Marathon Running Strength

In the not so distant past strength training wasn’t exactly at the top of most marathon runners list of priorities. Come to think of it, strength training wasn’t on their list at all. Many runners think that strength training offers few benefits and may even cause problems because of muscle mass gains.

 Most other athletes, including sprinters and mid distance runners have been using strength training to supplement their training for years. Distance runners have been the hold outs. The truth is that all athletes, including marathon runners, can benefit from a properly designed strength-training program. In fact, most runners will never reach their peak level of performance without strength training. There are many benefits of strength training. As a runner, the primary benefits are: injury prevention, increased power, increase speed, increased stride length and improved running economy.

Injury Prevention

Running long distances places repetitive stress on your muscles, ligaments, tendons and joints. Nothing will totally prevent the occurrence of injuries. However, strength training will provide a defense against these overuse injures. Stronger muscles and connective tissues are much more energy resistant than weaker, untrained tissues. When injuries do occur, an improved level of strength will decrease the severity of injuries and decrease the recovery time.

Strength training protects your body from injuries in several ways. The muscles fibers themselves are strengthened which will help prevent muscle pulls and tears. Muscle mass is increased which will help provide support to the joints, which are absorbing much of the impact of running. All of the connective tissues, which include ligaments and tendons, are made stronger. This will help avoid strains, sprains and tendonitis.

Increased Power

In physics, power is defined as “the time rate of doing work”. In terms of running, power is a function of your muscle strength and muscle resiliency or ability of your muscle to store and quickly return that energy. Think of it in terms of a rubber band. A stronger rubber band is able to produce more energy. A rubber band that is highly resilient is able to stretch and bounce back very quickly. Your muscles are very similar. If you have a stronger and more resilient muscle it will produce more energy and release that energy with more efficiency.

During a typical running stride, you have a very small amount of time in which to generate the force necessary to propel you forward. The push off phase of the running stride is the point at which this forward motion is generated. For a sprinter, this happens in about 0.1 seconds. For a marathon runner it is between 0.3 and 0.5 seconds. To increase running speed and economy, it is necessary to maximize the force produced without increasing the time required to produce the force. This is what improving your power will do for you.

What exactly would that mean to you in terms of marathon performance? Lets take a look. A typical competitive marathon runner takes about 180 strides per minute. Over the course of a 3 hour marathon that runner would take 32,400 strides. If this runner could reduce their ground contact time by .1 seconds per stride, they would take almost 5.5 minutes off of their finishing time.

In order to increase the power of your stride, you must increase both general strength and explosive strength. General strength will increase the size of your muscle fibers, providing a base for the explosive strength training and helping prevent injuries. The explosive strength or plyometric training will improve the ability of your muscles to generate its higher level of strength, in a short period of time, which will give you an increase in power.

Increased Speed

Your stride length and your stride rate determine your running speed. If either of these is less than optimal, you will not be running at your best possible pace. To increase your speed you will need to improve one of these or ideally increase both of them.

Stride length is a subject that generates a lot of controversy. You will read and hear conflicting advice on stride length. Some coaches will tell you to maximize your stride length while others tell you a short stride length is more efficient. I have spent many hours videotaping and analyzing the strides of various runners, from beginners to elite class runners. From this analysis, I have found that, without a doubt, you must maximize stride length, while maintaining stride rate, in order to run at your best possible pace. The trick is to maximize stride rate naturally. If you try to unnaturally force a long stride, you will overstride, which will cause a braking action that will slow you down and possibly cause injuries.

A naturally long stride rate comes from a smooth, low to the ground stride with very little up and down motion, strong forward knee drive and a powerful push off, in addition to several other stride elements. General and explosive strength training is the key to developing these form elements.

Running Economy

One of the most reliable predictors of running performance is the velocity at which you can run at your VO2 max level. VO2 max is simply the maximum amount of oxygen that your body can process. In the past, VO2 max was the standard measure of potential running performance. Runners with the highest lab measured VO2 max, were expected to have the best performances. We now know that the velocity or speed at which an athlete can sustain while running at their VO2 max levels is a more reliable predictor of performance. The reason for this is that velocity at VO2 max takes running economy into consideration. If two runners with identical VO2 max levels are running together, the one with the most efficient running stride or running economy, will be running faster. That is because the runner with the highest level of running economy will be able to general more speed with the same VO2 max level.

Running economy is improved by maximizing stride length, maintaining stride rate, improving running form and running smoothly and effortlessly. Strength training provides the base for all of these improvements. Nearly all of the runners that I coach tell me that their running feels smoother and they feel that they are running with less effort after a period of general and plyometric strength training.

Marathon Strength Training Program

Top performance in any athletic event requires improvements in several areas of performance. Each area of performance has its own particular methods of training. It is difficult, if not impossible to train all the areas at one time. You already know that as a marathon runner you need to improve your endurance, VO2max, lactate turn point, strength, power, economy and event specific performance. Unfortunately, there is not one workout that will make improvements in all of these areas. That is where something called periodization comes in.

Periodization, in its simplest terms, is the breakdown of your training schedule into periods or “blocks” in which the emphasis is placed on one or two performance areas. Strength is one of the performance areas that must be trained, but your strength training should also be periodized.

Your marathon strength training program has three main areas of emphasis:

• General Strength Training - This builds a base of overall general strength

• Running Specific Strength Training - Specifically builds running motion strength

• Plyometrics - Builds running motion power

Each of those types of training will be emphasized during different phases of your 24 week training program. During your initial weeks most emphasis will be placed on the general strength training. The general strength training will build your overall strength and fitness as well as provide a good base to support the subsequent running specific strength training and plyometrics.

After an initial period of base strength training your program will start to include some running specific strength training. This type of training is designed to specifically target your running motions. This phase will begin to build your running strength and improve your running economy. If you are a beginning or recreational runner your program will include only general strength training and running specific strength training, not the more advanced plyometric training.

During the final stage, competitive and elite level runners will begin to do plyometric training. Plyometrics are high intensity exercises in which a stretch of your muscle is quickly followed by an explosive contraction. These exercises will build your power, increase your speed, improve your running economy and lengthen your stride.

There is some controversy concerning the best time to do strength training. Some believe that it should be done before running so your muscles are fresh. Others think it should be done after running so your muscles are stronger during your run. I belong to the latter group. As a marathon runner your primary workout is always running. You should always give priority to your running workout. So, if you are doing your strength training during the same workout session as a run, do your run first. Ideally I would like to see some recovery time between your run and your strength training. For example, if you do your run in the morning, do your strength training in the afternoon. If that isn’t possible, do your strength training after your run.

Below are the strength training routines followed in this program. A description of the various workouts follows this section.

Continue to General Marathon Strength Exercises 

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