Most runners love to run. It’s what drives us to get up and out of bed in the morning, what we talk about with our buddies, and what makes us feel alive.
We’ll grind through downpours, frigid winter mornings, and brutal summer heat, all in the name of getting faster, stronger, and pushing our limits. After each run, we analyze our splits, cadence, and heart rate, always looking for ways to improve.
But here’s the truth: If you’re not strength training, you’re leaving potential on the table.
I see it all the time as a running coach—runners who are willing to push through endless miles but skip the gym because they think lifting weights isn’t necessary for endurance.
Let me tell you: Strength training isn’t optional—it’s your secret weapon as it helps you improve efficiency and power, increase your time to fatigue, and helps you stay injury-free by strengthening muscles, joints, and connective tissues.
Whether you’re a new runner looking to start strength training the right way or a seasoned athlete ready to level up, this complete guide will show you how to build strength, increase resilience, and make running feel stronger than ever.
Build Strength, Run Stronger: The Power of Resistance Training for Runners
Strength training for runners, which can also be referred to as weight training, resistance training, or even weight lifting, involves performing specific exercises with some form of resistance to increase muscular strength, power, or endurance.
The form of resistance used in a strength training workout can include dumbbells, barbells, kettlebells, resistance bands, sandbags, weight machines, or even just your body weight, as long as it puts your working muscles under some sort of load.
Although you certainly need to run to become a better runner, supplementing your road, track, trail, and treadmill miles with strength training confers numerous benefits to your performance and your body and health in general.
Strength training:
#1: Helps Reduce The Risk Of Injury
When you run, your feet land roughly 1,400 to 1,600 times per mile, absorbing a force equal to 2–2.5 times your body weight with each and every step.
Even just multiplying that out for a single run will quickly illustrate the tremendous amount of pounding your body withstands during a given week of running.
One of the key benefits of a strength training program for runners is that it can help prevent overuse injuries by fortifying your body to better tolerate the impact and musculoskeletal demands of running.
Strength training develops the ability of your muscles and connective tissues to handle higher loads, which offsets undue stress on your cartilage, joints, and bones.
Runners can also use unilateral exercises in their strength training workouts to correct muscle imbalances, which are often the culprit of overuse injuries.
#2: Improves Running Economy and Efficiency
Strength training workouts help build stronger neuromuscular connections, so your brain gets better at recruiting the muscle fibers you already have to signal them to contract. This results in stronger, more powerful movements, which can translate to better running economy.1Watson, S. L., Weeks, B. K., Weis, L. J., Harding, A. T., Horan, S. A., & Beck, B. R. (2017). High-Intensity Resistance and Impact Training Improves Bone Mineral Density and Physical Function in Postmenopausal Women with Osteopenia and Osteoporosis: the LIFTMOR Randomized Controlled Trial. Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, 33(2), 211–220. https://doi.org/10.1002/jbmr.3284
As your running economy increases, you can run faster and further before fatiguing.
#3: Can Improve Your Running Form
Strength training can improve your running form, biomechanics, and stride by increasing stability in your core and supporting muscles. As you build strength in your core, for example, you can maintain a more upright posture even in the final miles of a race.
A hunched running posture or tight shoulders at the end a run can compromise your ability to take a full breath and can even potentially lead to side stitches and injuries.
For all you trail runners out there, stronger glutes and hips will relieve work on the hamstrings and will make you a more powerful uphill runner.
#4: Can Increase Overall Running Performance
Studies show that strength training workouts for runners can improve aerobic capacity (VO2 max) and submaximal endurance performance due to the neuromuscular adaptations that result.2Vikmoen, O., Rønnestad, B. R., Ellefsen, S., & Raastad, T. (2017). Heavy strength training improves running and cycling performance following prolonged submaximal work in well-trained female athletes. Physiological Reports, 5(5), e13149. https://doi.org/10.14814/phy2.13149
#5: Increases Bone Density
Having strong bones is vital for healthy longevity in the sport of running. Low bone density is particularly common for post-menopausal women, though it can affect runners of all ages, especially if energy intake is inadequate.
Research shows that strength training increases bone density because bones adapt to the stresses strength workouts place on them by building back stronger.3Watson, S. L., Weeks, B. K., Weis, L. J., Harding, A. T., Horan, S. A., & Beck, B. R. (2017). High-Intensity Resistance and Impact Training Improves Bone Mineral Density and Physical Function in Postmenopausal Women with Osteopenia and Osteoporosis: the LIFTMOR Randomized Controlled Trial. Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, 33(2), 211–220. https://doi.org/10.1002/jbmr.3284
Strength training places the bones under loads, which signals them to lay down more bone matrix and minerals such that the bones get stronger.
Additionally, as your muscles get stronger, they are able to pull more forcefully on the bones when they contract. This stress also signals your body to deposit more minerals and strengthen the structure of your bones.
#6: Can Improve Your Overall Health
Strength training, like all forms of exercise, is great for your general health.
Research has found strength training can reduce blood pressure, improve blood sugar control, and reduce triglycerides and cholesterol.4Westcott, W. L. (2012). Resistance training is medicine: Effects of strength training on health. Current Sports Medicine Reports, 11(4), 209–216. https://doi.org/10.1249/JSR.0b013e31825dabb8
#7: Increases Metabolic Rate
A strength training workout for runners is considered anabolic, which, in a simplified sense, means it builds your body up, whereas a running workout is considered catabolic, which means it breaks your body down.
Strength training increases lean body mass, the primary determinant of your metabolic rate or the number of calories you burn daily.
By putting on more muscle mass, your body cranks through more calories, which helps you burn body fat and optimize your body composition for running.
#8: Can Boost Your Mental Game
Many runners find that strength training is empowering and boosts confidence, focus, and self-esteem. This can help you toe the line of a race with more self-efficacy and resilience.
What Basic Equipment Do You Need For Strength Training Workouts?
You don’t need to have access to a full circuit of weight machines at a gym to get in a good strength workout. In fact, free weights such as dumbbells and resistance bands usually provide more functional benefits to runners than machines do.
While you can certainly strength train in a gym using fancy resistance machines, kettlebells, TRX suspension straps, and medicine balls, it’s also perfectly viable to get in a full body workout in your living room.
All you need are a few dumbbells, resistance bands, and your own body weight.
If you do want to strength train at home, consider getting adjustable dumbbells, as they take up less space and allow you to still have a range of weights to use for different exercises as you get stronger.
What Are The Best Strength Training Exercise for Runners?
Strength training for runners should be geared towards balancing the demands of running. Running is a unilateral exercise, which means that your two legs move independently of one another and support your body one at a time.
Therefore, strength training sessions should focus on unilateral exercises (like lunges, step-ups, and single-leg deadlifts) and those that develop core strength.
However, compound, total-body exercises like squats and deadlifts are also beneficial for strengthening the muscles involved in running.
Although far from an exhaustive list, the following are some of our best strength training exercises for runners:
Best Strength Training Exercises For Runners
- Squats (Bodyweight squats, goblet squats, barbell back squats, front squats, sumo squats, Bulgarian split squats, pistol squats, jump squats, box squats)
- Deadlifts
- Single-Leg Romanian Deadlifts
- Lunges: (Forward lunges, reverse lunges, walking lunges, lateral lunges, curtsy lunges, deficit lunges, jump lunges, weighted lunges)
- Steps Ups
- Hamstring Curls
- Glute Bridges
- Hip Thrusters
- Calf Raises
- Clam Shells/Banded Side Steps
- Push-ups
- Planks
- Rows
- Reverse Fly
- Pull-ups
- Dead Bugs
- Bird Dog
- V-Ups
- Pallof Press
How Often Should Runners Strength Train?
As a certified personal trainer, I encourage my athletes to include 2-3 total-body strength training workouts weekly.
However, some runners prefer shorter and more frequent strength training workouts (3-5) per week, and some can only manage one strength workout weekly.
The key is that some strength training will always trump no strength training, so even if you can’t manage 2 to 3 strength training workouts per week, do what you can.
Moreover, a well-rounded strength training workout for runners doesn’t have to take much more than 20-30 minutes.
When Should Runners Do Strength Training Workouts?
If you need to stack strength training with running, most coaches recommend scheduling your strength workouts on hard workout days rather than easy run days.
This ensures that your recovery runs remain true recovery days, allowing your body to fully rest and rebuild.
Strength training can impact how your legs feel both during and after a run, so pairing it with an already intense workout helps consolidate fatigue without interfering with recovery.
Running is our priority, so, if you can, do your run first—either right before your strength training workout or in the morning on a day you’ll hit the weights in the afternoon or evening.
Following this order ensures you’re not trying to drag your fatigued legs through a run.
7 Tips To Get The Most Out Of Your Workouts
Strength training can feel daunting if you’re new to it, but here are some helpful tips to ensure your workouts go as smoothly as possible:
#1: Work With a Trainer
Most gyms offer a complimentary session with a personal trainer who can show you how to perform basic exercises properly, ensure you use the correct starting position and form, and use various resistance equipment.
#2: Follow a Guided Workout
Consider using a workout app, like Peloton Digital or Open Fit, or stream a free strength workout for runners video on YouTube.
You can also find strength training plans and workouts here on our site.
#3: Focus On Your Form
Proper form is paramount for two reasons: it prevents injuries while doing the exercise and ensures the move is actually effective.
If you find you can’t maintain the correct form for all the reps in a set, swap to a lighter weight or stop the set early.
#4: Momentum Is Not Your Friend
For any strength exercise to be effective, you have to use your muscles. Therefore, don’t swing the weights or use momentum to help you lift a weight; don’t allow gravity to do the work on the way down.
Lift slowly and deliberately through each movement.
#5: Don’t Go Too Light
Some runners use too little resistance and don’t want to use heavy weights because they worry they will bulk up.
Because running is a sport that already increases muscular endurance, strength training for runners should focus on trying to increase muscular strength and power.
In order to do so, you have to use enough resistance to provide a load great enough to stimulate your muscles to get stronger.
A good rule of thumb is to use a weight that you lift with good form for 8-12 repetitions. If you can get to 15 repetitions, it’s time to jump up to a higher weight.
#6: Vary Your Routine
In the same way that it’s better for your body to vary your routes and running pace, varying your strength training workouts by incorporating different exercises and forms of resistance will allow you to get stronger more efficiently.
Include lower body, upper body, and core workouts, and be sure to hit all of your major muscle groups. Similarly, as you get stronger, increase the difficulty of your workouts to keep challenging your body.
#7: Make It Fun
Making strength training fun will encourage you to stick with your routine. Try playing motivating music or lifting weights with your running buddy to give you that extra boost to do your workouts.
When your drive is lacking, just remember that strength training helps ensure you’re able to run stronger, healthier, and more consistently, and who doesn’t love that?
Are you ready to get started on the road to becoming a stronger, faster, and more resilient runner? Here’s a bodyweight workout for you to get started right away!
Brilliant and absolutely simple, easy to understand and informative advice from Marathonhandbook.com. Loved every aspect of the information being explained. Will certainly be of great benefit to every runner. I have seen and experienced the fruits of strength training when I did my Comrades (87km Up Run (in South Africa) from Durban to Pietermaritzburg). At the end of this Run, I felt I could have gone for another 10Kms. I felt good and strong after the run except for a few cramps.
Great stuff Anil, well done on the Comrades…it’s on my bucket list!
Thomas from Marathon Handbook
Thanks for great writing.