Cross Training Training : Top Reasons Why Runners Need Weight Training

If you are a runner and have been working hard to increase your mile pace or simply boost your short sprint speed, strength training could be all that you need. Strength training has been a go-to program for athletes in endurance sports such as rowing, cycling, swimming, and skiing. There are lots of benefits attached to strength training such as fat loss which in the end prove beneficial for your running career.

There is a possibility you have been in a CrossFit training program, and you have not as yet realized the benefits that others are speaking about. Well, it is one thing to do strength training in CrossFit and totally another to do the right kind of CrossFit training. Protocol matters and you need to get it right. Among the reasons you should embrace strength training in your running career include:

Enhanced Speed

Research proves it that strength training can make you faster. It doesn’t matter whether you run short distance races or you were a long-distance runner, one of the things you will experience when you start strength training is that your pace will pick up gradually. Strength training improves leg strength and your body’s efficiency to utilize oxygen and energy.

The main goal of endurance training is to enhance the ability of your body to properly utilize oxygen. This utilization is measured by the maximal oxygen uptake also known as VO2 max. If you can decrease the oxygen your body takes in at certain speeds, you will be able to maintain a fast pace for a much longer period.

A Better Final Kick

Strength training helps you generate more force every time you kick off the ground. When this is combined with efficient usage of energy and a better running economy, your final kick will be amazing. Strength training achieves this by increasing the proportion of your type IIA muscle fibers which fatigue much slowly and have the capacity to produce a burst of speed and power.

Decreased Body Fat

Through strength training programs, your body will lose fat and become lean. Body fat slows your metabolic rate and produces some substances that increasingly make you fatter such as adipokines and aromatase. On the other hand, muscle and lean tissue enhance metabolism and this, in turn, makes you a better runner. Experience and elite runners will tell you that CrossFit workouts which mainly consist of high-intensity CrossFit training are the go-to for fat loss.

A Better Body Composition

Research has proven that if you properly program through strength training, you can get in shape and gain muscles. The major concern among competitive endurance athletes is that strength training may make them gain body mass which is detrimental to optimal performance. However, to counter this argument is the fact that strength training enables your body to gain muscle mass, but in the legs which make you a much faster runner.

To add to the above, strength training is one of the CrossFit exercise routines that will most certainly go a long way in helping you to get rid of chronic pain and nagging injuries. It will also assist you in correcting structural imbalances which have largely been classified as precursors to injuries.