Without knowing any better, you would think that running and strength training are too completely different things and there’s no way they could benefit each other. You’re right, they’re two completely different things but they most definitely can support each other in ways that not a lot of people know or talk about. However, you have to understand that if you’re trying to be the strongest man in the world, you can’t rely on running to get you there. Obviously, you will need to spend hours upon hours grinding in the gym, lifting a bunch of heavy weights, take your recovery and nutrition to the next level and commit to it for the long run (pun intended). Running can definitely benefit your strength session for reasons we’re about to get into, just understand that strength training will always be your main priority.
The importance of oxygen
If you’re into strength training you will know how important the use of air/oxygen is. You use it to brace your core (keep your midline tight), you use to give you muscles energy and you use it to recover between reps and sets. You don’t have to know a lot about fitness in order to realize that being able to get more oxygen into your body is a good thing, right? Well, what is a better way to increase your lung and oxygen capacity than long distance/low heart rate running?
Your body uses so much oxygen during strength training that your ability to get more is highly beneficial. Your muscles need oxygen in order to provide you with energy, espeically during longer sets/ training sessions. More oxygen will make sure that your muscles never fight over that supply in your body. This will make sure your muscles have more energy, it will keep your from cramping up and your body’s ability to recover between sets will go up significantly.
Dealing with and clearing lactic acid
You might have heard the term before even if you have never touched a weight in your life, but you don’t know what it feels like when your muscles are full lactic acid until you truly experience it. That feeling when your muscles don’t want to move even though your brain is telling you to keep on going. That feeling of a cement like consistency creeping into your muscles until it keeps your muscles from fully contracting. Sounds exciting doesn’t it? It can creep up to you out of nowhere with the lightest weights imaginable, it doesn’t matter how light it feels, when it’s gone it’s gone. Now, if you do have experience with some intense lifting sessions you know that depending on how many reps/sets you’re doing that lactic acid can get in the way of reaching a certain amount of reps. Well, what could be better than training your body so it’s able to deal with and clear lactic acid better/faster? Dealing and clearing lactic acid are two different things, but both are important, especially when doing multiple working sets. Dealing with lactic acid takes place while you’re still lifting the weight, while clearing lactic acid takes place after/between sets.
So how does running help me deal with and clear lactic acid? For this question we have to shift our attention to interval style running rather than long distances, because that’s what interval style running is good for. Have you ever run so fast that your legs started feeling like there was lead in there? Well, that was actually lactic acid building up inside your legs. You might have experienced it while running to catch the bus because you didn’t warm up properly, warming up will definitely help your muscles deal with lactic acid better.Just like everything else, if you do something more, your body will adapt and get better at it. It’s the exact same thing when dealing with lactic acid, if you build up lactic acid and give your body time to remove it from your muscles, your ability to remove it will grow. If you run intervals that allow lactic acid to creep up while extending the work time each session over weeks and months, your ability to deal with lactic acid will improve.
Just because your body gets better at dealing and clearing lactic acid while running doesn’t mean it just disappears when lifting weights. As you read before, lactic acid keeps you from doing more reps while aiming for a certain of reps, being able to do more reps equals improvement in the gym. Which means, if your ability to deal with lactic acid gets better your results in the gym will improve as well.
Hopefully you realize that running won’t make you lift super heavy weights all of a sudden, but there’s definitely a benefit that comes from running intervals or longer distances at a low heart rate. If you’re trying to get stronger, keep lifting those heavy weights first, focus on nutrition and recovery, then focus on the ”extra” stuff.
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