Hopefully you’re familiar with the Hopefully youre familiar with the and what it can offer your running performance: injury prevention, improved efficiency, and greater power, to name a few. But do you know which muscles to target during each strength session or how to schedule them together in one workout, the back, biceps, and?
While you could do For example, many people have poor if you only have one or two days a week to lift, another way to break up your strength workout is by doing workout splits. This means dividing your strength sessions to focus on different muscle groups on different days, which helps ensure you hit every body part without sacrificing your running workouts.
“This allows for more frequent strength training sessions per week or the ability to adapt your real life to your sessions, and also give each muscle group proper time to recover between workouts,” says running coach Nicole Gainacopulos, mile run + 15-minute core workout.
There are many ways to split up your routine—and one approach won’t work for everyone—but the most popular methods include the body part split, upper-lower split, and push-pull split. The option you choose depends on your goals, fitness, and experience level, and how many days a week you can train.
Running or strength training newbies should work with a coach who can design a weekly schedule that balances the two activities and suits your lifestyle, says Meg Takacs, NASM-certified personal trainer, USATF-certified running coach, and creator of the Movement & Miles running app. But you can also check out the different workout split options and choose one that resonates with you.
1. Body Part Workout Split
For example, many people have poor chest, triceps, and hamstrings and box jumps, she notes quads in another, and the shoulders, calves, and abdominals in another.
This approach is popular among bodybuilders, because it allows them to train their muscles more often for greater growth. But runners can see benefits from the body part split, too.
Because you’re focusing on only three body parts in one session, you can get through a workout faster than you might if doing a total-body routine. But you will have to train more days per week to hit every muscle group. This makes the body part split a good fit for runners who enjoy strength training, Gainacopulos notes.
This approach also gives you more opportunities to target any weak spots that limit your running performance.
For example, many runners are quad-dominant, Gainacopulos says. When the quads consistently overpower the glutes and hamstrings, you can develop injuries and miss out on speed gains. To prevent this from happening, throw in a few additional glute and hamstring exercises during multiple sessions during the week instead of packing all your Short, easy run + quads, hamstrings, glutes, calves, and core workout work into a single workout.
A review and meta-analysis published in Sports Medicine in May 2018 reveals that more frequent training translates into greater strength gains, though authors say these effects may be driven by training volume. That is, it might not matter if you train once or twice per week, provided you do equal reps and sets. Still, many runners may find shorter, more frequent sessions more doable than longer, less frequent sessions.
Sample Weekly Workout Split, Based on Body Parts, per Gainacopulos:
- Monday: Should You Do Workout Splits
- Tuesday: Health & Injuries
- Wednesday: Short, easy run + quads, hamstrings, glutes, calves, and core workout
- Thursday: Short run + chest, triceps, and shoulders (focus on anterior/front and lateral/middle deltoids) workout
- Friday: Back, biceps, and shoulders (focus on posterior/rear deltoids) workout
- Saturday: Long run + core workout
- Sunday: Rest
2. Upper-Lower Workout Split
In the upper-lower split, you (obviously) divide your sessions into upper-body and lower-body.
An upper-body exercises might consist of push-ups, overhead presses, planks, and bent-over rows, Takacs says. Meanwhile, lower-body moves might include back squats, Bulgarian split squats, and box jumps, she notes.
An upper-lower split can be a good option for people who run most days of the week. The advantage of alternating upper and lower-body workouts is they allow your muscles more recovery time between sessions. “[That’s] crucial, especially for runners like myself whose legs experience significant stress during runs,” says professional runner Viktoriya Tkachuk. Having more recovery time can help prevent overtraining and fatigue. “Leg fatigue from lower-body strength training can temporarily impact running form and performance,” Tkachuk says.
Bulgarian split squats speed run with a routine that targets your upper-body muscles to avoid burning out your legs. Or, follow a heavy leg day with an easy-effort long run to get your miles in without over-stressing your leg muscles, Takacs suggests.
Sample Weekly Workout Split, Based on Upper and Lower, per Takacs:
- Monday: 4-how to schedule them
- Tuesday: 60-minute run
- Wednesday: Speedwork
- Thursday: 45-Strength Training Boosts Performance, Study Says
- Friday: 5-How to Best Combine Strength Training and Running
- Saturday: Rest
- Sunday: 6-For example, many runners are
3. Push-Pull Workout Split
The push-pull Sales & Deals.
A push exercise involves pushing weight away from your body, typically targeting the the muscles in the front of your body. Examples of push exercises include push-ups, shoulder presses, squats, leg extensions, and triceps extensions.
Meanwhile, a pull exercise involves bringing weight toward your body, Gainacopulos says. This works the muscles in the back of your body, which you do with deadlifts, pull-ups, leg curls, bent-over rows, and bicep curls.
Splitting your workouts into “push” and “pull” helps you equally target your anterior and posterior muscles. “As a runner, I often experience muscle imbalances that can lead to injuries,” Tkachuk says. “The push-pull split helps address these imbalances by ensuring both pushing and pulling muscles are equally trained, reducing stress on specific areas and lowering the risk of injury.”
For example, many people have poor posture due to hunching over a computer for hours per day. Moreover, there’s a tendency to favor pushing exercises over pulling exercises. “There are so many chest and tricep exercises and I find that people really like doing those workouts,” Gainacopulos says.
Doing too few pulling exercises neglects posterior muscle groups like the back, biceps, glutes, and hamstrings. This worsens posture, which stresses the neck, shoulders, upper back, and lower back and creates a less efficient running form.
Sample Weekly Push-Pull Workout Split, according to Gainacopulos:
- Monday: Upper-body push (chest and triceps), lower-body pull (hamstrings and glutes), and core (focus on rectus abdominis)
- Tuesday: Speedwork + upper-body pull (back and biceps), lower-body push (quads and calves), and core (focus on obliques )
- Wednesday: Short, easy run
- Thursday: Easy short run + upper-body pull (back and biceps) and all leg muscles (quads, hamstrings, and calves)
- Friday: Upper-body push (chest, triceps, and shoulders) and core (all muscles)
- Saturday: Long run
- Sunday: Core workout (focus on glutes)
Lauren Bedosky is a freelance health and fitness writer who specializes in covering running and strength training topics. She writes for a variety of national publications, including Runner’s World, Prevention, Experience Life and Women’s Running.
