Why Every Runner Should Strength Train
Running fitness and running capacity are not identical
Running develops cardiovascular fitness, coordination and sport-specific endurance. But each step still requires the body to absorb and produce force. As pace, hills, distance or weekly volume increase, the demand on muscles and tendons rises.
Strength training builds the force-producing capacity that sits underneath your running. It gives your body more reserve so that the force required for each stride represents a smaller percentage of what you can produce.
Strength training can improve running economy
Running economy describes how much energy you use at a given speed. A 2024 systematic review and meta-analysis found that high-load strength training, plyometric training and combined methods can improve running economy in middle- and long-distance runners. In practical terms, a stronger and more efficient runner may be able to hold the same pace with less relative effort.
What about injury prevention?
Strength training is often promoted as an injury-prevention guarantee. The evidence is more nuanced. Running injuries are influenced by training load, previous injury, recovery, sleep, footwear, terrain and individual anatomy. No single gym program can make a runner injury-proof.
However, stronger muscles and tendons can increase the body's capacity to tolerate load, support better force control and delay fatigue. This makes strength training an important part of a broader strategy that also includes sensible running progression and recovery.
Will lifting make you bulky or slow?
For most recreational runners, two well-designed strength sessions per week will not create excessive bulk. Significant muscle gain requires substantial training volume, nutrition and time. The more realistic outcome is improved strength, stiffness regulation, force production and durability.
What should runners train?
A runner's program should reflect their needs, but useful foundations often include squats or split squats, hinges, calf and soleus work, hamstring exercises, step-ups, hip strength, trunk training and eventually jumping or hopping when appropriate. Training should progress beyond endlessly light bands and high repetitions. The body needs a meaningful stimulus to become stronger.
The takeaway
Running should remain the centre of a runner's program, but strength training helps build the body that supports it. The goal is not to become a weightlifter. It is to become a runner with more capacity, control and resilience.
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