Runners can last longer and go faster by adding weight lifting to their routine.
Going the distance requires a lot of commitment: Early morning miles; weekend long runs; short speed workouts around the track. But one of the most overlooked ways to run stronger is to carve out some time in your training plan for strength training.
There’s no reason runners shouldn’t include strength training into their routines, and plenty of reasons that they should: Strength training boosted long-distance running economy by two to four percent in a 2017 systematic review published in the journal Sports Medicine, and helped athletes increase their time to exhaustion when running at max speeds by 21 percent, according to another study published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise.
Plus, strength training prevents injuries by strengthening muscles and connective tissues. In fact, it could reduce the risk of overuse injury by up to 50 percent, according to a meta-analysis published in