By Calvin Morriss
You may be interested to know of the performance improvements for endurance runners that are possible through systematic strength training. Many people believe that strength training methods commonly employed by athletes in the power based athletic events have no bearing on endurance performance. This is simply not true. Listed below are the results and implications of five studies that show how strength training might well be useful to endurance athletes.
Unger and Wooden (Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 14, 373-378, 2000) found that jumping performance improved when the muscles that support the arch of the foot were strength trained. It is conceivable that running performance could also improve as a result of such training.Furthermore, strengthening the arch of the foot might also reduce the injurypotential of the lower limb. Improved strength of the muscles and connective tissues helps maintain the integrity of the body, even given the repetitive loading on the lower extremities that is a pre-requisite of endurance training.
Weyand (Journal of Applied Physiology, 89, 1991-1999, 2000) found that running speed is increased primarily by pushing harder on the ground on each stride. Stride frequency does go up when fast and slow runners are compared, but by not nearly as much as the forces produced on the ground. In yet another study linking strength to running performance,
Dalleau (Eur. J. Appl. Physiol, 77,257-263, 1998) performed a theoretical study on running economy.He predicted that modelling the leg as a stiff spring gave the lowest energycost on each footfall. This finding could imply that athletes with stronger legsare more economical on each stride. In support of this theoretical study, Johnston (Journalof Strength and Conditioning Research, 1, 224-229, 1997) strength trained a number of female endurance runners. A positive impact on running economy was the result of improved leg strength and the athletes subsequently improved their running performance.
Paavolainen (Journal of Applied Physiology, 86, 1527-1533, 1999) also performed a training study with endurance runners. I will provide a little more detail about this study because the findings arevery interesting. Eighteen male 5k runners were separated into two training groups. A control group did their regular circuit and running training butsubstituted 3% of this work with explosive activity over a ten week period. Incontrast, an experimental group replaced 33% of their running and circuit work with a mixture of explosive activities. Explosive training consisted of weight training (performed quickly with light weights) sprint drills and low intensity plyometrics. The experimental group also trained for ten weeks.
The control group maintained their previous VO2max,but aerobic capacity was lowered slightly in the experimental group. However, this difference in aerobic power was outweighed by a number of advantages gained by the experimental group but not by the control group: The experimental group did better in a number of laboratory tests: they were stronger (greater leg press scores), faster (greater flying 20m running speeds), more powerful (better jumping performances) and also had better anaerobic capacity (VMARTtest). More importantly, the end product was an improvement in running economy and, subsequently, an improvement in 5km running times. Taken together, these studies strongly suggest a role for strength training in the middle distance runner's winter program and there may be benefits for those competing at longer distances too. They also support the experiences of our own elite athletes ofthe past, who have many stories about their own strength training feats. Many of today's strength training ideas are not new, but the application of theseideas has gone out of fashion. There is evidence that strength training should return to the preparation programs of endurance athletes, possibly replacing some of the lower intensity miles that are typical of many training programs.
