Are You Actually Getting Stronger? Your Strength Training Audit

There’s a lot of talk about strength training—and that all runners should be doing it. And while I agree, there are levels to it.

Strength training doesn’t need to take hours every week. It just needs a plan. You can get a lot done in 15 minutes.

So here’s a quick strength training check-in to see if you have the pieces in place to make it effective:

1. Are you progressing your exercises each week for 4–6 weeks before changing them? 

If yes, excellent. If not—and you’re changing exercises every session—consider keeping them consistent and progressing reps, sets, or weight over a few weeks. That’s how you get progressive overload. Structured progressive overload is how you properly strengthen muscles, tendons, ligaments to tolerate running.

2. Are you counting Pilates or HIIT workouts as strength training?

Unfortunately, these don’t count as true strength training. They’re not structured, progressively overloaded programs designed to build strength. They have a place—but they’re not going to drive real strength gains.

3. Are you hitting the major muscle groups? 

Ideally, you want: a squat or deadlift pattern, a single-leg exercise, calf loading, and some upper body work each week. A lot of runners count running as leg day. It’s not. If you want stronger legs, you still need the weight room.

4. Are you trying to add weight to your exercises? 

Bodyweight is a great starting point—and it can be effective. But for true progressive overload, you need to add load. Your body handles 2–7x your bodyweight when running—bodyweight alone eventually won’t cut it.

5. Are you extremely sore after every session? 

No pain, no gain… right? Nope. You shouldn’t be sore after every lift. If you are, you’ll burn out and stall your progress. A well-progressed program shouldn’t leave you wrecked and unable to run.

These are just a few questions to ask yourself to see if you’re on the right track.

– Eliana

P.S. If this made you realize you might be off track, click here for a free discovery call and we can clean up your strength training so it actually works.