For guys who run at least 3 days per week, how do you program lower body training without grinding your joints into dust and over training your legs?
^^when I was still in the military we ran quite a bit along with a lot of swimming for command PT’s… I would basically lift with my regular routine in the afternoons and kind of pretend the morning PT’s didnt happen.
Your legs get used to the running after a while and then its not a big deal. Thats my experience/opinion.
Given the state of my knees, I’d have to answer “badly.”
I do my lifting in the mornings, running in the evenings of the same day. Then at least a full day off. It’s not ideal, but I’m assuming you run because you have to, not because you want to. At least doing it this way keeps the running from hurting your lifting much.
[quote]devildog_jim wrote:
Given the state of my knees, I’d have to answer “badly.”
I do my lifting in the mornings, running in the evenings of the same day. Then at least a full day off. It’s not ideal, but I’m assuming you run because you have to, not because you want to. At least doing it this way keeps the running from hurting your lifting much.[/quote]
You’re right. Part of the reason why I run 3 times a week is to keep up and ready for PT tests. The problem is I only have time to train after work and don’t have the option of training twice per day.
animal mother
as a former runner, my advice is TRY to run on trails or grass . this softer surface, though a bit uneven, helps develope the smaller foot ankel and leg muscles, and saves your legs a bit from the hard blacktop, and even worse concrete. thats one way to help take the stress off your legs.
whatever you’ll be doing the most of in PT is what you should be working on.
dont overtrain your legs. you want the snap in them to run hard when you have to run hard. too much leg training will probably result in a poor run time for your PT test.
take a cold shower on your legs as soon as you finish your run… this takes the inflimation down, really helping recovery. the trainers religiously do this to race horses.
best of luck
Iâ??m getting ready for a ½ marathon so running 3 days a week, sometimes 4 for decent distances. Iâ??m doing strength training 2x a week on non-run days. All I am doing is pulling something (usually myself) push something and something for legs. I switched from barbell back squats to doing front squats while holding a pair of kettlebells just under my chin.
On my other strength day Iâ??m doing lunges holding KBâ??s at my side. It isnâ??t the ideal lifting situation but I am dealing with it for 2 months. If you have access to a pool I recommend swimming a few laps after a long run. Not sure what exactly it is but if I swim maybe a ¼ mile after a long run my legs feel great. Also if your joints are still hurting don’t do any leg work for a week or 2 and do hill sprints. Hill sprints aren’t bad on the joints (at least for me) and can help you keep some decent size and strength in your legs.
Depends on what kind of running you are doing. If you are doing steady state running, for 20-60 mins, you will only need to cut back on your leg volume in your workouts a tiny bit. You can raise the volume back up once your legs get used to it (and they will).
If you are doing sprints somewhere in your running, you will also need to cut down on your volume even more, especially on the squats and deads. A good way to focus on sprinting/running + lifting legs is to combine leg workouts with upper body stuff, and focus only on one movement. So more frequent legs, but less volume in a given workout. See what hungry4more does in Bro’hood of Iron. He is a Marine and runs often, yet has huge legs.
It soley depends on what your goals are… BB, figure, athletics, strength… Elaborate a bit and maybe we can be a bit more help…
there are other ways to get the same conditioning benefits and leave your legs a bit more fresh.
Ive alternated between powerlifting and fight training, currently i lift alot less and run a ton more. However, when i was lifting alot i kept my conditioning pretty good by high resistance bike work AFTER lifting. This helped alot of my aerobic work improve, and relieved DOMS. Other days I did hill sprints. You can make progress in both.
I remember reading a post on here from a marine who squatted 500 lbs and then went and immediatley ran an 18 min 5k. Ross Enemiat is another example of a dude who shows that both are clearly achievable.
I second the cold showers, I always take them after running/ sparring/ well anything. It really helps recovery. Start SLOW, and build up.
[quote]LITTLEme wrote:
It soley depends on what your goals are… BB, figure, athletics, strength… Elaborate a bit and maybe we can be a bit more help…[/quote]
From the above, I’d say at least some of his goals include 20 deadhang pullups, 100 crunches in 2 min, and an 18 min 3 mile. Just a guess.