One question I get from runners is: Do I really need to strength train anything other than my legs?
The answer is…
First of all, you want to be an all-around healthy person. Leaving out your upper body is not good for your overall fitness, but for runners, there are plenty of reasons to include your upper body in your strength routine.
Reasons to Strength Train as a Runner
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—running efficiency or running economy. You want to be efficient in your movements and have good running economy. You don’t want to be wasteful of your energy when running, so that all of it can go towards moving you forward at a nice pace. It helps prevent fatigue and improves endurance. Having strong legs, a strong core, and a strong upper body will accomplish this feat! Want to know more about why strength training is good for you as a runner? Check out my page about it here. I explain many reasons strength training, in general, is good for runners. Now, we get into why upper body strength, specifically, is important for you runners.
Strong Core
A strong core is important for stabilizing the body and helping transfer energy towards moving your body forward. Our bodies can be divided into halves, with a left and right side. Those two sides are working together to propel the body forward. Ever felt yourself twisting too much or seen someone else do it? That’s wasted energy. Keeping your arms from crossing the midline of your body helps direct that energy into propelling you forward. It’s all about stability and energy transfer. Keeping everything tall and stacked is important in efficient, healthy running. When you have a weak upper body that causes hunching forward, or tightness in the pecs or lats, your spine is not as protected and not in the best position for easy running. This poor alignment can extend down to your hips or glutes, which causes more dysfunction. On top of that, hunching can restrict your breathing, which is definitely not good for running!
Strong Arms
Arm drive is important in running, too. Again, we come back to stabilization and balance. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, so when one leg is going forward, the opposite arm is moving forward to oppose the rotation and help keep you moving forward. Arm movement helps you produce power and speed, so it stands to reason that a strong upper body and strong arms will help to further your running.
Signs You Need Upper Body Strength
So how do you know if you need work on your upper body? Well, do you ever feel tension in your shoulders, neck, or upper back while running? You need to work on it! What should you work on? Overall upper body and core strength, along with legs, is a good way to ensure a more well-rounded level of fitness. Work those delts (shoulders), lats, traps, extensor muscles, abs, etc.
What to Do
Not sure what exercises to do? Planks, back extensions, overhead presses, chest presses, and rows are good exercises to hit some of the large muscles of your upper body. You can add some accessory exercises, like biceps curls and triceps kickbacks, to do even more work on your body, but as long as you hit the big ones with a good total-body routine, you should be reaping the benefits for stronger runs.
You can find more information about strength training from the page below, and if you would like to get personalized help with your strength routine, give us a shout!