If success means finishing the marathon, just lift weights like a crazy person. Build up some mental fortitude, then run without stopping for 26.2 miles when necessary.
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Re: the question about going to failure to make it intense - that’s somewhat of a mistaken impression of how things work.
The other side of that coin is that going to failure is very stressful and requires more recovery, which is likely detrimental to the quality of your next endurance training session.
There’s a reason I recommended a low-volume minimalist deadlift program as the best way to maintain strength for someone who needs serious energy for endurance activities. It’s kind of a “minimal effective dose” way of thinking. The goal of training shouldn’t be to make you tired. It should be to make you better.
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I’ll defer to everyone else but I just want to add one point:
If you keep getting injured running, make sure you can walk for a long time without getting injured first.
Most people i’ve seen on forums who want to get more serious with running, don’t do any walking, especially in preparation. For example, if you want to be able to run a marathon, at least be able to go out walking for ~3 hours without feeling beat up for several days following. Be able to hold a decent pace for the entire duration, without your legs dying half way through. Legs dying doesn’t mean you can’t walk anymore, it just means your pace dies substantially. One may actually need to build up to ~3 hours of walking though: can you handle 1 hour? ok 2 hours? ok 3 hours? I mention 3 hours because you specifically mentioned marathons. If walking for 3 hours is difficult, running for 3+ hours is going to be significantly more risky. I believe anyone can finish a marathon on sheer guts, though they probably won’t complete it in an impressive time. But completing marathons like that means you’re at a much greater risk of injury - tissue (muscle/tendon/fasciae), bone, etc.
I personally find it interesting that hardly anyone talks about walking. We’ve seen on forums people talk about under developed glutes because we use toilets instead of squatting, but you rarely ever see people talk about walking as a preparation for anything that requires prolonged pace & postural control.
The old adage “crawl before you walk”, in regards to running could quite possibly be “walk before you run”. It’s almost as if us humans need to learn how to “walk” for a long time, since we rarely do it.
Long duration walking can be especially brutal on your erector spinae, quads, glutes, hamstrings, inspiratory muscles, shins / peroneals, calves, intrinsics of the feet, feet themselves (blisters on toes) etc. It’s a great way to find & address weak links before you actually stress those weak links in a running event of equal time & obviously greater intensity. It also provides a significant cardiovascular effect.
Regarding my personal experience with walking, when i’m in good shape I can walk for 2-4 hours no problem. I feel beat at the end of 3-4 hour walks, but the next day I feel fine (usually) and I can run if I want etc. When coming off a period of detraining, a ~2 hour walk will leave me sore for days. So these are just some good “markers” IMHO, on whether or not you have an appropriate base level of fitness at the lowest level. It’s also a great tool for recovery etc.
As for myself personally, i’ve had far more success with lower volume + high intensity running routines than routines that incorporate alot of long slow distance.
Regarding lifting + running, i’d personally just wing it with lifting, but constrain myself to low total volume + high frequency. If you wanted to rep out squats, go for it, work up to a top set, done. If you wanted to hit 5’s, go for it. Just picking a core set of exercises (not too much variety) and hitting a push/pull/lower as often as you feel you can, in short sessions of 15-45 minutes. Core exercises for me would be pullup variations, dip variations, standing OHP, squat variations, deadlift variations, rdl, calf raises, DB/BB rows, maybe some grippers (CoC etc), and some prehab/assistance. Initially you may only be able to hit push/pull/lower 3x/week, but eventually you’d probably be fine hitting it 5-6x/wk if you really wanted too. When I was into dunking, i’d jump pretty much every day and do push/pull/lower sessions several times per day in my back yard (sessions between 15-30 minutes), felt great, literally bionic. But it took me a long time to build that kind of work capacity. Short, high frequency sessions are great for building strength without creating too much CNS/muscular fatigue. IMHO, what you don’t want is to try and run on “dead legs”, especially early on. This is probably what hurts most people. This is where you get all kinds of weird compensatory motor patterns which end up wrecking something. My motto now is, why run on dead legs when you can more safely walk on dead legs?
2cents.
peace!
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@ActivitiesGuy - I thought that there was a spectrum. Low volume/high intensity on one side. High volume/low intensity on the other. Seeing as I don’t have time for lots of gym work I chose low volume/high intensity. I scream through my sessions like Dorian Yates. It sounds like I’m giving birth.
@adarqui - great post. Thanks. Walking is THE most underrated forms of exercise there is. I’ve not considered low volume high frequency weight training. See my understanding in my reply above to activitiesguy
@ActivitiesGuy - there is another reason why I chose High Intensity. I know it’s anecdotal but it seems logical. Some time ago I took a few weeks off to do some serious (for me anyway) manual labour for a project in my garden. Because I was weak, the effort was horrendous. I had to give a 100%. When I recovered from that intense work I felt like the Thunder god himself. Sadly, those “gains” were short lived as the project came to an end and I had no reason to do anymore hard manual labour.
I understand the allure of high intensity training. However, like running, you have to “earn” it. Start small with a balanced routine, I suggest Dan John training for the busy working guy, and work up from there. Keep it simple.
I hope this works out for you.
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High intensity does not have to equal failure. In fact it’s more beneficial if you don’t go to failure very often.
Why?
Failure means something (muscles most of the time) can no longer support the movement. In that instant, you are putting tremendous strain on your tendons, ligaments and bone structure. If you continue to do this consistently, your connective tissue can be damaged leading to injury.
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What about if I just deadlift everyday? I’ve heard about guys who squat daily and they don’t overtrain. And also there’s those people who work manual labour for a living and they don’t overtrain.
Re: deadlifting everyday, that’s basically what I’ve been recommending. I would probably go with 4-5 days/week instead of truly every day (even the “squat every day” people are usually more like 5 day/week).
Part of this depends on your personal schedule and access to equipment. If going to the gym requires a major investment of time on your part, a daily deadlift program is a little more difficult to adhere to. If you have a home gym? Then I’d say you could do half a dozen deadlift singles around 75-80% of your 1RM several days per week, maybe every other week ramping up to something heavier, and every 2-3 months trying for a new 1RM.
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Thanks for your time everyone. This has been very helpful
The allure of the “Daily Dose Deadlift” approach (there’s an article on a website called StrongFirst, google it) is that it’s meant to be used in harmony with other training. I think the guy who wrote the first article that I read about it, which inspired me to give it a try, even mentions that it’s a good approach for people who are trying to do the “minimalist approach to lifting so you have energy to do other stuff” thing.
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@ActivitiesGuy have you read “squat everyday” by Matt Perryman? Very interesting. As per the title, he decided to squat daily as an experiment. He wrote about his experience and what he learned (an unlearned) about workload and overtraining etc
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I have run two marathons, the last being ~5 years ago. (Full disclosure: I’m currently nursing a chronic overuse injury that I developed by trying to include high-rep, high-frequency calf work into my schedule, so no running for me atm.) It should also be noted that I am an older guy (almost 55), so I don’t recover like the young guns.
There’s some good advice above, and some I would not endorse. Here’s what I would recommend:
- Train 6 days/week, alternating weightlifting and running days.
- Drop all upper-body-based aerobic work (swimming; rowing). Upper body work should be limited to the gym, building strong, pretty muscles, not developing aerobic capacity. (Anyway, you’re not a triathlete, so you don’t need upper-body endurance.)
- Likewise, drop all non-running-related lower-body work. Marathon training will beat the crap out of your legs, and you’ve got to let them recover. This includes DLs. Legs are recovering on these days. No squats, no extensions, no DLs, no nothing leg-related.
- Alternate training days–lift upper body one day, run the next. Rest on the 7th day.
- Upper body training can be whole-body, or alternating Push/Pull days.
- Running days are as follows: The first day of the week is a relaxed recovery run of about 2-3 miles. The second day is 6 miles at a little better than marathon pace. The last day is volume–start at your current longest run distance, and add .5-1mile/week. This is done at a slower-than-marathon pace. You can mix in walking if you want/need to, but you have to hit your distance goals each time. The distance should end up being a little farther than marathon distance, topping out around 27-28 miles.
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