Hi everyone! I am Heather from Fit ‘n’ Cookies, and I couldn’t be happier to guest post for Alyssa today! I write about a lot of things; currently a lot of posts are wedding related, but I blog about life, recipes, and workouts! I know Alyssa is having quite a busy week traveling between jobs, so this is the least I could do! I have been following her blog for a while now, and love her posts! I’m so excited for her to run her first marathon in a few weeks!
Today I wanted to take over her blog and talk about two of my favorite things: running and strength training. As runners, a lot of time we only want to run, but we need to do both to be successful.
1. Your core will power you through your runs. You may not know it, but runners use their core throughout the entire run because it effects our posture.
2. Strong Back. Your back muscles not only help your posture, but they will help you with endurance on your runs! We all want to run longer without dying, right?!
3. Prevents injury. By strength training, you are training all your muscles, and increasing your range of motion, too. This will help keep them in top shape, and keep them strong as you pound the pavement!
4. It will correct imbalances from running. When you run, you are only using your legs, and putting all of your weight on one leg at a time. When you strength train, you train all the parts of your body, and increases all of your muscle strength.
5. It burns mega calories. When your body gets use to running, it doesn’t have to work as hard to complete the runs (totally different story when you are pushing yourself to the max with marathon training!). By strength training, and adding muscle all over your body, you will be burning even more calories! You don’t just burn them during the workout, but the muscle you build will help you burn calories even after the workout is complete.
If you don’t lift weights now, I really hope you reconsider and do it to stay injury free! My favorite workouts include both running and strength training within them. Here are two examples of some favorites of mine!
Make sure to say hi if you stop on over to my blog! Thanks Alyssa for letting me take over!
Great post! I’m trying to incorporate more strength training into my running routine.
I couldn’t agree with everything you said more Heather!
It’s so true that strength training has made me a better runner!! I totally agree with this post!
Great post! I completely agree that strength training is very important for runners!! I’m training for my first full marathon and have quickly realized how important strength training is! I truly believe that extra training has helped me get through my long runs.
I just started strength training in May and I LOVE it. It has definitely helped my running and it’s kind of fun (at least the class I take). I haven’t noticed MAJOR differences in my body shape yet, but my running has definitely benefited!
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