Strength & Conditioning: What Does That Even Mean?
I’ll be honest here: I’ve never really got strength & conditioning.
It’s not that I don’t believe that S&C won’t improve my running or reduce my risk of injury. I actually mean, I didn’t really understand what ‘strength’ & ‘conditioning’ meant.
Confused? Yeah. Don’t blame you. So let’s start with a couple of helpful definitions, shall we?
Richard Blagrove’s book ‘Strength & Conditioning for Endurance Runners’ defines ‘strength’ and ‘conditioning’ like this:
“Strength training involves improving your muscles’ ability to produce force. The training exercises used to develop strength should bear some similarity to the running action… Exercises should involve… ‘triple extension’, which means your ankles, knees and hips should all extend simultaneously..”
“Any exercises that don’t improve force-related qualities are termed ‘conditioning’ activities. These tend to be movements that have little similarity to the running technique but… improve posture, technique or resilience to injury.”
Bit clearer now? In a nutshell, strength enables you to produce more force; for example, when lifting a heavy weight. Conditioning makes you a better runner without increasing the amount of force you can produce; for example, due to improved technique.
Now let’s drill down a bit further…
What sort of strength work should runners do?
Runners need to generate a high amount of force in a short period of time, so the focus should be on rapidly developing force.
This is more important than focusing on the maximum amount of weight you can lift.
Simply put, this means you are typically looking at building up to quickly lifting a heavy weight a small number of times.
The aim here is to improve your brain’s ability to coordinate the necessary muscles (posh name: neuromuscular coordination), rather than building big muscles (posh name: hypertrophy), which running inhibits in any case.
Admittedly for aging runners, like me, there’s a separate need to try to build bigger muscles BUT that’s a conversation for another day.
As a runner, you want to look at ‘triple extension’ exercises that target the glutes and hamstrings. Exercises that target these muscle groups include squats (on two legs) and lunges (on one).
And although it’s important that such exercises are specific to the running movement pattern in general; remember: they don’t have to look like running.
As an example, running is a single-legged activity (posh name: unilateral) as runners only have one leg on the ground at a time. However, double-legged exercises (posh name: bilateral) allow you to activate more muscle fibres as you have a greater base of support.
What I mean by this is: you can lift a heavier weight (eg: develop more force) if you’re not balancing on one leg.
So what about conditioning?
The secret of success as a runner is consistent training. Yet up to half of runners are injured annually, with the vast majority of those injuries being a result of overuse.
The key areas of risk for runners are the trunk, hips, knees, and foot and ankle. Naturally, these should be your key focus areas for conditioning.
Conditioning exercises build up the ability of a muscle, or connective tissue, to withstand the repeated stress caused by running.
Taking the opposite approach to strength work, this is typically achieved by high volume, low intensity exercises (typically bodyweight) .
As a running coach, what do you do?
Honest answer is: the best I can. Like many, in my heart I’d rather go for a run that do S&C.
Time spent doing S&C feels a bit like saving for a pension, you know you have to but you don’t really want to. Ps: hats off to Rebecca Brennan of Guildford & Godalming AC for an analogy that manages to link my old and new careers.
My eternal challenge is in finding S&C that I enjoy, or that someone forces me to do, and/or is easy to do. Usually I find a running event that is sufficiently scary (like the Bob Graham), that it forces me to focus on doing everything I can to succeed. Including S&C.
So here’s what I do - some more frequently than others:
a circuits class at BARCH Richmond
an online adapted CrossFit session with friends on a Wednesday morning, an activity that started during COVID
strength training & plyometrics with Ed Stembridge of The Performance Works
an online conditioning programme; Soar Today’s Ready 2 Run
The first two are not specifically running focused, but both have plenty of exercises that will benefit my running. For strength training, as it requires weights and knowledge of how to use them safely and effectively, I do them with the support of a PT like Ed.
Finally, I’m on Week 8 of Soar’s Ready 2 Run which gives me a series of personalised exercises, based on four simple at-home tests I did before. It’s a great one to do while you’re watching TV - I’m currently watching Gangs of London, which a reviewer optimistically claimed was the new ‘The Wire’. It’s not.
In fact I was so impressed by what they’re doing (Soar, not Gangs of London) that I’m now working with them.
Oh, I also do David & Megan Roche’s Three-Minute Mountain Legs which is a simple but great ‘minimal dose’ strength routine you can do anywhere. Although be warned, you will HURT the first time you do it.
So what should I do?
It’s so easy to tie yourself in knots about strength and conditioning.
So don’t let perfection be the enemy of good (take your pick from Voltaire, Montesquieu, Aristotle or Shakespeare for the provenance of this). Doing something that isn’t running will in all likelihood be a good thing.
The options are endless. But the best thing to do is to find something that works for you, and that you’ll stick with.
Translating that advice into the S&C (musical) top 3, I’d go with:
Make it Easy on Yourself : The Walker Brothers (tho’ I prefer Scott’s solo records)
Mel Made Me Do It : Stormzy
Enjoy Yourself : The Specials
Ps: S&C isn’t always good for you. See the picture accompanying this blog? I dropped that blue 20kg weight plate on my foot… And that definitely didn’t improve my running.