160. Should Runners Lift Heavy Weights?

My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Sports Nutritionist, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.

Hey there, and welcome to episode 160 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today should runners lift heavy weights? So, there’s a bit of a debate out there in the running community around whether or not runners should be lifting heavy weights.

Some people think no, runners should never lift heavy weights. And they give a bunch of valid sounding reasons why others think that runners should always lift heavy, and they have their own logical point of view on the topic. And the two sides both have some good points. Today, I’m hoping to clarify this for you and give you my stance on the subject.

So in this episode, I’m going to definitively answer the question should runners lift heavy weights. And before we get into this topic, I want to give you a quick recap of my personal weight loss journey. I’m sharing this with you today because I want you to understand something I want you to know that I get it that I’ve been there and that I’ve come out the other side.

So a few years ago, I found myself around 40 pounds overweight. Very recently, I was running like a madman and I was trying to burn off all these calories. And it just wasn’t working. I was logging all my food. I was doing these like whatever the latest fad diets. I was running every day, and still nothing was working for me.

My cravings for sugar and junk food were like crazy off the charts. And I was seriously riding the struggle bus. And then I did something that changed all this for me. So I went against everything I’d been taught as runner like you need sugar to run, you need carbs to run. And I finally got off the struggle bus.

I started fueling differently for running, I began lifting weights consistently. And I fixed my mindset so that I could make all of this a sustainable way of life. I ended up losing the 40 pounds, running became way easier. I’m stronger now than I’ve ever been. I have more energy than I know what to do with and my cravings for junk food are basically gone.

So, this is what I do. Now I teach runners like you how to stop struggling with your weight and start living like the healthy, strong, lean, badass runner that you know you can be. Of course, it’s up to you, you can continue to struggle like I did for a long time there. But listen, when you’re ready to be done with all that, I’m here for you.

If you want to learn more about coaching, just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply fill out a quick application, we’ll have a quick chat, see if coaching is a good fit for you. Cool! runningleancoaching.com/apply I hope to see you in the Running Lean Coaching Project.

Okay, so let’s talk about this: should runners lift heavy weights? So, the reason I’m bringing this up today is because I think there’s a little bit of a debate out there. And if you look up, you know, hey, should runners be lifting heavy weights, I think you’re gonna get some mixed opinions about this subject. And especially if you talk to other runners, or you talk to people at the gym, don’t talk to people at the gym about this kind of stuff.

I get it, butI always hear people say oh, I was talking to this guy at the gym and I’m always like, oh boy, here we go. Right. Some expert quote unquote expert at the gym. So why am I talking about this? Well, a lot of runners think that they should never lift heavy weights like they should always do very lightweights lots of reps and others you know have a different opinion they think you should always lift super heavy and so like what are you supposed to do?

Like how do you decide as a runner, what you should do? And it doesn’t matter which you know, side you kind of fall into. I want to help you kind of make this decision clear today. Okay, so the first thing I want you to think about is this. What are your goals? What are your goals?

First of all as a runner: so, are you planning on running your fastest half or full marathon? Are you running your first ultra or your fastest 5k? Maybe you are you’re a miler, maybe you’re running your fastest mile. Maybe you just want to run every day, maybe you just want to run and continue running forever and that just wants you just want running to be part of your life forever. And you want to stay strong for that. Because your goals as a runner will a little bit determine like which way you want to go with this. Okay.

The other thing I want you to consider is what are your overall health and fitness goals? Like, are you trying to lose weight? How much weight; 10 pounds, 50 pounds? Are you trying to get stronger? You should be. Are you trying to build some lean muscle to improve your body composition? Like lose some fat and gain some muscle weight? Or you just want to live longer, like be very, very clear on your personal health and fitness goals.

Okay, because at the end of the day, you get to do this however you want. And I’m going to give you kind of my opinion here today. And I feel very strongly about certain what I think about this in my certain approach. But I just want you to think about what are your goals, okay.

So how you lift, how often you lift, how much weight you lift will largely be affected by your goals. So, think about like what your personal goals are, as we’re talking about weightlifting and talking about how much weight and how many reps you should be doing and stuff like that. Because if you want to build some muscle or maintain the muscle that you have, there’s a little bit of a different approach you want to take to this, okay.

But whatever your goals, whatever your goals, there’s a place for strength training in your workout regimen, or at least there should be. Lifting weights should be something that you do all the time no matter what. So, there’s nothing really inherently bad about weightlifting. But the interesting thing is that most runners are notoriously bad at weightlifting, they just don’t do it or they don’t do it right. They think that they don’t really need to lift weights because they run. This is very, very wrong. And I’m going to tell you why in just a second.

If you want to be a healthy fit runner, if you want to be a healthy fit human being, you need to be doing some sort of resistance activity, you need to be lifting weights, right? Running is just not enough. In fact, running is catabolic. It’s a catabolic activity, it breaks down muscle, long distance running is amazing. I love it so much. It’s like my life, you know, I love running.

And there’s a lot of people who think that running is enough to build muscle like, Oh, I’m just you know, I run a lot. So, I’m good to go there. And I’ve got some bad news for you. Running is what’s considered a catabolic exercise. So, anything that is cardio considered like cardio or aerobic exercises, especially over long, longer durations. These are great activities, cardio, aerobic exercises, these are great for helping you to improve your cardiovascular system, helping to build a healthy heart helping to improve your lung capacity. But they also cause you to lose some body mass both fat, which is good, and muscle, which is bad.

Running effectively breaks down muscle over time, this is very important for you to understand: is that running is a catabolic activity. Over time long distance running will break down muscle tissue. In order to offset this, you need to be doing anabolic exercises regularly. Anabolic is in the state of muscle building that’s building muscle growing muscle getting stronger.

So, what you really want is a good balance of the two to maintain a healthy, strong, fit body to maintain that lean body mass and we’re talking about not just you know, bigger muscles, we want stronger muscles. So too much catabolic exercise without enough anabolic exercise and you lose muscle you lose strength. And this is going to affect running negatively, too.

Okay. So it’s very important that you understand this concept that running is a catabolic activity. It will break you down over time. So you need to be doing something to offset that. So here are some of the here’s the flip side of this right here. Here’s some of the positive benefits of weightlifting of doing regular strength training for runners. Right, so the first thing you have to understand is that when you do regular strength training, regular resistance training, you’ll lose more weight and faster so the more muscle mass you have, the more fat you burn.

Carrying around muscle requires more energy than carrying around fat. So, your metabolism actually increases just by getting slightly larger, stronger muscles. Building muscle also speeds up the whole fat adaptation process, which will help you burn even more fat. And you know, like everything we talked about here, we’re all about fat burning, right?

So, lift weights, get a little bit stronger, build some muscle, and you increase your metabolism, you burn more fat, boom, this is awesome. Building strong muscles also means that you’re at a much lower risk of injury, especially from what we call connective tissue issues. So like, most runners’ muscles adapt pretty quickly.

But your connective tissues like ligaments and tendons take much longer to get strong. That’s why you see most running related injuries are ligament and tendon injuries, not necessarily muscle injuries. So, building strong muscles will also improve and strengthen those connective tissues and prevent running related injuries. So if you want to run injury free, one of the biggest things you can do, one of the best things you can do for yourself is to get stronger.

Also, when you get stronger, your endurance improves. So your ability to run longer distances before fatigue sets in is vastly improved when you’re stronger. So you can become a long distance running machine. But you need, you know, good strong working muscles in order to do that. Also, you get faster, carrying around a little more muscle means that you are stronger and your power to weight ratio improves the stance substantially.

So you get a little bit leaner, you lose some of that fat weight, you gain some muscle weight, and now your power to weight ratio has gone up, and you’re more powerful and lighter, and you’re able to run faster at higher intensities for longer distances, right. So as far as improving your running performance, getting strong is one of the best things you can do for yourself, you’ll get faster, your endurance improves, you get lighter, your power to weight ratio goes up, all those things are amazing.

And then lastly, when you lift weights regularly and you get stronger, you will live longer. Evidence continues to point to the benefits of strength training. And a new meta analysis in the British Journal of Sports Medicine has concluded that people who do strength training regularly are less likely to die prematurely than those who don’t, even when they don’t do any aerobic workouts. So they’ve kind of factored that even if you don’t do any aerobic activity whatsoever, strength training will lead to a longer life.

And of course, doing some aerobic activity, improving your cardiovascular system, helps you to live longer as well. So you want to live longer: strength training. Okay. And so there’s all these amazing benefits to weightlifting for runners, right?

So here’s what I hope for you. I hope that your biggest takeaway from this episode right now is that you have to get into some sort of regular strength training routine, like you just have to get stronger. This is what I want you to take away from this, it doesn’t matter what your goals are, it doesn’t matter, you know, where you fall on the line of whether or not you should be lifting heavy weights or not.

I think the most important thing is that you are doing some sort of regular strength training, it has to be part of your weekly workout plan. Doesn’t matter what you’re training for. Make time for it. It’s that important, okay? Okay, so what happens when you lift weights, so let’s get into kind of the, what’s happening in your body when you lift weights, okay.

So before we talk about how heavy you should lift or how light you should lift, I want to explain what happens when you lift weights like, or at least what you’re trying to make happen in your body, okay? So your muscles will grow as a response to stress. So, you stress out a muscle or a group of muscles, essentially, you overload them. And then because of that overloading, they have an adaptive response.

So they grow more muscle fibers are produced those muscle fibers band together, they get stronger, the muscle grows a little bit and, and they grow. So you have this adaptive response. This is called the overload principle. Overload a muscle and in response, it gets stronger. Do this over and over again and you get bigger, stronger muscles, right? But in order to overload the muscle, you need enough resistance.

So resistance can come in many forms. Resistance could be your own bodyweight: hold a plank for a minute or two. See how long you can hold a plank just with your own bodyweight, or do push ups. Do some pull ups, these are all bodyweight exercises that are pretty hard, you know, you’ll find yourself getting pretty fatigued pretty quickly. With some of these bodyweight exercises, right.

Then we have free weights, we’ve got dumbbells and kettlebells, and barbells. And all kinds of machines at the gym, they’re designed to work certain muscle groups. And then we have resistance bands, things you can attach to a door or two, or you don’t even have to attach to anything, you can just pull on them, step on it, lift it up and create the resistance. That way, you can even use logs or rocks or heavy books or milk jugs filled with sand, it doesn’t really matter, you can literally use just about anything to create resistance, right?

The important thing is that you have to have enough resistance in order to over load the muscle if you want it to have that adaptive response, if you want it to get stronger. So the way you overload the muscle, as you get to muscle failure, you have to get to muscle failure in order to create that adaptive response.

So you can get to failure a couple of different ways you can overload that muscle in a few different ways. But you’ll you know that you’re there, when you can no longer lift that weight, like you cannot do another rep with good form, like you just your form breaks down, you start cheating, so to speak, you know. So for example, you can get to overload by lifting a one pound weight lifted like 100 times I promise you, you know, at some point, you’re going to probably get to overload with 100 with a one pound weight if you if you lift it 100 times or you can lift a 100 pound weight once or whatever amount of weight you can lift one time that will get you to that failure place, right?

So then we say like, okay, which is better? Should you lift 100 times should you do 100 reps? Or should you do one rep, like, what’s the right number? Like should you be lifting heavy? Should you be lifting super light? So, let’s look at what each of these kinds of looks like. Kind of looks like here.

The first one let’s talk about light weights; light weights, lots of reps. So, think about what it looks like and feels like to do a lot of reps with very light weights. So, lots of group workout classes are based on this approach, right? Everybody grabs some light little dumbbells and you’re lifting them and you’re like, you know, doing a ton of reps. And at the end of the workout, you’re like, oh, that was fun, you know, and you’re tired and you know, you’re probably, you know, pretty sweaty and things like that.

So you’re doing a ton of reps, you’re using very light weights. But what is this? This is mostly a cardio workout, right? Here, you’re really working out the cardiovascular system, you’re adding a little bit of resistance. But really, you know, it’s a cardio workout, right? And there’s nothing wrong with this, right? But as a runner who does pretty much nothing but cardio everyday when you go out and run, do you really need to be doing another cardio workout? Do you need to be lifting super lightweight a million times and making it some new some other cardio type workout? I don’t believe so.

I don’t believe you want to be doing that. You don’t need to do a bunch more cardio. Remember that you’re already engaged in a catabolic activity. And you need to be doing something to offset that. So more cardio is not going to be the answer. Even though you might be using some weights, it’s probably not enough resistance to make a difference and offset the amount of catabolic activity you’re doing from already. Right.

So the other thing to think about is you’re probably never going to see someone in a workout class like that get to muscle failure, you’re just never going to see somebody get to failure. So that’s, that’s a sign that that’s probably not the most ideal approach. Okay? So if you’re doing some kind of workout and you’re lifting, let’s say 10 pounds for the duration of the workout, and you really never get to failure, there’s no overload happening. There’s no adaptive response happening.

You’re not growing muscle fibers. You’re not getting stronger. What’s the point of all that? Yeah, it’s a good cardio workout. But you don’t probably need to be doing more cardio, okay. It’s good to improve your cardiovascular system, right? It’s good to do that, right, but that should not be your goal from weightlifting. Your goal with weightlifting should be to overload your muscles so you get stronger period.

Okay, so let’s look at now the other side of this, which is lifting heavy weights, right? And you’re probably thinking, I’ve kind of figured out, Patrick, this is probably your preferred approach. And yes, it is. Yes, it is. And I’m going to explain why. So when you lift heavy weights, you will absolutely get to muscle failure. So I want to make this very clear: to failure doesn’t mean it’s hard. Failure isn’t like, oh, man, this is really hard. I can’t believe I, I’m doing these reps, oh, gosh, this is really hard. This must be failure. No failure means you cannot do another rep with proper form. Failure means you’re trying with all your might as hard as you can to lift that weight, and you just cannot move it any longer. It should hurt. It should look ugly, feels terrible. And it’s pretty amazing, all at the same time. Okay.

So failure means you cannot move the weight. Again, you cannot finish that rep. That’s what failure is not oh, it’s hard. It’s like you cannot do it. Okay. And then heavy, lifting a heavy weight heavy is relative for you. It’s just, it’s heavy for you. It’s how strong you are, it’s relative to how strong you are. Heavy means that you can only do around six to twelve eps before you hit failure. Six to twelve reps is a good amount of reps to fatigue the muscle enough to stress the muscle enough to produce that adaptive effect.

You don’t have to aim for a one rep max like bodybuilders do and power lifters do. Although I do like doing this sometimes just to see how strong I’m getting. I’ll do a one rep max on bench press. And what have I been doing like bench press and deadlift? I’d stopped kind of doing the squat one rep max because my knees are a little bit jacked up right now. But I want to get back to that as well. And I’m seeing some progression happening.

So I can see that I’m getting stronger with the one rep but you don’t have to just do a one rep max. That’s not what we’re getting into here. Six to twelve reps is where you want to be. So aim for six to twelve and do a full body workout. And you only need to be doing this twice a week, you don’t have to become a gym rat, you don’t have to spend two to three hours every day in the gym.

And I have this very specific strength program that I teach my runners, my clients, and it’s a full body workout, it’s twice a week should only take you about 20 minutes each time. And it’s enough, it’s plenty. Like it doesn’t have to be super time consuming, okay. But the important thing you have to understand here is that you really want to get to muscle failure. And in my opinion, it’s just much more efficient and better for you to get to failure with fewer reps. So aim for that six to twelve rep range, lift heavy weights, there’s you don’t have to worry about getting too big.

This is one of the biggest fears around lifting heavy weights that I hear from runners is that and you’ll hear people say this all the time. I don’t want to get all big and jacked and like I don’t want to be carrying around tons of extra muscle weight. You know, I don’t want to look like one of these big bodybuilders. Listen, remember I said running is catabolic. Lifting heavy weights is a great way to offset this.

In fact, it is very, very hard to look like a bodybuilder it takes years of very hard work to look like a bodybuilder they lift five, six days a week, they’re in the gym for hours, they eat a ton of extra food, you know and they really limit the amount of cardio that they do in order to gain all these muscles and stuff. Okay, so please do not worry about getting too big. Do not worry about gaining too much muscle or looking like a bodybuilder, it is extremely hard to gain that much muscle.

We want to offset the amount of running that we’re doing with some good strength training, we want to build some muscle we want to get stronger. So lift heavy weights, aim for that six to twelve rep max, get to failure with each exercise. If you really want the best bang for your buck, from resistance training, lift heavy weights, save the cardio workout for all the running that you’re doing.

If you want to become a stronger, faster, more powerful runner, if you want to burn more fat, lose more weight. And if you’re interested in living longer, lift heavy weights. Alright, that’s all I got for you today. Love you all keep on Running Lean, and I’ll talk to you soon.

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