how do you balance weightlifting and running?

adammeynell86

Right, a couple of things to consider and ways to approach this, treat your running as though it was a strength training exercise in the sense of volume, intensity and frequency, you wouldn't through hill sprints which are a high intensity exercise next to a high volume hypertrophy workout since your legs would be crucified, however a lower volume workout, higher weight lower reps and maybe even lower sets if needed would allow you to see muscular adaptation to strength training whilst sparing some glycogen supply for a run, as long as this run wasn't at a sufficiently high tempo to tax the nervous system. You would see both strength and aerobic adaptation in this case. (The rule of progressive overload being King!) The other big thing is nutrition, I would certainly suggest doing two workouts a day, with more rest days than working seven a week, on days when your training twice, remember to refuel properly and meet your requirements, your post workout nutrition is already the prep for your second workout of the day. Finally you could always look at using your strength training as a metabolic workout, circuiting exercises wth minimal rest breaks, this would give some strength benefit (not as much as programmed timed sets and reps) but also be an effective cross training workout for your running, i can get my heart rate up in the same territory as my "fast run" with a pair kettle bells. Hope one or more of these approaches helps.

rybo

It's all about only doing what's essential and maximizing recovery.

Google "Hybrid training" by Alex Viada. Granted the gains will be a little slower, but you can improve both simultaneously.

Dreamcrusher16

The best advice I received was to do as much cardio as you needed for your specific goals. So if you're going to run a marathon, train for a marathon. If you play a sport, train for that sport. Other than that, find a progressive lifting program at you like and get in the gym.

AigreDoux

I do both lifting and running, and have for about a year now.
I would say at this point, though, my primary focus is lifting, at least for the moment.

I do 4 days of lifting and 3 days of running. I do one of the compound lifts each day of lifting (bench, squat, deadlift, OHP) plus accessories. I run 3 days a week. I combine my bench day with a 2 mile run. I then do a 4 mile run and a long run on the weekend of 5-8 miles.

At the level I am now I feel like I have a pretty good base of cardiovascular fitness so I just want to maintain my running, but I do want to get stronger and gain muscle/lose fat (recomp). I would never say, though, that the running doesn't affect lifting or lifting doesn't affect running. Probably if I had focused on one or the other I could have made quicker progress, but I am interested in general health and not so much competition, so it doesn't matter to me.