Five Resistance Training Myths in the Running World
Written on January 1, 2008 at 6:37 pm, by Eric Cressey
To some, resistance training is the Rodney Dangerfield of the running community; it gets no respect. To others, it’s like Tom Cruise; runners think it might be useful, but it just doesn’t make any sense to them. And then, there are those to whom resistance training is like Abraham Lincoln; it’s freed them from being slaves to ineffective programming. As a performance enhancement specialist who has a lot of “Abe” endurance athletes under my tutelage, I’d like to take this opportunity to bring the Rodney and Tom runners in the crowd up to speed. With that in mind, let’s look at the five most prominent myths present in the running community with respect to resistance training
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Category Articles | Tags: Building The Efficient Athlete, Distance Running, Endurance Training, Eric Cressey, Exercises, Injury Prevention, Magnificent Mobility, Perform Better, Rotator Cuff Exercises, Rotator Cuff Rehab, Shoulder Exercises, Shoulder Health, Shoulder Impingement, Shoulder Pain, Shoulder Rehab, Strength and Conditioning, Strength Training, Unstable Surface Training, Weight, Weight Lifting Program, Weight Lifting Routine, Workout Program, Workout Routine
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January 21st, 2009 at 11:36 pm
Love the article. One thing I’m confused about and hope you can clear up. You say that we (ie distance runners) should go the low-rep high-intensity route if we are going to resistance train. However, one of the studies you quote in support of the argument that runners need resistance training is this one: “Scientists at the Research Institute for Olympic Sports at the University of Jyvaskyla in Finland found that replacing 32% of regular endurance training volume with explosive resistance training for nine weeks improved 5km times, running economy, VO2max, maximal 20m speed, and performance on a 5-jump test. With the exception of VO2max, none of these measures improved in the control group that just did endurance training (3). How do you think they felt knowing that a good 1/3 of their entire training volume was largely unnecessary, and would have been better spent on other initiatives?”
Now this study had spectacular results and is a Convincer for me. But… the full paper is available online, and in it they describe the “explosve-strength training” they used. Alongside the sprints and plyos they did this:
“…and leg-press and knee extensor-flexor exercises with low loads but high or maximal movement velocities (30–200 contractions/
training session and 5–20 repetitions/set). The load of the exercises ranged between 0 and 40% of the one-repetition maximum”.
Which is exactly what you say NOT to do. Could you comment, please?
Thanks,
Simon.