Let’s take two friends, Walter ‘Wacky’ Vetrivel and Revolver ‘Realistic’ Rita, both runners.
‘Wacky’ joins his local running chapter and starts his running saga. After overcoming the initial sluggishness, he slowly builds his endurance level and soon becomes comfortable with the 10 km distance. But according to ‘Wacky’, running is just about distance and pace. Mention strength training and he laughs sarcastically, asking you to ‘Stop Wasting Time’ and instead join him on daily 10 km runs for the next two weeks.
‘Realistic’ Rita takes her steps slow and steady. She doesn’t try to run too much or too hard, initially. After doing her research, she decides on a plan where she runs for three days and strength trains for two days a week. Swing by a boot camp on a Monday morning and you will see Rita with kettlebells in hand, doing squats, swings, lunges and the like. A lot of beginners think that weight lifting to a runner is as useful as a scuba diving suit to a shark. Well, sadly, you are wrong! Strength training through weights is one of the most vital activities you need to run like a pro, without the risk of injuring yourself. Think about it! What will happen if you are driving your car at 100 kmph and the rod connecting the wheels to the body of the car is cracked and loose? The same logic applies to the human body as well.
Without strengthening your body, your muscles and joints, which bear your entire weight, will crack under the stress and your running journey will come to a frustrating and painful end. You will come to realise dreaded terms like ITB strain, stress fracture, muscle tear, etc. Now, we wouldn’t want to face that miserable situation, would we?
Have no fear! Revolver Rita is here! We will follow her footsteps and make sure that you continue to do what you love to do: wake up at 4.30 a.m., lace up your shoes and run.
Before we start, let’s talk about some basics regarding strength training. Here are four simple movements you should include — squat, push, pull and hinge — into various exercises such as rows and dead lifts. There are a number of links available on the web that will teach you these. The great thing about each of these is that you don’t need a gym; you could do these at home or a neighborhood park and there are progressions of each that you can gradually ease into. Include working on your core along with these moves and you have a perfect workout planned. (By core we do not mean doing ab-crunches but planks, hollow holds etc.)
Similarly, if you search the web you will find various short duration (15-30 minutes) high intensity strength workouts that typically involve a combination of the above basic movements. Incorporate the above strength workouts once or twice a week as you train for a race and you will soon reach your personal best!
As for Vetrivel and Rita, Rita ends up beating Vetrivel in the local marathon and despite that (or maybe because of that) Vetrivel falls in love with strength training and as Humphrey Bogart would say in Casablanca — this was the beginning of a beautiful relationship! Now this could be a good story for my next movie!
(Soundarya is an aspiring film-maker who runs with the Chennai Runners and strength trains at The Quad with equal passion. She has volunteered on social media aspects for several Chennai Runners events over the past few years.)
