Guide
How do you combine running and lifting in one week?
Keep both in your week, because lifting makes runners more economical and does not lower your VO2 max. What costs you is timing, so keep heavy legs off the day before a hard run.
Lifting makes you a more economical runner
Lifting makes runners more economical and does not reduce VO2 max or blood lactate. This is why you keep lifting through a race block instead of dropping it.
Blagrove et al. 2018. Sports Med. Strength training and middle and long-distance running performance, systematic review. DOI 10.1007/s40279-017-0835-7
Berryman et al. 2018. Int J Sports Physiol Perform. Strength training for middle and long-distance performance.
Arms and back do not slow your legs
Interference is body-part specific, not systemic. Training your arms and back does not slow your legs.
Wilson et al. 2012. J Strength Cond Res. Concurrent training meta-analysis. PMID 22002517
Coffey & Hawley 2017. J Physiol. The molecular basis of concurrent training. PMC5407958
What to do
- Put upper-body lifting on or next to your hard run days.
- Keep heavy leg work away from the day before intervals.
- Space your hard sessions by six to 24 hours, so both adaptations are protected.
- If two or more of your endurance sessions this week came without a lift, lift next.
An example week
This week passes the next-day rules the app runs (legs before a hard run, long run before legs, two hard days in a row), with no day moved. The key runs are the intervals and the long run.
| Day | Lifting | Run or ride | Distance to the key run |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | Upper body, 60 min | None | The day before the intervals. Upper body is not legs, so nothing moves. |
| Tuesday | None | Intervals, 50 min | No heavy legs the day before, so the intervals stay intervals. |
| Wednesday | None | Easy ride, 60 min | The day after the intervals. Two hard days never sit next to each other. |
| Thursday | Heavy legs, 60 min | None | Two days after the intervals and two days before the long run. |
| Friday | None | Easy run, 45 min | The day after legs, and easy. |
| Saturday | None | Long run, 100 min | Two days after heavy legs. |
| Sunday | Rest | Rest | The day after the long run. Heavy legs would be swapped for upper body. |
- If your long run is Sunday, put heavy legs on Wednesday or Thursday, not on Monday.
- If your tempo run is Friday and your long run Saturday, the long run turns into an easy run. Move the tempo run to Thursday or earlier.
What Loadcast does with this
In the app, the matching rule reads like this.
Upper body is sore. Shifting to lower body or easy run. Upper-body micro-damage doesn't limit lower-body or aerobic capacity. Training continues without conflict. Legs or easy aerobic today. Upper body recovers in the background.
Two or more endurance days without a lift. Strength balances the week. Concurrent training needs a weekly strength stimulus to protect power and tissue resilience. One lift puts the week back in balance.
Your leg day is still in your legs, so no hard intervals today. After heavy squats the running stride stays sluggish into the next day, so intervals lose quality. Easier run today. The hard one comes back with fresh legs.
Your long run is still in your legs, so no heavy leg work today. A long run tires the legs into the next day. Heavy leg work on top slows both strength and recovery. Upper body or easy today. Legs get their strength day once they have recovered.
Every rule with its mechanism is on How Loadcast decides, the studies are on The research behind our content.
Check your own week
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