Leg Strength For Runners

It’s amazing how as young kids we could head right out the door and take off running at full speed. We could zig and zag, jump and roll like nothing, never getting hurt or dealing with aches and pains. The next thing you know you are in your 40’s, 50’ or 60’s and there is no way we should try that stuff before getting a proper warm-up. Even then it may not be wise to try. As we age, maintaining our agility and strength becomes more of a chore and it is more difficult to maintain what you have gained.

One major weakness we deal with is leg strength, mainly the Glutes and Hamstring muscles.  If you are a beginning runner or have been running for a long time and you are older, you need to strengthen these muscles. Doing so will help prevent injury and your running performance will benefit.

To use myself as an example, I have had issues with the Piriformis muscle in my right buttocks three times over the last three years from running. I did not start doing any leg strengthening until after the second time. Fortunately while it was literally a pain in the butt I was able to continue running each time. As I have kept up with the strength work I feel I have finally overcome the problem, until my left side started to hurt.

It’s odd that the left side never was a problem before until I was helping my wife clean house. This Piriformis flare-up had nothing to do with running; it was all due to the frequent of squatting and standing while cleaning. The motion was something I was not used to and the muscle let me know that fact. I had done some deep squats while working out but the frequency on that day must have been too much. This time it hurt so badly there was no running. In fact, it was very painful to go through the motion of standing up or sitting down.

It took five days before the pain started to subside and I ventured out for a test run. Gradually increasing mileage over a few days until I was confident it was going to be OK. I think I was lucky I was able to get through it quickly, maybe because of the leg workouts I had been previously doing. So it was a lesson learned that as I have aged I need to be aware of more things than running that may cause some odd injury.

Any way, if you are not doing leg exercises at least twice a week and you want to reduce the chance of injuries you need to start working out now. Think long term, start off slow and increase weight and reps over a period of time as your strength improves. Even body weight exercises are a great way to go if no weights are available. As another benefit, aside from injury reduction, you will become a more efficient runner and improve your speed.