscious when you see yourself sweaty. But the advantage to stand before a mirror contemplating actually disadvantage, and that for one reason: You can keep track of your posture and technique. And that is important, not only to get the most out of the exercise, but also to reduce the risk of injury.

Are you asking yourself if it is possible to walk your self in to shape?

YES it is! Walking is of course a very gentle form of exercise where the risk of injury is very low, therefore, you need not be afraid to go too much. It depends on how much time you have? Going morning walks every day before breakfast works just fine, but also walks on the afternoon are effective if your goal is to lose weight. 

Diet for walking yourself in to shape

Regarding the diet, I recommend to eat as clean and natural food as possible and not exclude any food group, but since you are looking for weight loss, I recommend avoiding sugar and most starchy carbohydrates in the form of, for example, pasta, bread, rice and potatoes. Select the preferred carbohydrates in the form of fruits, vegetables, roots and berries. Combine with good unsaturated fats and good saturated fat which, for example, coconut and fill your plate with organic lean protein. So eat until you are moderately satisfied and never go starving!

Workout til you sweat!

WORKING OUT is great - we all know that and even everyday exercises like cleaning and slow walks are great for your body and mind.

But there is a big advantage to run sweaty in your workouts! According to an Australian study conducted at James Cook University. Researchers there studied more than 200 000 people in over six years, and when they compared the people who sweat moderately with those who ran tough workout and uber sweated - no matter how many times a week they fed off - it turned out that the latter group ran 9 -13 percent less likely to die prematurely. SO WORK YOUR ASS OFF!

Yet another reason to lace up your running or weightlifting shoes!