Be Like Tarzan! (Probably More George of the Jungle In My Case)
People who’ve read Born to Run take away a lot of things from that book: humans are meant to run long distances, minimalist/barefoot running is good, it’s rad to run 20 miles in the morning and then go run 20 miles in the evening (crazy), etc. I don’t know how many folks honed in on that quote above, but that’s what I took from the book. Run, but don’t JUST run. Be adaptive. Find new ways to challenge your body. It’s the core idea for CrossFit, incidentally.
Endurance is one part of health and fitness. Strength is another. There are other aspects - explosiveness and mobility, for instance - but for the last couple years, I’ve been concentrating a lot on combining endurance training with strength training.
More and more you’re seeing runners encouraged to incorporate strength training. You’re also seeing power lifters encouraged to do some endurance. A few years ago, that was unheard of. Both groups have come to the realization that hey, maybe those lifters/runners are onto something. This is all to the good, I think.
Most of these folks are really just dipping their toes into the waters of “that other scary world." Runners are doing workouts in Runners World (they’re pretty weak, but they’re something) while lifters are calling a couple 20 minute runs a week “good enough." That’s cool if your primary goal is to be a runner or your primary goal is to be a lifter. My primary goal, though, is to be good at both.
Two caveats about that:
Being good at both means never being the best at either. I’m not going to win marathons or ultras if I spend a bunch of time in the weight room. Strength training can help with 5 or 10Ks, but beyond that, more miles is the only thing that’s going to put me in the upper strata of racers. Conversely, a bunch of running is not going to make me a competitive power lifter. Running has its benefits in the gym, but it won’t make my muscles strong enough to squat or dead lift 500 lbs.
- This shit is hard. I’m putting my body through a lot of strain pushing different systems. I feel like I’m just now starting to understand how to pull it all together. Too much lifting volume and too much running volume together will lead to burnout and trashed muscles, but I suspect everyone finds their own tolerance levels.
Posture and form: This has been a huge win! The proper form for both squats and dead lifts requires a flat back, a tight core and a high chest. What does that sound like? Good running form! Holding onto that form under a couple hundred pounds of weight has made it easier for me to hold that form 20 miles into a race. Additionally, it’s improved my overall posture and glute engagement – most people’s glutes are completely disengaged from sitting so much! It's good to have an ass!
Injury prevention: This one gets cited a lot as a reason for runners to lift, and my own experience bears that out. I haven’t experienced any injuries in the last two years. Ankle rolls are a thing of the past and my knees don’t bother me. I used to get horrible hip pain, but that’s also gone. That’s not to say I won’t get the occasional niggling knee pain, and I do get DOMS, especially in my adductors, but nothing that lasts. Lifting makes your muscles and joints stronger and your bones denser, and that really helps to weather the wear and tear of distance running. Also, if you’re doing serious lifting, that probably means fewer miles on the roads/trails, so overuse injuries are harder to come by.
Uphill running: I leave a lot of other runners in the dust on uphills. All that lower body strength training gives me a pretty significant advantage over runners who don’t train those muscles (or run hills frequently). Glutes and hamstrings are key to taking up hills quickly, but upper body strength can also play a role here. I’ve found that a bigger arm swing up the hills lets me engage more upper body to provide additional momentum, something that’s especially helpful on short, steep inclines.
- Work capacity: My lifting coach tells me all the time that I have a great “engine." That came from all the distance running under my belt. I don’t get fatigued when I lift – other than specific muscle fatigue – and I don’t usually even sit still during my rest periods. I’ve even been chastised for “pacing" when I’m supposed to be resting. My resting heart rate is around 45 BPM, and even when we elevate it during a lifting session, it comes back down pretty quickly. The bursts of intensity during weight lifting are nothing compared to running on a trail for six hours, and all that distance running has made my heart very efficient at pumping blood to my body.
- Mental toughness: Similar to work capacity, mental toughness is something you learn running long distances. Your mind wants to shut you down and you learn to push through it. That’s really valuable when weight lifting (or doing any sort of HIIT work, for that matter) as it makes you a lot more willing to tackle a particularly tough movement (like a 300 pound squat or a set of 50 burpees) and, when it’s feeling doubtful (I hope I can get myself up from this 300 pound squat!) you buckle up and get it done (or hit muscle failure). Nothing you do in an hour at the gym is going to be as mentally tough as running 26 miles or 50K or 50 miles or whatever. My lifting coach has always appreciated that I’m willing to at least try anything he puts in front of me… And a big part of my willingness to do that is because I know whatever it is, the pain will be comparatively short lived.
I’m sure there’s more, and searching Le Goog will turn up quite a few articles about the benefits of combining various degrees of strength training and weight lifting. It’s demanding physically and mentally to do both. Even though different systems are at play, calories are still burning. Food and nutrition is essential. Without enough calories, muscles start pulling and long runs turn into bonk fests. Believe me, I’ve been through all that.
A lot of the experimentation has been intensity (low reps & high weights for lifting and short, fast runs) vs volume (high reps & low weights for lifting and long, slow runs). Common wisdom is that runners should do a lot of reps at low weight. Screw that! When I did that, my strength went down and so did my speed! I don’t need to go do more cardio at the gym. Better to work on a few good reps at increasing weight levels while running volume is high! Higher intensity weight lifting doesn’t produce as much DOMS in me as the high volume lifting, and I don’t want to be plagued with DOMS when I’m going to run 20 miles tomorrow!
So yeah, this is just my own experience with trying to juggle these two sports that I love. It’s not science and I’m not a trainer, but it seems I’ve finally figured this out for my own goals. I get the same rush at the end of a run or a lifting session, and really, that in itself makes it all worth it.
That and asking that dude who won the marathon how many pull ups he can do…. Do you even do pull ups, bro? :)
