How counter productive are Running and Weight lifting? (Read 2779 times)

I had a personal trainer tell me a couple of years ago not to lift heavy weights with my legs because I'd alter the balance of fast/slow twitch muscles that I have through running.  Who knows if it's true, but other than toning exercises with light weights (lunges and stuff), I don't need any additional muscle mass there.  

Firstly, let's make a distinction between lifting weights and strength training.

Weight lifting is, in my view, exercises that involve using an external object to add resistance to a given movement.

Strength training is an exercise where the goal is to develop or maintain a level of strength or power.

In other words, Weight Lifting is a sub-set of Strength Training, but not all Strength Training is necessarily Weight Lifting.

I don't lift weights, and I never really did much of it.  I personally find it boring and tedious.  Now, I have done other types of exercises to develop strength, power, and endurance, such as push-ups, sit-ups, hill repeats, intervals, etc.  At present, I don't do much of them anymore, because my goals have shifted, as has my daily schedule and routine, but I used to, and any of the running-based strengthening exercises did indeed improve my running.  I don't think the push-ups or sit-ups were as vital, but they were done for other reasons.

As previously mentioned, the impact of running and weight lifting, or any combination of activities, comes down to your goals for each of them.  In the case of running and weight lifting, consistent, frequent time spent training, coupled with allowing for adequate recovery time to recover between sessions, is the key to success.  If your goal is to try and find your ultimate potential as either a runner or a weight lifter, and you still have a full-time job, family, and other obligations, then chances are one or your training activities is going to have to suffer by default.  Time spent on a different training activity is time taken away from either recovery or the primary activity.   In other words, an activity is counter-productive when it has a demonstrable negative effect on your ability to get to your stated goals.

If you are primarily interested in enjoying yourself, and going out and racing just to see how you're doing, then I say doing what you are currently doing is fantastic. 

Should you lift weights on the same days you run or on your off days ? Assuming weight training includes upper and lower body.

weight lifting becomes essential after a male turns 25-27 ( I don't know about women) when muscle mass starts to decline.  You have to do something to keep it around or you become a tottering old man when you are 60.  The rate of loss increases as you get older...

 

so by maintaining strength, you can keep running because the muscles help hold everything together...

 

This is just my conclusion on readings over the years and is not based on any scientific research or studies, I am not a medical doctor nor do I play one on tv...

It is called Sarcopenia. It is inevitable to lose muscle and thus strength as we age. Muscle is active tissue so you also lose the ability to burn more calories daily. Regular full body training hugely offsets this "aging" condition. By age 60 this process perks up even more. At age 46 and being an avid weight lifter, I feel I have lost minimal muscle over the years but I can tell I have loss a bit but strength is still up. I focus more now on functional lifting doing a lot more stuff on my feet to activate core which can only help with running and injury prevention not only in running but everyday life when we lift, twist etc.  I do throw in some bodybuilding stuff still because is in my blood and spend a lot of time at the beach

Note: Regular running is not strength training for the lower body. Regular hill training and sprints does provide these beneftis. A huge proportion of your muscle mass is from your waist on down - more than 50%. There are more metabolic advantages to work this area than focusing the upper body. If a person had to choose one exercise to do - it should be a squat. A big junk of the body is involved in that one exercise. Back in my personal training days, I worked with a lot of peope where the focus was weight loss and improving look of the body.  2/3 of the work I did with my clients was in big movements and in most cases it involved high doses of squats, lunges, burpees, squats with lifts etc. Any exercise that get you sucking air after one set are the best to do no matter what your goals.

The best way to offset/slow sarcopenia is exercise activity and resistance training. Most of us here are active so that is a good thing. Ideally, it is nice to perform progressive resistance exercise - as we get stronger we increase the load (reps and weight). In terms of squats, if your rep range gets too high, you lose the strength/hypertrophy building benefits. If one has never done a squat, the reps won't matter but soon after you will want to add resistance. You can do major damage doing squats which won't do you any favors trying to get your running work outs in. I think progressive resistance up to 20 reps is good. You can do bodyweight. This should be the starting point and really really make sure your form is correct. You need to sit back and keep knees above the toes.

To make them tougher, go very slowly, increase range of motion or do one leg version (my favorite). Jump squats are awesome too! You can also add some dumbbells at the sides or in front of body. Add a press while going up. Grab a Kettlebell and lift this while squating up. Go on Youtube for some variety of squats or lunges. Lunges are excellent also and bodyweight is good on those for a while. They are potent.

I'm working on my form by facing a wall with my toes touching the wall.  Standing against the wall forces me to keep my knees from extending out over my toes. It's surprisingly hard --

That makes a lot of sense and I will have to try that. I have often told others about not extending knees past toes,

but this is the way to correct form. Great post!