Body Weight and Resistance Training Part 2
Welcome back! Part 2 of the body-weight strength training article is going to pick up right where we left off last… But first, a recap of the first article.
Part 1 Recap
Body-weight (BW) training can be used at any point of the training process.
BW training can increase one’s balance and stability, as well as induce a nominal amount of hypertrophy, or muscle gain, without inhibiting running goals.
Hypertrophy program design : 30-60 minutes per session, 2-3 days/week, 3 sets 10 reps of 5 different exercises focusing on the major muscle groups.
Power and Plyometric Body-Weight Training Phases
In my opinion, these are the most fun and rewarding phases of training. Nothing beats the feeling of being able to float up a hill knowing that you have some pop in the legs. These styles of training will help teach your body how to add speed to the muscular force that you developed in the balance and hypertrophy phases.
Power
Here’s a question - Can you get stronger without increasing muscle size and thereby weight? The answer - an astounding YES, and this is where power training comes into play. While runner’s should aim to maintain some amount of functional muscle mass, a drastic increase in muscle size and weight doesn’t serve our running-needs. We already confirmed the benefits of carrying some muscle mass in part 1 of the article, but excess muscle is just weight that needs to be hauled up that next hill. Power training builds off of the hypertrophy phase by teaching the brain to summate and coordinate your muscles’ current level of strength in order to produce a highly refined and fast movement.
The overarching principle with BW power training is that we want to quickly move ourselves with maximum effort, intent, and allow FULL recovery between sets. Why full recovery? Because the intent of this training is to make sure that every rep is a max effort, and max efforts cannot be given if you’re fatigued.
A great way to accomplish this while running is by doing short and punchy hill repeats with a walk or VERY easy jog back to the start. Try this out, do (5-8) 10-second reps up a hill that you won’t get to the top of. We call these repeats instead of intervals because the length of the recovery portion doesn’t matter as long as you start the next repeat recovered with a strong snap.
What do I mean when I say “feeling recovered”? You definitely don’t want to be gasping like a fish out of water. If your breath is under control, your heart is not going to pound out of your chest, and your legs are eager for another, then you have the green light to begin the next repeat. After the repeats are done you should feel alive, strong, and ready to tackle the day; you shouldn’t be clamoring for a bowl of cereal and a nap (I’ve been there, not fun).
Another way to build power into your run is to incorporate squat-jumps, lunge-jumps, ski-jumps, or speedy step-ups. Move fast, with intent, at a maximum effort, and allow FULL recovery between sets. The set and rep structure is going to look a lot different than in the hypertrophy phase.
Power Structure
2-3 exercises : 3-5 sets, 4-6 reps : max effort, full recovery.
Complete these power routines either a few hours after your next workout or as a stand-alone session. Go forth, gain power, and crush hills!
Plyometric
Plyometrics are snappy movements designed to increase a runner’s economy when rebounding off of the ground. Think about it like this, an increase in running economy occurs because of a decrease of wasted energy. This type of training aims to stiffen those springy pieces of connective tissue called tendons and ligaments. The stronger and stiffer our tendons, the more energy they will return as a result of the footstrike, and the further you’ll travel forward during each stride. This is free forward propulsion that our muscles don’t have to generate - or in other words, free speed!
How is this type of training accomplished? Think snappy movements that pop you off the ground, like jumping rope, skipping, A-drills, B-drills, and box/ladder drills. The emphasis of these drills is to spend as little time on the ground as possible while maintaining coordination and control.
Add 5-10 minutes of plyometric drills a few times per week either before or after a run, or during a standalone session to keep some pep in the legs. If you’re new to plyometrics, TAKE IT SLOW. Most muscular damage is experienced hours after a bout of new activity so if you’ve never jumproped before then start with at maximum 5-10 minutes - your calves will thank me later. Add rest when your plyometrics feel sloppy. Good form is key.
Periodization: Fitting the Puzzle Together
This is my favorite topic to talk about by far. For a moment, imagine an artist that is about to make his/her first brushstroke on a blank canvas. Each color on the artist’s palate is absolutely brilliant and vibrant in their own right, but when combined together the artist can craft complex and extraordinary works of art. Or, the artist can haphazardly throw every color on the canvas and hope that what comes about resembles the likes of “Starry Night”; my guess is that the painting will look more like botched tie-dye.
The same principle applies for adding strength to a running routine. A little structure goes a long way.
Here’s my philosophy: place the high risk & least specific work in the base phase of training and move towards the low risk & very specific work closer to race day.
If there’s one takeaway from this 2-part series it’s this order of operations above. I also touched on this in my “Strong Body Strong Stride” article for further reading.
Let’s assume that you, the reader, has had a few weeks to explore the motion that our bodies provide. You no longer feel sore from body squats, pushups, table rows, and feel confident that 10 minutes of jump rope won’t annihilate your calves. This is a great spot to be because now you can take more liberty with structuring your routines for better race-day prep.
If you still need time to explore your body’s ranges of motion and balance capabilities, don’t fret. Any extra full-range movement is beneficial nonetheless - whether structured or not. Keep reading so that when you’re confident in your routine you’ll know how to squeeze some extra performance out of your sessions.
We learned about the phases of balance, stability, hypertrophy, power, and plyometric training. Three of these phases, balance,stability, and plyometric training, can be completed at any point in the year without being too risky. Better yet, they are all highly specific to trail running! Therefore, each strength training session, regardless of phase, should include at least 5 minutes of balance/stability training, and 5 minutes of plyometric training. I like to use balance training on an air-disc or foam pad as my active warmup. I then follow this up with a few minutes of some single-leg hops and I feel ready to go. I find that this structure engages the mind and body while activating the small muscles of the lower legs for subsequent exercise.
Next up: hypertrophy training, the least specific phase to trail running. That is not to say that gaining muscle is not important to trail running, it is just the least directly impactful. Therefore, placing this phase early in the season is optimal. Finishing up a 4 week block of hypertrophy training about 10 weeks before race day is generally optimal.
Following hypertrophy is the power phase. We learned that power involves putting your strength (built in the hypertrophy phase) to speed. This type of training is more directly related to running performance, especially on the uphills, so it should be placed closer to the goal event, but still far enough away as this type of training is fairly risky. I recommend finishing up a 4 week block of power training about 6 weeks from the goal event.
Where do we go from here? We’re 6 weeks out from the goal event and we ran out of phases. Do we just stop our strength routine?
Nope. We transition into this beautiful period called a maintenance phase. With only 8 weeks to go before your “A” event, we now want to put extra energy into your running training. We can find this extra energy by reducing, not eliminating, your strength training. I typically advise reducing the time spent on strength by roughly 25-50%. This will allow your body extra time and energy to enforce your running adaptations.
The exercises in this maintenance period should look like a blend of the individual phases that you just just completed. These sessions shouldn’t be quite as intense as the previous phases but can include an exercise or two to address all of the phases, balance/stability, hypertrophy, power, and plyometric.
After race day, and some adequate rest, we begin again!
Part 2 Takeaways
Balance/stability/plyometric training can be incorporated during any phase
Phase hypertrophy training 16-10 weeks from a goal event
Phase power training 10-6 weeks from a goal event
Power structure : 2-3 exercises : 3-5 sets, 4-6 reps : max effort, full recovery.
Phase maintenance training 6-0 weeks from a goal event
If you liked this article let me know! It’s my passion to guide athletes through their training so they can have fun and perform their best on race day.
Reese Slobodianuk.
B.S. Kinesiology, nutritional minor
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