Anyways onto the post at hand! In the spirit of my resolution to do more strength training this week (for the sake of my knee but also in the hopes of one day having a smoking hot bod… bahaha just kidding), I put together a “marathon friendly” circuit workout to do on Tuesday morning. Marathon training and strength training require a delicate balance. I don’t want to blow out my legs lifting when I need them for a difficult run, but at the same time I want to make sure I’m keeping key running muscles toned and ready for injury prevention. I also don’t want to neglect my upper body and core, which are totally crucial to good running posture and injury prevention (mostly core for the injury prevention part).
I tend to use my off day and my easy run days for my strength training to allow all my energy / focus to be on running on my SOS days (That’s Hanson Method speak for “Something of Substance” workouts… basically your hard workouts).
I incorporated some basic lower body movements and plyometrics (GREAT for runners), a solid upper body workout, and plenty of focus on the core into this approximately 30 minute strength training workout. I did it “for time” to get my heart rate up and challenge myself. You can totally just do 12 reps each for 3 rounds and not time it.