The 5 Most Important Exercises for Runners

Daren DLake: You’ve probably heard this a million times. Runners need to strength train. Cool, but what the does that even mean? What exercises? How often? How do half of them make your brain want to shrivel up and the other half feel absolutely pointless. Here are the best five most effective, no gym strength training exercises for runners, back by science built for real life. In this episode, I’ll be going over the five most bang for your buck strength moves for runners without the need for any gym. Why they work without wasting time in the gym, the hidden science behind injury proofing your legs, how to modify each one depending on your level and why body weight might actually be enough in the beginning, in the beginning, I’ll be joined for all the science back stuff by Sam Sheerman, pro running physiotherpist here in Sydney Australia and founder of 10 weeks to strength running app. I’m Daren D Lake, sub three hour marathon 10-hour Iron Man finisher, run coach and human guinea pig of the last 30 years trying to figure out how to get 1% better each day and tell all the self-coach runners of the world out there how to do it. Let’s get into the episode.

Daren DLake: So let’s go with number one, Bulgarian Split squat and tell me what it is and uh then we’ll get into a couple more things.

Sam 10W2S: So a Bulgarian split squat is a rear foot elevated split squat. I quite like this exercise because it helps us works with a single leg stand, so building single leg strength and we can particularly target the glutes and quadriceps with this one. So it’s almost replicating the demands of running. Um and you can get a lot of load through that front leg without equipment.

Daren DLake: Why do you think it’s so important for for runners especially to do this?

Sam 10W2S: Once again, it replicates the demands of running. We have one leg in extension, which is essentially giving your hip flex a stretch. And the forward leg we want to train in single leg stance again, replicating what we do when we actually run. Thirdly, I do think it’s an excellent way to target some of the key muscle groups. So glutes, quads, and you can make it as hard as you want to make it.

Daren DLake: Yeah, yeah. Uh would you say when you get better, you can start adding resistance, so adding weights.

Sam 10W2S: Absolutely. Dumbbells, barbells, depending on how heavy you want to go. Or if you haven’t got any weights, you can just increase the time um at the depth of the squat. So turn it into a bit of an isometric exercise.

Daren DLake: All right, so how do you do it?

Sam 10W2S: So essentially, I start sitting down on a bench with both feet, knees at 90°. If you extend the forward knee, heel on the ground, and then stand up, it means the forward leg is in the correct position and you can take the back leg onto the back of a bench or a chair. From this position, you lower down into the squat. Now, ideally, we want to have that front knee around 90°. It gives a bit of space at the knee joint. However, you can make it more quad dominant if you bring that front leg further towards you, or you can make it more glute dominant by bringing the front leg further away.

Daren DLake: Wow, it sounds like a uh a super um versatile.

Sam 10W2S: Yeah, there’s a lot you can do with it hence why I love it for runners.

Daren DLake: So what are some ways that people can do this wrong?

Sam 10W2S: It’s usually when the foot is too close to the bench because usually when I’m demonstrating this exercise to patients, they likely haven’t done it before. So it’s quite an awkward uncomfortable position if your front foot is too close to the bench. You want to be starting out with that, you know, 90 degree angle at the knee. I don’t think of any other areas I tend to see. Oh, it could be do with the upper body too. Like sometimes people are leaning way too forward or looking at the ground. You want to have your chest up, you know, nice and tall, slight angle at the hips, and looking forward as always, trusting yourself, not, you know, worrying that what your supporting leg is doing, it is going to sway around a little bit particularly if you’re not used to the exercise, um but put trust in your body, it will get better.

Daren DLake: Not sure how to fit this into your actual training. I made a free base training and habit building plan that shows you exactly when and how to use these workouts. It’s simple, structured, and if you want to get mentally strong too, you will automatically sign up for our weekly newsletter that takes you five minutes or less each week to read right in your email inbox. Check the QR code right here, the link below or link in your show notes of your podcast players app if you’re listening. Back to the episode.

Daren DLake: All right, uh the second one, single leg deadlift. So what is it exactly?

Sam 10W2S: So if you can picture a traditional deadlift where you get that hip hinge and slight bend through the knee as you um go into the depth of the movement. This is performing the exercise on one leg. For this reason, it helps to improve our single leg and our hip stability using muscle groups that wouldn’t be worked in a traditional deadlift. It also helps with some stability too. There’s a lot of movement happening around the knee and the hip and if you can control those muscle groups, it’s mean you mean you can better control yourself when you’re actually running.

Daren DLake: Why should you do this? What’s the what’s the like core benefits?

Sam 10W2S: I would say to do it as part of stability exercise. So a lot of runners um lack a bit of strength in their glutes and there’s more of the glutes than just the max medius and minimus. You’ve got your deep hip external rotators too. So they’re the one little ones that help keep the ball in the ball and socket, which is your hip joint. You can also do it for posterior chain strength. so a lot of hamstring work in this one. and hamstrings are important for um the push off at the end of your stance phase in running.

Daren DLake: Can you explain uh just a bit of definition, what is the posterior chain?

Sam 10W2S: So posterior chain is all the muscles that run along the back of the body. So this helps targets the core, but particularly the, you know, erector spinal muscles, you know, your glute muscles, so glute max, hamstrings are posterior chain and also your carbs are posterior chain too. So anything that runs along your back.

Daren DLake: But let’s get back to how to actually do this.

Sam 10W2S: Okay, so with a single leg deadlift, you want to take one leg back. From this from this position, you start to hinge through the hips. And as you hinge through the hips, the body comes forward and you bend just slightly at the knee. You want to come so far forward that your face is almost horizontal to the ground. You also want to ensure there’s no rotation through the pelvis. So the cue I give patients in the clinic is you can picture the two bony parts in front of your pelvis. Imagine there’s flashlights on them and they’re pointing directly down to the ground. You then hinge back up into the standing position to finish the first rep.

Daren DLake: Sounds easy.

Sam 10W2S: Yeah, it’s harder than it looks.

Daren DLake: Yeah, you make it sound so easy. Inverse, how do people do this wrong?

Sam 10W2S: Um, so a common one is they start flexing through their lumbar spine. So you want your lumbar spine, your back to be nice and straight, the movement comes from the hips. I often find that they perform the movement well until they get close to the ground and they try and reach that one a little bit further and then that’s where they get their flexion. Flexion isn’t a bad thing, but once again, we want to be doing this in a neutral posture. So we’re, you know, loading up the structures in the same way each time we do the exercise. Uh additionally, we do see a lot of rotation through the hips. So as the hips go down, you go down towards the I guess facing the ground. The contralateral so the the hip on the other side of the leg that’s working will start to rotate upwards and that is not going to load um I guess in the plane we’d like it to. They’re the two main things I see wrong with this exercise.

Daren DLake: Number three, bent knee calf raise. Tell me what it is.

Sam 10W2S: Okay, so these are important for runners too. If you if you picture a traditional car fraraise, the only change we do here is that we bend the standing knee. So, essentially, we put one foot on a step, bend your knee. In this position, you then lift your heel up by moving the ankle only. So, the knee needs to stay in the same degree of flexion throughout the entire movement. As you lower down, you allow the heel to drop below the depth of the step, and then coming back up to recommence the next repetition.

Daren DLake: All right, why is it important?

Sam 10W2S: This one’s super important for runners because it’s targeting ourus, which is our endurance calf muscle. So theus can take on up onto six to eight times our body weight when running and it needs to be able to do this over a prolonged period of time. So it’s uh one of the key calf muscles we want to ensure that we can have an efficient stride and um reduce injury through the Achilles tendon too.

Daren DLake: So, how do you do it?

Sam 10W2S: So with a bent knee car phrase, you stand on the end of a step, you bend your knee. Now, the knee needs to stay in the same degree of flexion throughout the entire movement. From this position, you lift up your heel by flexing the ankle forwards. We call this plan flexion. And then we lower the ankle back down below the height of the step. As we come up, that is the second repetition starting. But once again, that need needs to stay the same throughout the entire movement. A common mistake I see is as people lift up, they lift their knee up as well to facilitate the movement where it all just needs to come from the ankle.

Daren DLake: What would be like a workout for a bent knee calf race?

Sam 10W2S: I think starting off with a 3×12 rep range um for your bent knee car phrase is a good idea. I like to break things into fours. You could do 3×4. I mean sorry, 3×12, then down to 4×10 for another four weeks, and then you can go to perhaps 5×8 for another four weeks. So essentially you’re reducing the rep range, you’re increasing the load, um and that’s going to help, you know, I guess build strength in the tendon and the and the muscle itself over that time frame. If you haven’t got any equipment at home, you can always, you know, I tell some patients put a a bag, get a bag, put some books in there and make it nice and heavy.

Daren DLake: Number four, pushups. What what what is a pushup? I know everyone knows what a push-up is, but you know what? Let’s just define it anyway.

Sam 10W2S: A push up is when you’re in a plank position, a high plank, you lower your body down to the ground through flexing your elbows, holding there and then pressing back up. It’s an excellent core exercise. So people tend to forget about the core um you know, throughout the push-up, they see it as a traditional chest exercise. And when we do a push-up for runners, I prefer to have the um elbows facing backwards towards your feet as opposed to uh out to the side. It’s going to help um at least set more tricep action which is more important for runners because it could sort of replicates the arm swing that we go through.

Daren DLake: All right, why is it important? Why why should runners do it?

Sam 10W2S: Well, runners need to work on upper body strength. It helps with posture, it helps with your arm swing, and even can help with breathing mechanics. So, this is a great one because we are covering, you know, a lot of key muscle groups. Um, so it’s a good, again, if you’re time poor, push-ups are a great one to add in. And you can make them harder, too. It’s again, without any equipment, you can start from your knees, you can go full length, you can even go a um, put your feet on a chair, hands on the ground, lots of ways you can do a push-up.

Daren DLake: How do you do the push-up? It’s I know a lot of people, but this is how do you do it the right way?

Sam 10W2S: Yeah, so you put your hands underneath your shoulders. You’re starting in a high plank position. Again, we want our elbows facing backwards. You lower yourself down to the grow ground. If you want to make it harder, you stay in that position where you’re just hovering above the ground just for a little bit longer and then you press up. So another common mistake I see with push-ups and people fly through them so quickly and we don’t want to go too fast through these exercises because that’s what we do with running. That’s where we’re stressing our tendons. Tendons best respond to slower heavy slow resistance works. You want to make sure the time’s nice and controlled as you go through the push-up.

Daren DLake: Yeah, I was going to say how do people do them wrong? and uh I think uh would would you say engaging not engaging the core and just like Yes.

Sam 10W2S: That’s another one. So when you start to notice their lumbar spine dip down, that’s another incorrect uh technique.

Daren DLake: side plank with leg raise. What is it?

Sam 10W2S: So, I love this exercise. It’s a good again, bang for your buck exercise. We’re working lots of muscle groups. Essentially, I want patients to get in a plank position, a side plank position. So that’s where your elbow is underneath your shoulder, which is in line with your hip, which is in line with your knee. Now, I get patients to bend the bottom knee and runners and lift the hips up while the top leg is still nice and long. So this is the side plank position, but the bottom leg is bent. From here, on the top leg, we turn the toe down and then slowly raise the leg up. Now you don’t need to go that high, perhaps in line with your hip or even slightly higher. In this position, both glute medius are working, so both your hip stabilizers as well as your core muscles, so obliques as well as some of your shoulder stabilizers. It’s really hard, you know, 10 to 12 reps is enough for most people. If you do it with good form and again, once again, the slow tempo is is key here. Turning that top toe down just more glute medius which is what we want.

Daren DLake: How do people do it poorly?

Sam 10W2S: A common one I see is where their hips are too far back when they when they go to lift up into the plank. So on a kind of funny angle from their shoulder to their hip then back to the knee. Second common mistake is doing the exercise too quickly. Third common mistake is not turning the top toe down.

Daren DLake: All right, and workout example?

Sam 10W2S: So workout with this one because you’re working both glute mediaus in this plank position, as you abduct or raise that top leg up, your bottom glute is stabilizing, the top one is moving. So they’re both getting fatigued in the first set. So I usually say 10 to 12 reps and then you need to rest at least 30 seconds before changing sides to perform the 10 to 12 reps on the other side. And I would say two sets of 10 to 12 each per side, but ensuring you’re resting from side A to side B. Does it make sense?

Daren DLake: Oh, it makes a lot of sense. And to be honest, that whole toe turn down thing, you did that with me when we were filming in the park. Oh my god. Yes. And I was like I literally like it it felt like I was frozen. I was like I can’t do this. Like this is how you were like yeah, this is my. Yes. Yeah, runners are always trying to feel your glutes this one you can wear you can really feel your glutes. And if you can’t, that’s where you’re not doing the exercise right.

Daren DLake: Not sure how to fit all the strength training into your training week and your training plan and your life. Don’t worry, I made a free base training and a habit building plan that shows you exactly when and how to use these workouts around all your training and your life stuff. And it’s simple, structured. If you want to get mentally strong with your two, you’ll automatically sign up for that weekly newsletter. Again, it takes 5 minutes or less to read it. drops right in your email newsletter. So now you know the five key exercises, but knowing them isn’t the same as knowing why to use them, how to actually use them, what is the point of using them, etc. So that’s why I did a whole full episode with Sam Sheerman breaking down everything you need to know about strength training for runners. It’s a toolkit. So you put it, you take out the tools whenever you need it. Why it’s so hard, the history and so much more. Click right here or link below in the description or in your show notes of your podcast player’s app. Peace.