This workout will help ward off injury, increase lower-body power and build strength for running faster and for longer…
Whether your running involves a weekly parkrun or massive mileage, your performance will be greatly improved by taking the time to do complementary strength work.
More strength – not just in your legs, but also your core and upper body – equals greater resilience to injury, and the ability to run stronger, with efficient form, for longer.
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And you don’t need to spend hours in the gym to build strength for running.
Here, the running training experts at Runna have pulled together the following run-boosting circuit to help you reach peak performance.
Build strength for running
Complete each exercise back-to-back for 10 reps, keeping rest to a minimum. Once one round is complete, rest for 60-90 seconds, and repeat twice more for a total of three rounds.
1a. Step-Up Knee Drive
Benefits: Builds hip and leg strength, and helps with muscular imbalances due to it being a single-leg movement.
- Stand facing a box or bench of an appropriate height with your feet together. This will be your starting position.
- Begin the movement by stepping up, putting your left foot on the top of the bench.
- Extend through the hip and knee of your front leg to stand up onto the box.
- As you stand on the box with your left leg, flex your right knee and hip, bringing your knee as high as you can.
- Reverse this motion to step down off the box, then repeat the sequence on the opposite leg.
1b. Single-Leg Squat
Benefits: Builds strength in both the gluteus medius and glutues maximus at the same time, to help you become a more powerful runner.
- Stand on one leg, with your foot pointing straight ahead and the knee of the other leg slightly bent.
- You can have your arms extended for balance or kept at your sides.
- Retract your shoulder blades and keep your back straight.
- Keep your weight centred over the ball of your foot, your upper body upright, and your head facing forward.
- Raise the non-supporting foot from the floor slightly.
- Lower to a squat position, keeping the knee of the supporting leg centred over the ball of the foot.
- Start with shallow squats and work your way closer to the ground.
1c. Bulgarian Split Squat
Benefits: The Bulgarian split squat is also an excellent way to strengthen your gluteus medius. That’s important for runners, because the gluteus medius plays a critical role in preventing the inward collapse of your knee, a function that goes a long way toward keeping your ankles, knees and hips healthy.
- Find yourself a step, bench or any other contraption that you can rest a foot on – it needs to be about knee height.
- Get into a forward lunge position with torso upright, core braced and hips square to your body, with your back foot elevated on the bench. Your leading leg should be half a metre or so in front of the bench.
- Lower until your front thigh is almost horizontal, keeping your knee in line with your foot. Don’t let your front knee travel beyond your toes.
- Drive up through your front heel back to the starting position, again keeping your movements measured.
1d. Side Lunge
Benefits: Lunges help runners control the hips and strengthen the quads, hamstrings, glutes, and core – all muscle groups we rely on to run. They also help identify weaknesses that can lead to running injuries.
- Stand with feet shoulder-width apart, toes pointed forward.
- Step out with your right foot as wide as possible and drop your hips back and down.
- Keep the leg straight, keep both soles of feet on the group and make sure your opposite knee is tracking directly over the toe.
- Engage your groin and leg muscles and push back up to a standing position. Push through your heel.
- Repeat on the other side.
1e. Lunge and Overhead Reach
Benefits: Builds strength in your quadriceps and gluteus muscles, while improving balance, core stability and proprioception.
- Begin with your feet positioned shoulder-width apart and knees slightly bent.
- Inhale as you raise your arms above your head (make the move harder by using a pair dumbbells if you have them).
- Keep the weight directly overhead and centered between your shoulder joints.
- Exhale as you take a comfortable step forward into a deep lunge position.
- Inhale and pause to check your form. Your forward knee should remain over your forward foot and not in front of it.
- Exhale as you forcefully drive your forward heel into the ground. Inhale as you return yourself to the starting position.
1f. Mountain Climber
Benefits: Helps develop power in the lower body, which is why athletes frequently use them as a warm-up to help prepare the neuromuscular system for the intensity to come.
- Start in the top of a press-up position.
- Keeping your shoulders locked, alternate jumping each foot forward so your knee comes towards the elbow of the same side, but your hands stay on the ground.
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