Heavy lifting and half marathon training

You are going to have to define heavy lifting since that is a generic term.

What is your average intensity percentage of a 1RM for squats, deadlifts, bench or your main lifts?

What is your program and/or volume?

I never was a runner, but have been an athlete my entire life. I have trained about 40 years of lifting weights on top of playing football into my 30s begore retiring and then returning to baseball and playing into my late 40s in a adult baseball league.

I went from zero miles (except during football conditioning, preseason, practices...certainly nothing specific to distance running)) to running two half marathons on back to back days in less than 90 days. So fairly quick at 6'3 235lbs.

Generally speaking without knowing your trading history for running or resistance I would probably go with a 2-3 day lifting program that focused on endurance and has auto regulation built in.

Also follow a runner's training program that is specific to increasing your miles over time. You have more than enough time to get ready for a half if your goal is just to finish.

Literature suggests 12hours rest in between resistance training and cardio for optimal results. So lifting or running in the morning and doing the other at night isn't a bad option if you have to both in the same day(s). Otherwise you can try shuffle the two programs to work on separate days.


Extremely important is to practice good load management of both activities. I can't stress this enough.

The two compliment one another to a degree. But to be elite at either end of the spectrum you would have to all but drop one or the other. They simply cause complety different adaptations in the body than one another and at some point they will certainly interfere with each other. An elite marathon runner who spent an equal amount of time trying to be an elite power lifter would become an above average runner and would probably struggle to even become even an intermediate lifter. The same for an elite power lifter who spent an equal amount of time trying to become an elite power lifter. He would become an above average power lifter but wouldn't even be a competitive club runner. The two are incompatible. If you want to pb in the run you'll have to all but remove the lifting.

I'm training for a marathon and lift 5 days a week. I monitor my heart rate because I've learned some lessons in the 4ish years I've been into running. Using a HR monitor has been a game changer for me. Granted, I'm not elite at either but I don't need to be.
Sunday - cross train, stretching, and a short high intensity (anaerobic) run to max HR. Sometimes hill repeats.
Monday - back day with a tempo run
Tuesday - triceps and bike 45 minutes in aerobic zone
Wednesday - medium distance aerobic run and leg day
Thursday - biceps and bike or elliptical in aerobic
Friday - chest and no cardio
Saturday - long run in aerobic zone
I also do abs every day that I run.

Training for a half and lifting heavy are totally do-able, especially with how long you've got til the half. Just start with short distances. Most suggest adding 10% more distance each week.

recommend checking out Alex Viada (may need to check spelling) - he talks a lot about heavy lifting and running

heybales wrote: »

BrianSharpe wrote: »

A number of years ago I was doing the Stronglifts program while training for a HM and my only observation was that as the runs got longer that squatting 3 x weekly and running 4 x weekly didn;t allow for sufficient recovery time.

If you're lifting program is set up in such a way where you're working different parts of your body on different days this may be less of a problem.

I double this observation.

For shorter runs up to 60 min (because of only having so much time) the day after leg day I could easily make Active Recovery pace runs (kept HR in that range), and that was of course good for recovery too, besides training the fat burning system more.
Hilll sprints or intervals was done after lifting workout so didn't matter on that 1 day when done.

But the longer weekend run meant the Fri leg workout turned into less weight or less reps, or eventually got skipped and lower lifting was 2 x weekly.

Sun recovery, and ready for Mon lifting again. I recall when I didn't back off the Fri lifting, Sun wasn't enough recovery and that impacted Mon's lifting. So I could have either 2 poor lifting workouts and 1 good one, or skip one and have 2 good ones.

Also accepted the fact progress on lifting slowed for legs. I know during various years I moved to higher reps to see if it helped. But too many variables so never really decided on that aspect, I'm also higher rep anyway, so not much of a change.

This sounds a lot like my experiences too. I learned (the hard way), even though I do mostly rowing now, not running, that you keep your recovery days protected from weights. I ran for around 5 years and lifted hard during that time. I did up to half marathons then. I actually do more cardio now than then rowing. If you plan your harder running days on the lifting days, that works out much better. It makes for an awful tough day but then do recovery runs the rest of the week. Fits right in with polarized training concepts.

ca_galt wrote: »

I’m a big guy (6’4” and 220lbs), lift hard 5 times a week and I also run half marathons. The key to success for me was to stop the squats and leg presses and do long runs instead. I’ve recently incorporated hill sprints as well. Squats were burning my legs out to the point that I could barely do a 3k without my legs turning to jelly.

You rarely see marathoners with massive quads and hams 🤪

So true - extra weight, even in the form of extra muscle not needed for the run, is not desired if really going after the personal bests in the races.

I am surprised sometimes though catching up, or on out-and-back course seeing - the guy with massive legs really out there doing well. Always wanted to talk with him afterwards to see his tweaks to training.