Episode 15 : How To Structure Strength Training When A Race Is Coming Up

In this episode, I break down how to structure your strength training when you’ve got a race on the horizon.

One of the biggest mistakes hybrid athletes make is trying to hold peak lifting volume while running volume ramps up. That’s a fast track to feeling constantly fatigued, flat in sessions, and underperforming on race day.

I explain how and why lifting volume should gradually come down as running demands increase, what to do with lower body vs upper body work, and how to taper strength training in the final weeks without losing strength.

We also cover practical ways to keep strength ticking over, manage soreness, and still show up to race day feeling fast, fresh, and strong.

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Lift Heavy, Run Fast Podcast Intro

Transcript

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What's going on, everyone? Welcome back to another episode of Lift Heavy Run Fast. I'm your host, Hybrid Coach Mike, and today we're going to be unpacking structuring lifting when a race is coming up. How should you structure your gym or strength training program when you have races coming up? What you should be doing, what you shouldn't be doing, don't be dumb dumb, how to be smart. I'm going to unpack some things for you. For those of you who are in Australia and watching this, you know that the cooler weather is coming, which right now, well, we're on our way, we're still in summer, but cooler weather is on its way in the next couple months, which means race season is generally coming as well. Most of the races in Australia happen during the cooler times or cooler periods because it is too hot to run outside for a lot of people. So race season on its way. I myself, if you've been listening to this podcast, I've got a few races coming up. One in a couple weeks, one in five or six weeks, another one two weeks after that. And then I'm doing Operation 300 sub-90, where I try to deadlift 300 kilos and go straight into a sub-90 minute half marathon. That is also coming up. So a lot of things going on, a lot of lifting to plan for both myself and a lot of my clients who are in those races as well. So I'm out here planning my ass away, making sure no one dies before we get to the finish line. But we optimize results as much as possible. So let me talk you through a couple things here. One of the key things that you're gonna see is as running volume goes up, in most cases, particularly for lower body, lifting volume should be coming down. It's not just removed completely, just your attention needs to be redirected. If you're someone who is not running that much, say below 40k's a week, 30k's a week, you may get to be able to get away with keeping your lifting volume kind of similar to where it has been, and that shouldn't be too much of a problem. But if you really want to push your running volume, but if you really want to push your running volume to parts unknown and take it that little bit further, you will find that your legs tend to take a toll and you may need to pull back on your lifting volume a little bit. And this will be the case for both upper and lower body, but definitely more so lower body because that's what's being used during both modalities. Some key points here. As you get closer to a race, running training should be or cardiovascular training should be your priority. So plan your week around your runs, not your lifting sessions. If it is truly your priority to perform at your best on those races, you want to make sure that your runs are the priority and that your lifting sessions are programmed around your runs. So if I'm racing in six to eight weeks, whatever it is, I'm gonna make sure that my runs are done first on my calendar and then I plan my lifting sessions around that. Why? Because it ensures that I am feeling my best and able to perform at my best during the modality that matters most that matters most right now. I've said it time and time again, there's gonna be times when you're gonna be able to push your lifting a bit more, times you're gonna be able to push your running a bit more. And this is if you're a true hybrid, really trying to take both of those modalities to their limit, that there's gonna be times where you want to focus on one as opposed to the other. You can definitely utilize your lifting to support your running, there's no doubt about that. But for most people, you're not gonna be able to squat bench deadlift and go for PRs every day in the gym while trying to PR your runs at the same time. I genuinely believe most people should focus on one thing at a time in most cases. However, I'm also gonna try and go for a 300 kilo deadlift in a sub-90-minute half marathon in the next three to four months. I know I sound a little bit hypocritical by doing that, but it's a challenge I'm setting for myself, and I want to see if it's possible both for my own self and to show people that maybe we aren't as fragile as we seem. But I'm talking very generally for most hybrids right now, those that want to really perform at those races, try to focus on the running as much as possible. In my case, anyway, if I had no lifting goals right now and I didn't give a shit about this challenge that I'd set for myself, and I didn't post it on the internet for people to now keep me accountable, which I've already done, so it's happening. If I didn't give a shit about that, uh I would just be focusing on my running and I would just be doing bare minimum lifting. Well, not bare minimum, like you can pretty much still do whatever you want to do upper body wise in most cases, but my leg volume would be pulled right back, and I'd just be really pushing the running as much as possible. But right now I've made good been making good progress, doing a bit of both. I don't feel too cooked, I auto-regulate my weight training sessions quite nicely. If I'm feeling really tired, I pull them back a bit. The only exception is my deadlifts, I'm still trying to push each week, no matter what. And that's because I'm training for this challenge now. But in most cases, you should be alright. So just pull back the lifting and then focus on the running. Now, you're just trying to reduce the fatigue cost of lifting because, in theory, if you're really pushing your running and trying to improve your fitness, you're gonna get a lot of fatigue from your running as it is. Your lower body volume is usually what should taper first, so you need to taper your lower body volume down quite early. I recommend doing it when you're about eight weeks out from the race. Pull down the volume a little bit, just focus on a few main exercises. When you're about six weeks out, do it even more. When you're about two to three weeks out, literally just do the bare, bare minimum. And when you're about two weeks out, don't do any legs. That's what I reckon. Don't do any legs whatsoever in terms of uh gym stuff, other than if you've got rehab you gotta do, but just pull it out, pump out the runs, and then week of the race, I reckon actually do no gym at all. Uh and that includes upper body. I reckon you just recover, to be honest. Just let your body recover because you've been hammering it for weeks on end and just let it recover. You'll feel amazing on race day if you're able to do that. The other thing you could do is just reducing the number of sets, but keeping the intensity quite high. So if you're going from six sets of squats and Bulgarians each or whatever it is you're doing, I don't know, between the two of them. Maybe you want to reduce it down to two hard sets for each exercise instead. Uh, that's not a bad idea. So just reducing the volume means you can also increase the intensity a little bit to maintain some of your strength. You probably won't build much strength off that if your running volume is coming up as well, but you can maintain for sure. And then, like I said, you're gonna cop that you're probably gonna lose a little bit during that time. You're not gonna be able to build as you really peek for the race and you start to even pull out more and more of that strength work. So if you're really only doing one or two hard sets a week overall for your legs, one hard set of legs and one hard of quad work, one hard set of hamstring work, or one hard set of deadlifts, one hard set of squats all together, you're gonna lose a little bit of strength in the lead up to that race, and that's okay. You've still done it enough to keep some of it and even maybe maintain your technique, which shouldn't be changed too much anyway. Then once the race is over, pivot back and you'll find you'll be down a little bit, but then you'll you'll slingshot back to where you were if not beyond quite quickly. Upper body, on the other hand, I find can stay quite high even in the lead up to the race because it doesn't really affect fatigue as much. Because it doesn't affect fatigue that much, and it doesn't affect running economy as much. Having sore legs will affect your running economy, they will feel heavy, you won't be able to physically push into the ground as much. You your ground contact time, things like that will be all over the place. So something to work on. Like I said, the last week before a race, you mostly want to focus on upper body, and if anything, nothing at all. Two weeks out, no legs whatsoever, I reckon. Just pull the legs out from your training whatsoever. So really big drop in intensity. As the running volume is increasing, you're already getting a really massive stimulus out of that. So running, although you do our training in a different energy system, you may find you don't lose as much side in your legs, just be as size in your legs as you think, because you're just working them a bit. You will probably find you lose some size in your legs as the volume comes down in the lifting department and the running volume picks up. I find my leg size changes like a few centimeters each time, but I also notice when I go back to it and I start eating more, it bounces back real quick anyway. My muscles just absorb whatever I'm doing up like a sponge, and that'll be this most likely will be the case for you. I think most people mess up their uh their running training by pushing their gym stuff too much, they don't realize that it's affecting them, and it's not until they've pulled the lifting out of their program a little bit more that they realize, oh, I was carrying a lot of fatigue and it was hindering my performance. So if you're ever unsure, I recommend you pulling out your legwork for a week. And this can just be in training, even if you're in an off season. Trial it, and this might be important for you to understand yourself. Maybe take all legwork out of your program just for a week and try go for a hard run on that weekend. So, say Monday to Saturday, no legs whatsoever. Go for a hard run on that Sunday, try to go for maybe a tempo run or maybe some fast intervals or whatever, and take note of how different you feel when your legs are fresh compared to when you've been smashing them with everything else during the week. For me, the significance is high. My legs literally feel like bouncy, like I'm a kangaroo when I haven't done any legs during the week. Once I've got the gym stuff in, I don't go to shit, but there is a notable difference. So I know as soon as I pull it out, I feel way faster and way more fresh. Anyway, if you're ever unsure of what you should be doing in terms of your running or lifting programs, I've got lift heavy run fast programs that are available for you to download. That's 12 weeks of coaching done for your half marathon 5k or 10k time that focuses on you getting faster while lifting at the same time. And I've automatically done adjustments so your lifting volume will come down as your running volume comes up. So it tells you exactly what you should be doing, and you don't need to worry about it. It also tells you what paces you should be running. And the best bit is you buy these programs once and they're yours forever. So hit those there in the link down below if you want to have a look at those. Otherwise, I think that is most things. I am gonna say that that the model I'm using or that I explained right now, where you pull things back a little bit in terms of your lifting as your running increases, is gonna be similar to what I'm doing for my Operation 300 sub 90 challenge. But there's the caveat to that in that I am gonna keep my deadlift volume quite high almost the whole time until I need to pick up all the day of the challenge because I can't risk losing my strength in the lead up to whenever I decide to do it. So, anyway, that's that. I think that's everything on this one. As always, comment, subscribe if you're watching on YouTube. If you've got any questions, contact me or contact me for coaching and I'll just sort out your hybrid coaching programs so you don't have to worry about it anymore. Hybrid coach my lift every run fast, share it with your grandmother. See you guys next time.