Should endurance athletes strength train?
Two common questions in the endurance community are “Should I bother strength training?” and “Can’t I just run/ride more?”. The answers to them are “Yes, definitely” and “No, that won’t do it”. Most endurance athletes I know would rather spend more time outside running or riding than being stuck in a gym. But let me try to convince you that a little bit of investment of time with the weights can go a long way to improving your performance.
Strength training is important for endurance athletes for a couple of reasons. The first one is obvious: it makes you stronger. When you run and cycle, every muscle contraction requires energy and if your muscles are stronger you will use less energy for each step or turn of the pedals. Additional muscular endurance will also help when you need that extra punch of speed or power, whether that’s climbing a nasty hill or competing for a podium spot in a sprint finish. Overall, more strength will make you go faster. There’s a reason sprinters in all sports tend to be heavily muscled. However, too much extra mass is a detriment for endurance athletes since we have to move all that weight down the road or trail. But if you structure your strength program correctly, you can gain strength without putting on a large amount of mass.
So why can’t you just run or ride more? Unfortunately, there’s only so much strength you can gain from just running and cycling because there’s a limit to how much load on your muscles you can introduce (cyclists can do a bit more than runners because of the gears on a bike). Eventually you will hit a plateau and will need to add some weights or other body weight exercises. A weight lifting program for endurance athletes should not look the same as a bodybuilding program. An endurance athlete program should feature whole body movement exercises rather than isolating individual muscles. We’re looking to gain strength, not mass. It also helps if it mimics some of the movements that we use, whether in running or biking. It’s even better if those movements are done one limb at a time. Bonus points if you can also destabilize yourself to recruit more muscles to the move. As an example, rather than simple deadlifts, do a one-legged version. Doing it on a bosu ball = bonus points.
The second reason is less obvious, but arguably more important. Most endurance sports involve mainly moving in a single direction, forward. That means we will contract our muscles millions of times in almost exactly the same way. So what happens to the muscles that we don’t use as much? That’s right, they get weaker. Over time that can have all kinds of nasty side effects. An imbalance in the muscles you’re able to recruit can often lead to injuries. For example, cyclists tend to have very strong quadriceps (front of the leg) and gluteus maximus (butt) muscles. They spend hours bent over and never completely stretch out their legs. That makes their hip flexors (front of the hip) and hamstrings (back of the leg) tight and weak. Sometimes those muscles shut off completely and end up coming along for the ride without adding to the pedal stroke. What a waste of power potential. Or worse, you all of a sudden have to recruit those muscles because someone swerves in front of you and they strain or tear. Likewise, runners often have weak adductors (inside of the thigh) and gluteus medius muscles (outside of the hip) because running happens mostly in the forward plane. Runners with weak hips can often be seen rolling their hips as they run. That motion is also a recipe for injury that can show up in the knees, hips, or even lower back. It also wastes a lot of energy that could be used to run faster.
So there you have it. Endurance athletes should also strength train to maximize their potential and avoid injury. You don’t have to turn into a body builder or join the huge dudes grunting in the gym. Even just strength training once a week has been shown to maintain and improve strength. All you need are a few dumbbells, some space, and a well structured program.
