Overtraining Archives - Running Lean with Patrick McGilvray

314. The Leaner, Stronger Runner Framework Part 1: Why Running More Isn’t the Answer

January 2, 2026 By Patrick McGilvray

If you’re a runner who feels like you’re doing everything “right” but still not getting the results you want, this episode is for you. This is The Leaner, Stronger Runner Framework – Part 1: Why …

Continue Reading about 314. The Leaner, Stronger Runner Framework Part 1: Why Running More Isn’t the Answer →

Podcast Transcript

My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, sports nutritionist, master life coach, and weight loss coach for runners, I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you, properly fuel your body and your mind so you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is running Lean.

Hey there, and welcome to episode 314 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners, and today the leaner, stronger Runner framework, part one. Why running more isn’t the answer. So if you’re a runner who feels like you’re doing everything right, but still not getting the results that you want, this episode is for you.

Today we’re gonna take a hard look at one of the biggest mistakes that runners make when they’re trying to lose weight and improve performance. That is just doing more miles and hoping that it eventually works because for most runners running more often, longer or harder, it doesn’t really fix the problem.

It actually makes things worse. So in this episode, I’m going to explain what’s really happening inside your body, why effort doesn’t always equal progress, and what you should focus on instead, if you want to feel lighter. Stronger and make running feel easier again. So this is part one of a short, powerful series designed to give you clarity, quick wins, and a simple framework that you can start using right away without burning yourself out.

So if running feels harder than it should, if you’re training consistently, but your body doesn’t seem to change, and if you’ve tried adding more miles, more intensity, more discipline, and somehow you’re still stuck. This episode is going to feel like a breath of fresh air. All right, so let’s start here.

Most runners believe that if they are not seeing results, the answer has to be more, more miles, more intensity, more effort, and that belief makes total sense. Running is the thing that you do, so of course, doing more of it should help. But this is where things start to go sideways for a lot of runners because effort.

And results are not the same thing. And when it comes to running, doing more of the wrong thing just gets you better at being tired, sore, and frustrated. To understand why running more isn’t the answer. We have to talk about what running actually does to your body, not emotionally, not mentally, but physiologically.

So running is a stress, don’t get me wrong. It’s a good kind of stress. It’s the kind of stress that makes you fitter, stronger and more resilient, but only when it’s applied correctly. Because listen, stress is stress. Every time you go for a run, your body has to absorb impact with every foot strike, repair, muscle tissue, replenish, glycogen, and energy stores regulate hormones like.

Cortisol and insulin calm your nervous system afterward. That’s a lot of work, and when that stress is followed by enough recovery, so proper fueling rest, strength training, sleep, your body adapts. You become more efficient, your running economy improves. You feel stronger and more capable. But when stress keeps stacking without enough recovery.

Your body doesn’t adapt. Instead it protects. This is where a lot of runners get confused ’cause they think, Hey, I’m training consistently. Why isn’t my body responding? And the answer is often that your body isn’t responding because it’s, it’s surviving. Okay. It’s not adapting you, you’ve just gone into survival mode.

Okay. So what does this look like? Well, when your body senses constant stress without enough recovery, it shifts into conservation mode. Okay. So this is like protection mode. Okay? And that protection shows up. In subtle, but pretty frustrating ways. You start holding onto body fat, you have increased hunger and cravings.

You feel sluggish. Um, your runs start feeling really heavy. Your sleep is poor. Your, you have lingering soreness, um, you have plateaus that last months or years. This is when runners say things like. I barely eat, but nothing changes. Or I feel like my body is fighting against me, or I used to feel faster with less training, or I’m doing everything right.

What am I still missing? What you’re missing isn’t effort. It’s stress management. Okay, and here’s the part that most runners don’t want to hear. The solution is not more discipline. Let’s be honest. When things aren’t working, most runners don’t think, Hmm, maybe I need to recover more. They think I need to tighten things up.

I need to push harder. I need to stop being so soft. And that mindset is praised in running culture, you know, grinding it out, pushing through, ignoring discomfort. But just because something is normalized doesn’t mean it’s effective or good for you. Running more feels productive, running more. Feels like commitment.

Running more feels like control, but your body doesn’t reward effort. It rewards intelligent stress applied at the right time, and this is why runners often get stuck in this loop. They train hard, they feel worn down. So what do they do? They add more running and then they feel worse, and then they lose confidence.

They try even harder, and it just keeps spiraling kind of outta control. Okay. That’s not growth. You’re basically just breaking yourself down. It’s erosion. Okay, so. Here’s the cruel irony about all this. The runners who struggle the most are often the most disciplined ones. They don’t skip workouts, they show up even when they feel tired.

They push through soreness. They pride themselves on their consistency. And this is all awesome. And that mindset probably has helped, um, you succeed in a lot of places in your life. But endurance training plays by a whole different set of rules here, okay? In running discipline without direction just leads to burnout.

Okay? The goal isn’t to see how much discomfort you can tolerate. The goal is to apply just enough stress to create an adaptation and then get outta the way so your body can do its job, right? That’s what smart training actually looks like. So recovery is not something that you, you need to earn. Okay?

This is a massive mindset shift for runners. Most runners treat recco recovery like a reward. I’ll rest when I’ve earned it. I’ll recover, you know, after this race. I’ll back off once things begin to improve. But recovery isn’t a reward. It’s actually a requirement. Okay? Adaptation happens after stress, not during it.

So if you’re always training tired and always sore, always feeling behind on your recovery, your body never gets the signal to improve. It just learns how to tolerate stress and tolerance is not progress. Okay, so running is not a good weight loss tool, okay? This is where a lot of runners get tripped up because running is a performance skill, not a weight loss tool.

Yes, running does burn calories, but calorie burn is not the same thing as fat loss, okay? When you rely on running to fix your body composition, you end up over training. Under recovering, under fueling, and then just fighting against your own physiology. The leanest, strongest runners don’t train to just punish their bodies.

They train to teach their bodies how to move efficiently, how to recover quickly, and how to adapt properly, and that requires strategic intensity. Adequate recovery strength training to support running mechanics, fueling the supports, adaptation instead of defense. And when all these pieces are working together, running starts to feel easier again, not because you’re doing less, but because you’re doing the right things.

Okay. So lemme give you a quick little self check here. Okay. So think about this. If most of your runs feel kind of the same, if most of your runs are done at a moderately hard effort, if they leave you tired. But you’re not improving, like, you’re not getting better. Uh, they require willpower to complete.

That’s a sign that your training lacks a structure. Okay? It’s not about effort. It’s about structure. And structure is what creates results. And structure is exactly what most runners never really learn. There’s another major reason why running more doesn’t work, and it has nothing to do with mileage at all.

It has everything to do with how runners eat. Okay, so in part two of this series, we’re gonna talk about how runners should actually eat if they wanna burn fat, recover faster. And stop feeling like food is a constant mental tug of war. Okay? Because training is only one piece of the framework, right? So if any part of this episode felt uncomfortably familiar, I want you to hear this clearly.

You are not broken, you’re not failing. What’s been missing is not effort. It’s a system, and most runners I work with are incredibly consistent. They train hard, they care deeply about their health, and they genuinely wanna feel better in their bodies, and they wanna enjoy running again. But without the right framework, all that effort just turns into frustration.

And that’s exactly why I created the Leaner, stronger Runner Project. This isn’t about doing more, it’s about doing what actually works. So inside the program, I help runners. Train in a way that supports progress instead of wearing them down. Um, I help runners build real functional strength that makes running feel easier.

I help runners fuel their bodies without tracking, obsessing or starting over constantly. And I help runners develop the mindset and the structure that makes consistency feel natural. This is the full system behind. Everything you’re learning in this series laid out step by step with guidance, coaching, and support, so you don’t have to figure it all out on your own.

Okay. If you’re ready to stop guessing and start training with confidence, head over to running lean coaching.com/ready to learn more about the Leaner, stronger Runner Project. Okay, that’s all I got for you today. Love you all. Keep on running Lean, and I will talk to you soon.

295. Why You’re Not Getting Stronger (Even Though You’re Lifting)

August 22, 2025 By Patrick McGilvray

Today on the podcast I’m breaking down a hard truth a lot of runners need to hear: Why You’re Not Getting Stronger (Even Though You’re Lifting). If you’ve been showing up, moving weight, and still …

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Podcast Transcript

My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner sports nutritionist, master life coach, and weight loss coach. For runners, I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you, properly fuel your body and your mind so you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought.

Possible this is running Lean.

Hey there and welcome to episode 295 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. And today why you are not getting stronger even though you are lifting. So today I am gonna be breaking down a hard truth of lot of runners. Just really need to hear right now why you’re not getting stronger, even though you’re lifting.

So if you’ve been showing up moving weight, still not seeing results, it’s not because you’re broken, it’s because your plan isn’t sending a strong enough signal. And we’ll cover what that means. What real intensity feels like, how to progress week after week, why recovery is the secret sauce to keeping you, uh, strong, and how to choose the right lifts, uh, depending on your goals.

For this episode, I want you to leave with this. Simple runner friendly template and clear steps so that you can course correct quickly, stronger running demands, stronger muscles, but strength doesn’t happen by accident. It happens by design. You need to dial in the signal. You gotta respect recovery and watch your numbers climb while you’re running.

Miles. Feel easier. I wanna fix the gaps, build real strength, and help you to make the next eight weeks the most productive you’ve had in the gym two date. But real quick, if you want help building real strength that actually improves your running, your body composition and your confidence, I’d love to coach you through it.

One-on-one. We’ll dial in your training plan, your nutrition and your mindset so you can stop guessing and start progressing. To learn more and apply, just go to my website, runningleancoaching.com, click on work with me. So we’re heading into that time of the year when most runners either double down on doing the same thing, the same strength routine.

Or they decide to finally get serious about building strength. So if you’ve been putting in the work lately, but you’re not seeing results, this is a great moment to reset your approach so that the next four to eight weeks actually move the needle. We want to see progress. Okay. So I’m gonna be covering a few things today.

Really, there’s four big reasons why you’re probably not getting stronger. Um, intensity is wrong. Your plan is wrong. Uh, your recovery isn’t. Where it should be. Um, and you might be just doing the wrong workouts for your particular goals. I’m also gonna give you a simple runner friendly template that you can start using now.

You can start using it this week. So the first thing I wanna talk about is intensity. And a lot of times runners are, um, they’re guilty of too little intensity when it comes to strength training. So you might be lifting, but every set is like a five or six out of a 10 effort. So you might be finishing up your sets still having, you know, five to eight reps still in the tank.

And that’s more like cardio, you know, it’s exercise. Yes. But it’s really not training your muscles to get stronger. Um, so how do you know if your intensity level is too low? Well, your last reps look just like your first ones. In other words, you know, you’re not getting to that point where they’re getting harder.

Um, your heart rate goes up, but your muscles aren’t anywhere close to failure. And you never need a spot on your big compound lifts. Okay? So this is all signs that you’re probably not, you know, going at an intensity that that is going to help you to get stronger. So the way you fix it is we want to think about RIR, which is reps in reserve, and you should have a couple, maybe one to three reps in reserve at the end of your working sets.

So for strength work, you wanna finish your set. With one to three reps in reserve, and that is the last, that’s where the last rep should feel hard, but still clean. You could maybe do one or two more. You know, somewhere in that range, and that means your, your intensity level is where it should be. You don’t want to go to the point of absolute failure.

Uh, on every set. And certainly, um, you know, as runners, I think a lot of runners are afraid to, to go at that high of an intensity, and I totally get that. I think having, you know, one, two, maybe three reps in reserve is a good spot for most people. For most runners. Yeah. Also you have to choose loads that make the target reps, you know, honest.

So if the plan calls for five reps, then those last few should be pretty hard. So, you know, numbers. Four and five should be pretty hard, but you should still have one or two left in the tank. Not, oh, I could easily do 10 or 12 reps when the plan calls for five. So I think this is something where having a a, an honest assessment of your target reps is very important.

Okay. And the other thing is prioritizing big movements like squats, hinges, push pulls, single legwork. Um. Doing things with machines and isolation, um, are fine, but those are more peripheral type of stuff. You want to prioritize the big power movements, okay? So think about a back squat or a deadlift or a bench press, um, that kind of stuff.

That’s where you’re gonna get the most gains and be able to make the most progress. Um, and then something to just kind of think about when you’re doing leg work. Um. Uh, especially the lower body, you know, any kinda lower body strength work in general, but leg work in particular, um, you want to be in that three to eight rep range for the most part.

Okay. If every leg session is 12 to 20 reps, which I see a lot of runners do, they’re just cranking out a lot of reps with very low weight. You are just kind of reinforcing what you already have. Okay? You’re not going to progress. You’re not building strength. In that case, you’re just kind of, again, you’re kind of going through a cardio workout more than anything else.

Okay? So we want to have a couple of reps and reserves. We wanna make sure, especially for the. Uh, lower body stuff that we’re not doing a ton of reps. We wanna actually progress, so you gotta lower the, lower the reps, um, increase the weight and still have a couple reps in reserve on each, uh, set. Okay, so that’s number one.

The intensity level has to be. Correct. Number two is that you don’t really have a plan for progression. So a lot of runners just go through the motions. They, they keep repeating the same workout forever, same weight, same reps, same order. And your body will adapt to this and you will get, you will see some gains at the beginning, but then your body will just stop progressing.

Um. The way you fix it is you’ve gotta work on simple progression, okay? So that’s where you want to hit, uh, certain numbers of reps or certain weights, and then you wanna slowly over time increase the resistance. You know, either increase the number of reps that you’re doing or increase the load. So, for example, you might want to, um, if you’re doing like five reps of 20 pounds on some exercise and then, you know, week over week you start to go to six reps and seven and eight, that’s progression.

Okay? Maybe once you get to eight or nine, you’re like, okay, now I need to up the weight to 25 pounds and maybe you can only do three or four. Okay. Then wait until you can progress that. 25 pounds to, you know, eight or nine, and then you can increase it again. And, but this takes time. So just understand that we don’t want to, um, try to progress super fast.

Like every time you go to the gym, you’re not gonna progress like this. It just doesn’t work that way. And, and you want to be able to progress slowly so that you’re slowly building strength over time. Now you’re gonna probably get to some point where you know, you just can’t lift. Certain amounts of weight, you know, and, and you’re about where you want to be from a strength standpoint, perfectly fine.

And then we do things like deloading and then we can load back up again and things like that. But for the most part, most runners don’t really have a plan for progression. They just kind of do the same workout, same weights, same reps all the time. Uh, don’t do that. Okay. We want to progress. And the way you, you know, if you’re progressing is it’s, you gotta write stuff down.

You gotta log your workouts, write down the weight, the sets, the reps, and how many reps in reserve you have, uh, uh, after each set as well. You know, if it, if it. If you don’t measure it, uh, you can’t improve it, so you gotta write it down. You gotta know what it is you are, uh, looking at today, and then know how to improve that next time you’re at the gym.

Okay. And then lastly, just change one variable at a time. So either change the, the weight, the number of reps, the sets, uh, something like that. Don’t scramble all the dials every week, uh, you know, changing up your tempo and how long you’re resting and the sets and the reps, and they’ll like change one thing at a time.

And progress slowly, slowly is good when it comes to getting stronger and building real strength. So, um, that’s number two is to have a real plan for progression. Okay. Uh, number three is recovery. So a lot of runners don’t recover properly well from their running workouts, I would say for the most part, but especially from the strength.

Training that they do. So you might be stacking up some hard runs and hard lifts on the same day, which is fine to do, but then the next day you need to have a very easy recovery day. But instead that’s, that’s your hard workout day. Your hard running day. You’re gonna do intervals or something like that.

You might not be getting enough sleep. You might be undereating or under uh, undereating protein. And you’re wondering why you’re not making any progress, why the bar keeps feeling heavier every week. And this is a real problem and a, a lot of runners deal with this. They’re just not recovering properly.

They’re not allowing their body to recover properly from the hard workouts that you’re doing. You don’t make gains at the gym. You make gains while you’re sleeping. So you gotta get to sleep, you gotta get, um. You know, aim for seven to nine hours of quality sleep. Um, that’s when you build strength is, is when your body is at sleep and recovering.

Make sure you’re getting enough protein, you know, target roughly 0.7 grams, you know, per pound of your goal. Body weight. Um, make sure that you’re not in a, uh. Really deep calorie deficit. You know, if you’re trying to lose fat, um, you can have a little bit of a calorie deficit, but you know, if, if really your goal is to get stronger, then eat at more of like a maintenance plan.

Okay? So slight calorie deficit is okay. A lot of people think they just have to drastically cut their calories Well. That’s not gonna allow you to have the fuel that you need to recover properly, especially if you’re not getting enough protein as well. The other thing is to make sure you’re spacing your workouts properly to allow for rest and recovery.

Um, don’t sandwich heavy squats between, you know, uh, interval sessions and a tempo runs. You know, a better way to do it is do a hard run or a heavy lower body, uh, day, like heavy leg day on different days. Hopefully. Maybe you can have a hard run day and do leg day a couple days later or a couple days before that.

Try to put a day in between there if possible. Um, uh, just try to space your, especially your leg workouts so that you’re recovering properly and not doing like a super hard leg day. And then the following day, running 20 miles as a training run, that’s a recipe for disaster right there. Okay? And if the same day is your only option, sometimes.

That is okay. You can do, uh, an easy run in, in the morning, let’s say, and then you can lift in the evening or switch that around. It doesn’t really matter, but keep one of these things, you know, truly easy just to allow your body to recover properly. And then also resting between sets. You know, a lot of runners, they just wanna get stuff done.

They go to the gym, they’re like, I’ve got 40 minutes to get this done, and they just bang this stuff out. But to build strength, you really need to have a rest period. In between sets, anywhere from one to three minutes between sets is considered. Pretty good. Um, the 32nd bootcamp rests, they kind of, uh, kill your gains.

You know, they, they just really do, it’s great for cardio, but it’s not gonna help you get stronger. And then the fourth thing that maybe, uh, the reason why you’re not getting stronger is you’re just doing the wrong workouts for your particular goals. So if you, if you wanna get strong, uh, but you’re doing just, you know, circuits or a bunch of core work or super light dumbbells.

I mean, this stuff is great for cardio and it’s great for, it’s a great form of exercise in general, but it’s not gonna really help you to get stronger. So think about it like this, to get stronger, we wanna work in that three to five rep range. You know, heavier weights, uh, lower sets, and reps longer rests.

Um. High intent. So in other words, we want our intentions to be, you know, high and we want the, the load to be pretty heavy. That’s to build maximum strength. When we talk about things like hypertrophy, which is building larger muscles, that’s where’re in, we’re in the higher rep ranges, you know, 10 to 15 reps, lighter loads, not as much rest in between sets.

For, uh, muscular endurance and conditioning. You know, that’s where we can be in those, uh, high rep ranges, short rest circuit type of workouts, uh, bootcamp type of workouts. Um, and then we’ve got like training for power, which is actually pretty useful for runners. This is gonna be lower reps, but explosive intent.

So think about doing a bench press, but instead of doing it slowly, you’re pushing through that powerfully. You know, you’re finishing each rep in a powerful way. Um, and that you can do the same thing with squats and some other exercises. The power strength workouts are a little bit of an advanced, uh, exercise.

So be very mindful that you gotta get strong first and you gotta be very comfortable doing these things and you probably want to get some help. With the power workouts because you can get hurt easily, uh, by not doing it properly. So that’s just a little caveat there. Um, and you don’t have to pick up, you know, one of these things and do it forever.

You don’t have to just focus on strength or power, like you can mix them up occasionally. And I do this, I go through sessions where I. Do, you know, four to six weeks of, you know, maximum strength. I do four to six weeks of hypertrophy and I kind of, you know, work it around that sort of a, um, schedule, you know, um, it’s good to have an intention and it’s good to mix it up as well sometimes.

So typically I kind of primarily focus on strength. Um, and so if, if. If your, um, primary outcome for your sessions is to build strength and do your heavy lifting first, and then work on the, the, and that’s like the larger muscle groups and things like that, and then work on the, um, accessories and the smaller muscle groups afterwards.

Um, again, if, if strength is your. Uh, main focus, then do your strength session first before you run. And if you like running, uh, before your strength session, the, the running session is gonna be the kind of the priority ’cause you’re gonna be fresher and stronger for that. And then the strength session, I wouldn’t go as intense because you’re gonna have, you’re not gonna be as fresh or as strong for that.

Okay? So it, whatever session you do first is the one that’s gonna be sort of prioritized as probably a better outcome. So just keep that, that in mind when you’re, um, working your, um, workouts around running and things like that. Um, we want strength and conditioning that supports your running. We don’t want it to be the same thing as your running, and this is why a lot of runners, they just do.

They just wanna do more cardio. They just love cardio. They just wanna do, so they, you know, pick up the lightest weights they can and just do a million reps. Um, and that’s great again, but it’s just more cardio that you don’t need to be doing. You’re a runner. You’re doing plenty of cardio already. You’re running trains your body for endurance.

We want the, the work we do in the gym to build stronger muscles from head to toe. Okay, so I’m gonna give you just a quick little runner friendly weekly template. Okay? I’m just gonna go through this kind of quickly and just give you an idea of what this might look like for you. And of course.

Everybody’s different. This is just a generic thing. I sort of just worked up really quickly here, but let’s say you do two strength sessions a week, and I do recommend at least two strength sessions a week. One strength session a week is enough to maintain what you got. Two is enough to start building muscle and getting stronger.

Three, personally, I think is ideal, but we’re just gonna go with two today just for the sake of ease. Um, so look, we got two, you know, strength sessions. We got day, uh, I’m gonna call it day A and day B. Day A let’s say is your lower body strength and some core work. So you might do. Um, some back squats.

Again, three to five reps with one to two reps in reserve on each set, he got some Romanian deadlifts. Again, three to five. Um, some split squats or some step ups. These are single leg exercises. Awesome for runners. Again, three to three to five reps. Three to five sets, calf raises, and maybe like a plank.

And, and that’s it. Like that’s your workout right there. And then the next day you can do like upper body strength. And then we’re talking about posterior chain. So that’s the whole. Backside of your body, um, bench press or maybe some pushups. Again, three to five sets with a couple uh, reps in reserve. Some rows, maybe some pull-ups, overhead pressing, some hip hinge accessories.

So this could be. Hip thrust, kettlebell swing, something where you’re using that hip motion and then some, uh, some core work, maybe, you know, three to five reps of some, uh, or three to five sets of some core work as well. And so that’s, that’s it. I mean, it’s pretty simple. It’s not super complicated, but we wanna have something that, you know, works lower body.

In core, we want upper body and posterior chain. That’s a good way of breaking these things up as far as where to put your runs. You know, you might have runs where you do, uh, your a workout, or I’m sorry, your B workout, so that’s your upper body. You could do that on, on Monday with an easy run. Maybe Tuesday is, is uh, speed intervals.

Wednesday is a easy run or a rest day Thursday you could do your lower body and core work and not do a hard run on Thursday, and then you’ve got your Saturday long run. So this is putting your strength workouts, you know, on the same day as an easy run or on a day where you’re not running again, and then you’ve got a couple days between your, um, lower body and your long run.

So you can see how you can really separate it out. And it doesn’t have to be super complicated. I think we get so much information from social media and from the internet out there that we make these workouts. Uh, super complicated. We make our scheduling of all these things super complicated, and it just doesn’t have to be complicated.

We just wanna separate hard running days from your heavier, especially your lower body lifting days where you can, and of course, this is an example. You gotta do what feels good for you. Maybe your schedule doesn’t work this way perfectly fine, but try to fit within these parameters and you’re gonna make lots of progress here.

Okay. Um, couple of things to just keep in mind when you’re doing, uh, strength work. Make sure you’re going through full controlled. Range of motion. So if you’ve ever seen people doing something like a bench press and they, uh, get that, they don’t bring that bar all the way down to their chest. They bring it about halfway down or a quarter of the way down, and then it goes back up.

They’re doing a, a range of motions is about six inches. You know, that’s not a bench press. Okay. Bench press should basically touch your chest and then. Straighten the arms all the way out. And that’s more of like, what about 18 inches or something like that. So full controlled range of motion. Um, make sure you’re setting yourself up properly and safely for every exercise.

Uh, get your feet in the right place. Make sure you’re, um, set up on the bench or the bar properly. Uh, make sure you’re breathing through the lifts properly. Um, don’t be afraid to use those little plates too. The little two and a half pounders, you know, progress by sm by small amounts. That’s okay. I see so many people that are like, well, you know, I, I don’t, I can’t do 10 more pounds on that lift.

Well do five pounds, do two and a half pounds if you have to. It’s okay. Just progress slowly. This is not something you’re trying to rush to. This is. A commitment of staying strong for the rest of your life, you know? So make sure that what you’re doing is progressing, yes, but progressing slowly. Slowly is good.

You’re still progressing. Okay. And then keep that log book mindset going, right? Um, so what you’re trying to do is perfect your lifts and progress slowly. And the only way you’ll know that you’re doing that is by keeping a log. So write down your, your sets, your exercises, your sets, your reps, the weight you’re using, and then how you feel.

Um, though that one, you know, it was heavier than I’ve ever list lifted, but my form felt terrible and I felt very unstable. Well. That’s too heavy for you. Then go back to a little bit of lighter weight until you can get a little bit stronger. Okay? Um, so just a quick little plan for you, like if you wanted to, you know, kind of work on this over the next 30 days.

Pick four to six. Cornerstone lifts. So these are, you know, two lower, uh, body lifts to upper body, one to two accessories. Train them twice a week. Make sure you’ve got one to three reps in reserve on your working sets. Um, make sure you’re tracking every set. Make sure you’re progressing slowly. Get enough sleep.

Hit your protein goals. Make sure you’re not in a super big calorie deficit, um, space. Those hard runs away from the heavy, especially the lower body work that you’re doing in the gym. And then 30 days from now. See how you’re going, uh, track your progress and you should be able to see it in the gym. You should be able to lift heavier.

You should be stronger in 30 days. Okay. A couple of common questions that I’ve gotten recently in talking to some clients about this. Well, what about circuits? I just like doing the machines. Can I still do that? Yes, you can. Um. Honestly, I like them to be done as an accessory or on something. Maybe you don’t have enough time, as much time to work out.

I don’t want them to be your main strength stimulus. The machines are fine, but the, the, the free weights, especially doing the big compound moves tend to work your core. They work your whole body. They work on balance. They’re just superior to the machines, but the machines are not terrible. What about plyometrics?

Okay, so plyometrics are great to do. Like these are, you know, jumping and, um, uh, movements that stimulate the same, uh, nervous system responses as running. So they’re gonna stimulate running and they’re going to help you with your running for sure. So do some plyometrics. I like this as a wor, as a warmup before.

Heavy lifting session for sure. Um, but don’t make this the majority of your workout. So biometrics is fine to do here and there, but they don’t, don’t make it your whole workout. We just wanna get your body, um, used to doing some of these exercises and it does help with your running performance.

Absolutely. And then the other one is like, how heavy is too heavy? Like what’s. What’s the way I should be aiming for? Well, again, think about those, uh, sets that you’re doing. You know, can you, do you still have a few reps in the tank? So if you have a couple of reps in reserve, then that’s the right amount of weight.

You know, one to three reps in reserve. If you have five or eight reps in reserve, that’s too light. If you have zero reps in reserve, that’s too heavy. Okay? So try to keep it to that, like one to three. Um, something I want you to think about, look at your last 30 days of training. Um, if you don’t see that you’ve planned the right intensity or that you’ve written out a progression plan, or that your recovery hasn’t been all that good, um.

That’s what’s been going on with you, then you need to fix this stuff. Okay? Fix these things. Get your progression where it’s supposed to be. Get the intensity where it’s supposed to be. Get the weight right. Make sure you’re getting, uh, recovery, and then you’re planning these workouts around your goals.

What are your goals? Is it to get stronger, to get faster, to improve your running endurance, to improve your running power, speed. Make sure that your, uh, strength workouts are supporting your running goals as well. And if you want a customized plan that fits with your calendar, with your lifestyle, with your goals, obviously I can help build that for you.

Head over to my website, runningleancoaching.com, click on work with me, you and I’ll talk about your goals, and then you and I can get to work on achieving these goals. Okay? So. You’re probably not getting stronger because you’re either not lifting hard enough, you’re not progressing on purpose, you’re not recovering adequately, or you’re just doing workouts that don’t match your goal.

So clean this stuff up, okay? And then watch what happens in your lifts and in your running. This is gonna improve your running exponentially, I promise you. Okay, that’s all I got for you today. Love you all. Keep on running lean, and I will talk to you soon.

294. When You Feel Like Nothing’s Working

August 15, 2025 By Patrick McGilvray

You know what I’m talking about. You’re doing the workouts, logging the miles, tracking your food, getting your strength sessions in… and the results? Nowhere to be found. The scale isn’t …

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Podcast Transcript

Possible. This is running Lean.

Hey there, and welcome to episode 294 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. And today I’m talking about something every runner, every athlete, every human being who’s ever been, uh, chasing a big goal will have to face sooner or later that moment when you feel like nothing’s working.

And I know you know what I’m talking about. You’re doing the workouts, you’re logging the miles, you’re tracking your food, you’re getting your strength sessions in, and the results know where to be found. The scale isn’t budging, your pace isn’t improving. You’re clothes fit the same. And you’re left wondering, why am I even doing this?

What’s the point of all this? I wanna tell you something upfront. If you’ve ever felt this way, you’re not broken, you’re not weak, you’re definitely not alone. This really happens to everyone, and yes, it’s frustrating, but it can actually be one of the most powerful turning points in your health and fitness journey.

If you know how to handle it. But before we get into all that, I want to invite you, if you’re a runner who’s already, who’s ready to lose weight, get stronger, make running easier, I can help you get there faster and more efficiently than you probably think is possible. So I work with runners every single day who’ve been stuck in that nothing’s working phase for months, sometimes even years, and together.

We break through it, not with gimmicks, not with punishment workouts, but with a real sustainable approach that actually works for the long haul. So if you want that kind of support, just go to my website, running lean coaching.com, click on work with me. Alright, let’s get into this. So this topic came up recently.

With one of my coaching clients, she’s been working hard. She’s very consistent with everything she’s doing. Her, her runs are consistent, her nutrition is on point. She’s doing everything right, but the scale isn’t moving, and her workouts felt harder than ever. And she said, you know, I’m doing everything I’m supposed to be doing and it’s just not working.

I’m just feeling like, you know, what’s the point of all this? And I get that. I’ve even been there myself, you know, training for races and not hitting the splits that I wanted or dialing in my diet. At least I thought I. And still feeling stuck, like nothing is ever moving. Like my weight would just never budge.

And I’ve even thought in the past like, maybe this isn’t for me. Maybe I should quit. But here’s the thing, those moments are not a sign to quit. They’re a sign to look deeper, to zoom out, because the truth is progress isn’t always obvious in the moment. So I wanna talk about the emotional side of, of plateaus or stalls.

So sometimes we hit a plateau, whether it’s our weight loss, our running performance, maybe in our strength gains, and we feel like we’re not moving forward. And that feeling. That emotional impact can be exhausting. You know, we’ve been conditioned to expect constant, visible results like you. You make some changes, you get some results, you make more changes, you get better results, and it just keeps going and going and going.

When those results stall though. Our brain says, uh, this is a failure. And failure triggers self-doubt, self-criticism and fear, which makes it very difficult to stay consistent. It makes it very difficult to stay on track. So what starts as maybe a little bit of a frustration because you’ve, you’ve hit a plateau in your weight loss can quickly turn into.

You know, this is never gonna work for me. I’m just not good enough. And when we have this kind of thinking, it’s dangerous thinking because that’s when people quit. And I wanna normalize plateaus, and this is something that we all have to understand, that plateaus stalls in progress. This is part of the process.

It’s not just normal. These things are necessary. So here’s a few reasons why. Number one, your body adapts the human body is really good at becoming efficient to change. That’s the whole point of training. You do something to overload the system. Maybe it’s a muscular system or cardiovascular system, and your body adapts and has a positive.

Change that. That’s the whole point of training is to adapt and change and become more efficient. But it also means that you’re gonna eventually stop seeing the same dramatic gains that you did at the start. And, and the more progress that you make, the smaller the gains are gonna be. A lot of times we get a lot of big changes, a lot of big progress at the beginning of our weight loss journey.

And the further along we go, the kind of slower. And smaller the gains are, and this is normal. You know, this is called the law of diminishing returns. So just, uh, over time the, the gains are gonna be smaller. So just understand that your body will adapt and the gains will be smaller. Um, another reason why a plateau might happen is that you’re in a recalibration phase, so your body might be busy repairing, rebuilding, and setting you up for the next leap forward.

But you just can’t see that yet. So there’s a lot of stuff going on sort of under the covers that you are just not really aware of. So just keep that in mind that sometimes our body has to recalibrate. It takes some time to get there, and during that process, you may not see gains. Another reason why we might hit plateaus is because of external stressors in our life.

Life, stress, work, stress, poor sleep, even emotional stuff that maybe you haven’t processed yet. All of this stuff is going to impact your ability. To progress physically. So just keep that in mind. Another reason why plateaus happen is that maybe you’ve stopped really challenging yourself. Sometimes we think we’re working hard, but we’ve settled into a comfort zone without, without really realizing it.

I know a lot of people do this with their running. A lot of people do this with their strength training. They kind of run. The same intensity all the time. Um, or they go to the gym and they, they do the work. This kind of the same workouts with the same amount of weight all the time. And they’re not really challenging themselves.

They’re kind of going through the motions and it’s, you know, better than doing nothing. But at the same time, if you want gain, if you want to break through a plateau and you want gains, you gotta switch things up. You gotta get out of that comfort zone. You don’t wanna stay in your comfort zone. All the time.

Now, there’s a big mindset shift that has to happen if you want this to change. And the key here is to shift from it’s not working to, something’s happening that I just can’t see right now. Think about training for a marathon. You’re not gonna get faster every single week, like every time you go out there and run, it’s not gonna be a pr.

You’re not gonna get faster. Every time you run. Some weeks you’re gonna feel heavy and slow. Uh, but the work you put in during those off weeks, it still counts. You’re still building a base. You’re still strengthening connective tissues, you’re still improving your mental toughness. Um, it’s the same with weight loss or even strength training.

Your body might be making subtle changes in your hormonal balance, in your metabolic flexibility or your ability to recover from harder workouts and these things. They’re not gonna show up on the scale, you know? So if you’re trying to lose weight or gain muscle, you look at the scale and it’s not really changing.

There might be a lot of stuff going on underneath there that you have to just trust is happening. Okay? So we gotta make this big mindset shift from it’s not working to, Hey, something’s probably happening that I just can’t see physically right now. And if you do find yourself in that sort of negative mental loop of thinking, oh, this isn’t working.

I’ve been stuck in this plateau for a while. There’s a couple things I wanna recommend that maybe you try here. Number one is to zoom out a little bit instead of looking at. You know today’s weight or the pace I ran last weekend, look at the last three to six months. Chances are you’re gonna see progress that you sort of forgot about.

And if you, if you look at where you were three or six months ago and you compare yourself to where you are today, you’re probably gonna see, oh, I’ve made actually a lot of progress. But we, we zoom in on, on these things. And especially people who weigh themselves every single day, which I recommend doing, just get used to your weight going up and down every day.

Don’t. Freak out about it. You don’t need to stress out. We don’t need a bunch of drama around the scale. At the same time, don’t get too caught up in what the number on the scale says and, and instead of looking at, you know, your daily weight, maybe compare this week’s average to last week’s average weight.

That’s a better way of looking at it. So this is what I’m talking about, zooming out, right? So we’re zooming out to a weekly look instead of a day by day look. But I would even go out further look at it month to month. See how you’re progressing. ’cause chances are you’re gonna see some stuff that you really haven’t, you know, uh, thought about lately.

Another thing to kind of break through some plateaus would be to think about auditing your inputs. And what I mean by this is asking yourself, like, are you really hitting the effort level that you think you are in your workouts? You know, are you. Actually doing the work and pushing yourself slightly here and there.

Is your nutrition as dialed in as you say it is, or have some little extras crept back in? So you gotta be really honest with yourself. This is what I mean by auditing your inputs. Take a little inventory, take a little audit. Uh, you know, start tracking your food. Maybe track your workouts. Be very diligent about, you know, getting a good, honest picture of what it is you are doing and are, are not doing.

And then this requires some rigorous honesty with yourself. And some compassion. Like you can’t beat yourself up because maybe you’ve been, you know, sneaking in some snacks here and there, or you just haven’t been, you know, hitting your workouts very hard. You’ve just been kind of going through the motions, don’t, you know, beat yourself up about that.

Uh, you’re not lazy, you’re not a bad person, you know, you’re just settling into what feels comfortable. Okay. So just make an inventory though, and be honest with yourself. Okay. Honest and compassionate with yourself. If you do find yourself, you know, maybe doing the right things and you’re, um, still feeling stuck, maybe change something.

Change one thing. If you’ve been running the same paces, if you’ve been, um, uh, lifting the same weights, maybe go heavier if you’ve been running the same paces, maybe. Add some high intensity intervals, do some longer slow distance or long distance, slower running. Um, you know, if you’ve been lifting the same weights, go heavier.

Um, if you’ve been lifting a lot of heavy weights, you know, go lighter and do tons of reps. If you’ve been eating the same calorie amount, you know, adjust that. Lightly. Uh, maybe you, you need to increase your fat intake or increase your protein intake or drop the carbs down or something like that. Any kind of small change like this can repark adaptation.

Again, your body does adapt to the things you do consistently, so sometimes it’s good to change things up. Don’t change all these things at once though. All right. Change one variable at a time. Give it a couple of weeks. Two weeks is a good amount of time to see changes, so change one thing, give it a couple of weeks, um, see if that makes a difference for you or not.

Another thing to kind of break through some of this, especially the mindset piece, is to focus on the non-scale wins. You know, you, you may not see movement on the scale. You know, you’re trying to lose 30 pounds and you’re stuck, you know, with, you know, 10 more pounds to go or something. Instead of focusing on what the scale is or isn’t doing, focus on your energy.

Maybe you’re, you’ve got tons of energy lately. Maybe you have an improved mood. Less brain fog, you’re sleeping better. These are all huge signs that things are working for you. You’re on the right track even if the scale isn’t working. Again, that goes back to maybe there’s some things going on under the covers that you’re not really uh, aware of yet and stick around because things are probably gonna happen eventually.

Um, the, the last sort of tip on kind of breaking through some of these plateaus or stalls is doubling down on rest and recovery. Sometimes the, the nothing’s working is happening because you are over training or you’re under recovery. Prioritize sleep. Take a down week, take a day off, or two. Um, change out a workout, maybe do a yoga workout instead of a run, or go for a bike ride or, or swim or do something different.

Um, recovery is incredibly important. If you’re just going, going, going all the time and you don’t give your body a chance to rest and recover properly, you’re not gonna repair damage done to muscle tissues. Um, you’re going to get into this. A state of what I call like chronic cardio, where you’re just doing cardio all the time and you’re not, you’re, you’re actually, you’re not resting, you’re not recovering, and you’re not giving your body a chance to, uh, lower those cortisol levels.

So cortisol being high is gonna put you in a state of, you know, fight or flight. Constantly and your body’s gonna be super stressed out. We don’t want that. That is not really good for you. It’s very hard to lose weight when you’re uh uh, when you have chronic stress like that. It’s very hard to improve on your strength gains or improve your running performance when you have that sort of chronic stress that you’re dealing with.

And a lot of times it’s just you’re doing too much. So think about doubling down on recovery. Now I wanna leave you with this. Most people decide they’re gonna quit right before they have a breakthrough. So think about this analogy, like maybe you’re a miner and like you’re digging for gold and you’ve been mining away day after day after day after day, and you’re seeing nothing.

There’s just nothing, nothing, nothing. And then you stop. But what you didn’t know was like you were two swings away from striking it rich. And then somebody else comes along and takes over, uh, after you, and they strike it rich because you gave up and they did not. Progress is rarely linear. It just doesn’t happen that way.

The people who get what they want are the ones who keep going when there’s no visible evidence that it’s working, when it just seems like they’ve been stuck in the same place for a while. Those people who do not give up are the ones who eventually succeed. So if you’re in this, nothing’s working place right now.

I got you. I understand it’s normal. Take a deep breath, zoom out, look at the bigger picture. Make some small intentional adjustments. Just one thing at a time. Give it a couple of weeks, see if anything changes, and then just trust the process. Because the truth is that if you keep showing up for yourself, if you keep doing your best, if you are consistent, if you keep putting in the work, if you keep your head in the right place, I promise the results will eventually come.

They will, right? The, the only way you’re gonna get there is if you never give up giving up. Is sure you are sure to make sure that you are not gonna get the results that you want. Okay? Do not give up. The results will eventually come as long as you keep your head in the game and you keep making progress and keep, uh, being consistent with all this stuff.

Cool. All right, that’s all I got for you today. Love you all. Keep on running lean. I will talk to you soon.

282. Why Runners Struggle With Strength Training (And How to Fix It)

May 23, 2025 By Patrick McGilvray

If you’re a runner, you’ve probably heard that strength training can help you run faster, stay injury-free, and perform better overall. But knowing it’s important and actually doing it are two very …

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260. 10 Hard Truths About Fitness No One Is Talking About

December 20, 2024 By Patrick McGilvray

There is a lot of information out there these days on what it means to be healthy and fit. My social media feeds are full of health and fitness experts spouting all kinds of opinions and ideas and …

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Podcast Transcript

My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Sports Nutritionist, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.

Hey there, and welcome to episode 260 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners and today, 10 Hard Truths About Fitness That No One Is Talking About.

So there’s a lot of information out there these days on what it means to be healthy and to be fit. My social media feeds are full of health and fitness experts spouting all kinds of opinions and ideas and principles that everyone should be following. But in my years of training and coaching runners on weight loss and building strength and improving their running, I found a few things that really stand out.

So these 10 concepts I’m going to share with you today are not what most of the mainstream experts are talking about, but they are critically important to your health nonetheless. So yes, I decided to make a list. It’s the end of the year, and everyone’s making lists, so I’m getting in on this action too. Just like Santa, he’s making a list. So in this episode of the podcast, I’ve got 10 hard truths about fitness that no one is talking about, so you can become the healthiest and most badass version of yourself yet.

But first, if you’ve been interested in working with me as your coach. I can help you to get leaner, to lose weight, to get stronger, to build some muscle, to run longer, to improve your endurance and to run faster, to run your fastest race. Whatever that means for you, or it could just be that you just want to improve your time. In general, you don’t like running races and you just want to get faster. All of that is possible for you.

You can actually become the healthy and healthiest and most badass version of yourself. It just takes a little bit of work. It takes a little bit of guidance, some direction, some feedback. You need support. You need accountability. You need somebody there that’s kind of showing you the way, and I can do that for you. So if you’re interested in working with me, you just got to go to my website, runningleancoaching.com, click on Work With Me, and you and I can work together to get you to that place, to get you to become the healthiest and most badass version of yourself.

Also, starting in the new year, I’m going to be offering a new type of coaching. This is going to be personalized running plans. So this is strictly going to be running coaching, and anybody can sign up. You can go to my website. I don’t have the page up yet, but just know that this the way that it’s going to work is you can go to my website. You can pick a plan; half marathon or a 5k or a full marathon or ultra marathon. You can sign up for coaching.

You’re going to fill out a questionnaire, answer a bunch of questions. I’m going to send you a customized training plan that’s written up just for you. How many days a week you’d like to run? You know, what types of workouts you like to do, what types of workouts you want to avoid. We’re going to work towards a particular event. So if you have a particular race that you want to train for, you’re going to tell me about that, and then you’re going to get this customized plan, and you’re going to get coaching from me. We’re going to be doing all this over texting.

So you’re going to be able to message me with questions. You’re going to send me runs. We’re going to stay in touch about how you’re progressing. This is a great way to become a more badass runner. So if you’re interested in running coaching. Be on the lookout. I’m going to be talking more about this in the coming weeks.

I should have everything ready to go for you by the first of the year, so that you can start your training for spring races and have a customized plan and have me as your running coach, helping you to achieve all of your running goals for 2025 cool, so just be on the lookout for that. I’ll be talking more about that very soon.

Okay, so today, I was thinking about the topic that I wanted to talk about for this episode. And we’re coming towards the end of the year, and I always start to think about lists. And I even thought about putting together an episode where I compile a bunch of tidbits from some old episodes, and I decided that I just wanted to share some concepts with you today. And the concepts are truths, hard truths about fitness that nobody’s really talking about.

These are things that are very important, and I just don’t hear many or any health and fitness fitness experts out there on the internet really talking about this stuff. You know, my social media feeds are full of health and fitness experts. You know, I follow a lot of different people, and I do that because I want to get other perspectives. And there’s some things that I just don’t hear a lot of people talking about, and I think they’re very important. And these things work for the people that I work with.

So my clients are going to follow a lot of these principles that I’m talking about here, if not all of them, and they get amazing results. So I wanted to share these with you guys here today, and I just want to say this, that I had some dentist work done this morning. I had an old cavity filling that was coming loose, or something like that, and so they needed to replace the filling. So they had to, like, numb my mouth and do some drilling, and everything’s good now, but it has taken me all day for my mouth to be not numb anymore, because when I was talking, I sounded like, it’s like cotton in my mouth or something like that. So if it’s if I sound weird today, that is why.

But I think I’m finally feeling like I have all the sensation back in my mouth and stuff like that. But oh my gosh, I haven’t had drilling in my mouth in decades, so this has been like an experience. Anyway. Okay, let’s get into this, 10 Hard Truths About Fitness That No One Is Talking About.

Number one, fasted training will turn you into a fat, burning machine. So this is we’re talking about training fasted that means fasted cardio, so fasted running and fasted weight lifting, for example, could be fasted cross training as well. But the benefits of fasting and working out in that fasted state is that you’re burning more fat. It helps you to lose weight. It helps you to increase energy output.

A lot of people think, oh, you have to have something before you work out, you need to eat a bunch of sugar or, you know, a pre workout drink with all this, well, sugar and stuff in it, and you really don’t need that. Your body is really good at producing more adrenaline when you’re in that fasted state, adrenaline is what’s going to give you that more energy.

The other cool thing about working out in a fasted state is that your body during that fasted state produces more growth hormone, so this helps you to recover faster and more effectively from those harder workouts. So not only can you train harder because of more adrenaline output, but you actually recover faster. And if you’re somebody that is a runner and you want to lose weight training in the fasted state. Running in the fasted state is going to help you to get fat adapted. It’s going to help improve fat adaptation, speed up fat adaptation, and so you’ll be able to fat burning machine a little bit faster if you do more workouts fasted. And you’re going to find that as you run the longer distances that you run, you start running 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16 miles fasted, and you feel amazing doing it. There’s something to that.

You know, using fat as energy, using fat as fuel, is a very effective way of improving your endurance. It can actually help you to improve your higher end running to like the faster, harder running that takes more time to get there. But if you just want to improve your endurance, start training in that fasted state. It helps break through weight loss plateaus. You know, if you’re somebody that’s trying to lose weight, and you’re finding that you are, you hit a stall. Work out in that fasted state. It helps to improve mental and cognitive function. You know, you can think more clearly. Your brain loves fat as fuel. It helps to lower blood cholesterol levels. It helps to decrease inflammation. Glucose levels go down.

Something else people don’t understand is that they’re like, oh, you have to eat all the time so that you keep your metabolism going. And training in that fasted state actually increases metabolism. Studies have shown that fasting up to 48 hours, I’m not suggesting you fast for 48 hours, but up to that number, then you start to get diminishing returns. But up to 48 hours actually boosts metabolism by up to 14% so this is pretty amazing. So not only can you train harder, recover faster, less inflammation, more weight loss. You break through weight loss, plateaus, more cognitive function, lower cholesterol, decreased inflammation, like there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be training in the fasted state. Okay, so this is one thing that I want you guys to think about and maybe try. So that’s number one.

Number two, talking about fasting. Do a 24 hour fast every week. This is something that I’ve been doing for years. You want to improve fat burning, then this is an awesome way to get your body into fat burning. I pick a day every week. Usually it’s Mondays for me, because on the weekends, I tend to do my longer runs like on Saturdays, Sunday’s kind of an off day, but I may the weekend is usually when I might have like a what we call like a cheat meal, okay? And I’ll talk more about that in a minute.

I’ve actually got that on my list here, but Monday is a day where I feel much better if I just don’t eat anything until like dinner time. So I’ll eat dinner on Sunday night, and then I work out in the morning on Monday. I run in the morning on Monday, and then I won’t eat anything until dinner time on Monday evening, so I’ll go about 24 hours with nothing. And this helps.

What this really helps with is not only energy increased and decreased inflammation and stronger workouts and things like that. So you get all those benefits I just mentioned for working out in the fasted state, but also you get into autophagy. Autophagy starts to happen around 17 hours of fasting. So once you get into that 16-17 hours of fasting and beyond, that’s when you start to increase autophagy.

So autophagy is a natural self preservation mechanism where your body removes damaged parts of cells and recycles other parts of cells. And it’s basically cellular repair. It’s like out with the bad and in with the good. So it’s your body’s way of cleaning out damaged cells in order to regenerate newer, healthier cells. So this is one of the best things that you can do to improve autophagy. Is just do it a little bit of an extended fast I don’t really go past 24 hours. I’ve done 36, I’ve done 48, I’ve done 72 hour fasts. And they’re good for different reasons. And some people like those. But personally, I like to do the 24, I’m pretty good with that.

I want to have a certain protein requirement and certain energy requirements. So I’m trying to make sure that I’m eating enough every day. I don’t want to do a 48 hour fast or something like that. That might have some diminishing returns on some of my workouts. So for me, anyway, I prefer not to do those longer fasts, but 24 is awesome. You can get a lot of great benefits from doing that. I feel leaner on those days. I feel lighter. You know? It helps me to keep my weight in check. If I notice my weight going up a pound or two, I just do a longer, fast like that, boom. It’s like, right back to where I want it to be. And I have lots of energy on those days. I’m kind of buzzing with energy on those days. Okay? So that’s number two.

Number three, another hard truth that no one is talking about is, quit drinking alcohol. I know this is a hard one for a lot of people, because they think, Well, you know, I don’t drink that much. It’s okay. You know, I’m drinking in moderation, and that is fine. And if you want to do that, I have no problems with that, but I’m just going to tell you that a lot of new studies have come out that have shown that the amount of alcohol that is actually good for you is 0. Zero amount of alcohol is good for you. It’s not healthy, it’s not a health food. It’s a poison. Ethanol is a poison. They use it to, you know, strip, you know, oil off of driveways, stuff like that. It’s not good for you.

It disrupts sleep. It impedes detoxification. So if you’re trying to, like, get into autophagy and things like that, that’s going to stop that process. It causes weight gain. Makes it very difficult to lose weight. If you’re somebody that wants to lose weight, I’m going to tell you right now, you have to stop drinking alcohol, because that is just going to totally thwart your progress. Alcohol impedes recovery. It’s addictive. There’s a lot of people that get addicted to alcohol, and a lot of times, the more you drink, the more you need and it can be a really vicious cycle and very hard to get out of.

When you’re drinking you also make bad decisions or not ideal decisions. You know, you tend to be a little more loosey goosey with your plan, with your rules, with your food plan. So people that drink more tend to not make very good decisions around food either. Okay, and it degrades your performance.

So as a runner, alcohol is going to degrade your performance even a couple of drinks a week, if you had one or two drinks a week, you’re never fully removing the alcohol from your body. And you’re never going to really get a good night’s sleep. You’re always going to feel stressed. Your workouts will suffer. Running is going to suffer. Weight loss will suffer. Your recovery is going to suffer. So just keep all of that in mind. If you want to drink, fine, but just know that it is not good for you, and if you want to become a healthy, fit individual, alcohol really should not be part of the plan. Okay.

Can you drink occasionally? Yes, will it affect you for a few days afterwards? Yes, you know, it takes your body about 48 hours or so to metabolize that alcohol during that 48 hours, you’re not burning fat. Your body has to process that alcohol first, so you’re not going to be burning fat. So if you’re trying to lose weight, zero, alcohol is the right amount for you. Okay, sorry to be a buzz kill, but literally, this is not good for you, all right.

Number four, I adhere to the 90/10 rule. And I think this is something that a lot of people can do pretty successfully. The 90/10 rule is where 90% of the time you are eating some sort of a healthy, whole foods type of diet, you know, and 10% of the time you can just kind of do whatever for the most part. Okay, so I try to stick to this. 90% of the time I eat, you know, high protein. So I’m eating, you know, beef, chicken, steak. I’m eating salmon. I’m eating some dairy, some fruit, some vegetables, some, you know, yogurt and cottage cheese, high protein type of things like that, eggs, bacon, things like that. So real foods, food that still kind of looks like food.

And then 10% of the time, which works out to about a meal a week or so, I can do just kind of whatever, because I’m 90% of the time, I’m sticking to a really healthy diet, and then 10% of the time, if I have some pizza or some tacos, then that’s okay. It’s not going to affect me. It will hinder my progress a little bit, you know. But at this point, I’m not trying to lose weight. I’m trying to just maintain and actually get some, you know, bigger muscles and get a little bit stronger. So for me, that 90/10 rule works really well.

Some people say, Oh, 80/20 you know, 80% of the time you do the 20% Listen, 20% of the time is not good. That does not work for me. That’s too much. That’s too much junk food, honestly. So I kind of fall into the 90/10 rule. And again, this has to be something that’s sustainable for you. It will affect you. It won’t affect you for too long. You know, a couple days later, you’ll be back on track and stuff like that. But this is how I choose to live my life. It’s something that I do on occasion. It’s not every day. If you want to live your life more strictly and you want to be 100% on some kind of diet, then perfectly fine. Do that. I love the occasional pizza or some ice cream or whatever, and I want to do that every now and then. But it’s not the norm. It’s not something I do every day, because if I do it every day, I feel terrible. Okay, so practice the 90/10 rule. This is going to really help you a lot.

Number five, you need to get sunlight in the morning, so sleep is incredibly important. It’s where you recharge your body battery, you know, and all the running that we do, all the training that we do, it breaks you down, sleep is how you build back up again. And according to the CDC, about a third of the adults in the United States don’t get enough sleep every day. So that’s like one in three adults in this country do not get enough sleep.

So one of the best things you can do to regulate your sleep is to get sunlight in the morning. So this is where you get outside, and that light is hitting your eyes. So ditch the sunglasses. Don’t wear the sunglasses. Get that. Don’t stare at the sun. That’s not what I’m saying. So please don’t do that. Oh, Patrick said I should stare at the sun. No, do not stare at the sun. Don’t do that.

But when you’re running outside, or you’re walking outside, or just, you know, hanging out outside, and that light is, you know, hitting your skin and your eyes, then you are increasing a hormone called serotonin, and serotonin actually makes you feel better. People that get more serotonin tend to be in better moods.

There’s a lot of depression in places like Alaska where people get very little sunlight. You know, there’s times of the year where there’s like, zero sunlight, places like that, people tend to have poor mental health. And then places like, let’s say San Diego, where it’s very sunny a lot of time, or Florida, people tend to be a little bit happier. And so that’s not just a coincidence. It has to do with sunlight and your mental health, and serotonin is a big role to play there.

But something that’s also interesting is when you create serotonin in the morning, this is linked to an increase of melatonin production at night. That’s what helps you to get a better night’s sleep, okay? And also getting that light in the morning helps to, you know, regulate your circadian rhythms, right? So sunlight, it’s how your body makes vitamin D too which helps to improve bone health, bone density. And you know, too much sunlight, you gotta be careful with this, though, right? Practice moderation. Too much sunlight can contribute to skin cancers.

But a moderate amount of sunlight actually has preventative benefits when it comes to a lot of different cancers. So those people who live in places like I mentioned, like Alaska, tend to get more cancers because of the lack of daylight. So more colon cancer, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, ovarian cancer, pancreatic cancer, prostate cancer.

So just keep that in mind that you actually have a little bit of an immune response, and you can prevent some of these cancers just by getting regular sunlight. We’re made to get sunlight, especially in the morning. It helps improve bone density, it helps to improve your mood, and it helps you to prevent some of these cancers, and it helps you sleep better at night, so definitely get sunlight in the morning.

Okay, number six, you’ve got to prioritize rest days. If you want to avoid burnout and you want to avoid injury, you’ve got to make sure you’re getting enough rest. So too much training can lead to fatigue, to burn out injury into chronic stress. So training is a stressor and this can be a good thing if it’s acute. So acute stress is where you have an amount of stress that is high in the high amount of stress, but it’s short lived. So it’s, you know, like lifting weights, you go lift weights for an hour. That’s an hour of stress on your muscles, but it’s acute, and then it’s done right?

What we don’t want is chronic stress where you’re just putting yourself at a higher level of stress consistently over time. We don’t want that, because when that happens, your workouts start to suffer. Running feels harder. Your endurance tanks. You can’t run as far. Your race day is going to suffer. You’re not going to have as good a race.

So you’ve got to prioritize rest and recovery. You actually have to make those days as important as your training days. When you do this, when you actually make rest and recovery a priority, then you give your body a chance to rebuild, repair and recover from those hard workouts. You’re able to go harder on hard days, so that means you’ll improve even faster. You give your body a chance to adapt to the training load, which means you get stronger.

So you improve your cardiovascular system, you improve your skeletal muscular system. You’ll increase intensity and duration of workouts. You can go longer without feeling fatigued, and you’re going to feel better. Your workouts will actually feel easier because your rate of perceived exertion goes down. There’s positive mental benefits to getting enough rest. You’re going to feel more clear headed.

You can focus and concentrate better, and improve cognition. You’re going to feel happier, you’re going to be less moody and less negative, and then you’ll have an optimal performance on race day. So just keep this in mind, that you got to get rest, and I suggest taking at least one full day off each week. And then as you get into some higher training, you might want to take off more rest days.

You know you might need more rest as your training increases. So just keep that in mind, especially as you get closer to a race, a lot of people are like, oh, I need to train harder. No, you want to like, actually, you can train harder on some days, but also balance that out with more rest, okay.

Number seven, supplements will not make up for a crappy diet. Okay, so we gotta stop looking for some kind of a magic pill. This should be common sense, but so many people are looking to supplements to get healthier, when, in reality, your diet is like 95% of your health is related to what foods you’re eating. Honestly, so many people think that I just need to start running and I’m going to get healthier. I just need to start taking this supplement, you know, whatever it is, and I’m going to get healthier.

And really, if you got to change your diet more than anything else, right? Supplements won’t make up for a crappy diet, so stick to a whole food diet, like I talked about healthy proteins, vegetables, fruit, dairy, eat food that our ancestors would recognize. You know, I think there are some supplements that are okay, like protein. I take protein. There’s there’s two supplements I take because I know they work for me. I’ve taken a lot of supplements that do nothing, that I’ve literally saw zero results, okay, like so. So the two supplements that I take now are protein and creatine. Protein for muscle synthesis, like protein, I need a certain amount of protein each day that just helps me to get there, and then the creatine for muscle building and muscle repair helps you recover from hard workouts.

So these are all the only two supplements I really take anymore, you know, maybe a multivitamin, and that’s about it. So we want to ditch supplements just eat real food like stick to eating real food.

You don’t need all these supplements. We didn’t need supplements for like, two and a half million years as human beings, like we just started doing this, you know, within the last 30-40, years, maybe much, much more since, you know, the internet and all this other stuff. So just keep in mind that we don’t need all these supplements. Just eat real food. You know, just eat real food.

Okay, number eight, eating healthy is just as easy as eating crappy. So I hear from people all the time that it’s too hard to eat healthy. Oh, I want to get fit. Patrick, I want to lose weight, but eating healthy, it’s just too hard, you know? They’ll say it’s hard to find healthy options when they eat out. It’s hard to find healthy options that are quick and that are easy to make.

You know, it’s harder to shop for healthier options at the grocery store. And honestly, these are all just excuses. You want to know what’s easy. Whatever you do consistently is going to be easy, all right? It’s hard because you’re just not used to it. You just are not doing it, so you got to just do it and get used to it.

Get the junk out of your house, throw away all the garbage, food that you have in your house, and stock it full of healthy options. That’s step one, because, listen, you do that, and now the only choices you have in your house are healthy options. Okay, so that’s not hard to get rid of all that junk, fill your house with healthy foods. Okay?

When you go to restaurants, ask them to make something different for you. I go to places and I’m like, hey, I want this. But take the bun off this burger. I want an extra burger patty. So give me a big stack of meat over here, some cheese, you know, all the veggies and stuff like that. Skip the fries. I’ll do some broccoli instead. Boom, I love this one restaurant that’ll make this perfect burger for me with eggs on it or whatever. Find the healthy options at restaurants, and then just go there more often.

And then every time you find a new one, write it down. I have a little list on my phone. I know I’m kind of a nerd in this way, but I have a note on my phone with all these restaurants. And anytime I’m thinking, like, oh, what should I eat tonight? I’m like, ooh, that barbecue place makes that awesome, those dry rub wings that I love, that don’t have any of that sugary, you know, barbecue sauce all over them. Ooh, yeah, I’m gonna go there, right?

And then when it comes to, like, making food at home for your family and all this stuff, there are literally, and I say that, I mean that word literally, millions of websites with hundreds of millions of healthy, easy, quick recipes. All you got to do is do a little Google search.

I just did a Google search earlier today on healthy, quick, easy recipes. Oh my god. There’s so much that came up. There’s no shortage of information out there. So stop saying that eating healthy is hard. It’s not hard. You just don’t want to do it. You’d rather eat junk food. So you say it’s hard, so you can be off the hook, right? This is a blaming mentality. You’re not taking responsibility for your own food choices, so start taking responsibility. Start making better choices for yourself. Hey, this is about your health. Healthy Eating is not hard, right? You’re just using that as an excuse. So stop doing that.

Okay, all right, I’m done with that little rant. All right. Number nine, you’ve got to prioritize protein at every meal. So when it comes to runners, there are two things that they are notorious for. One of them is not strength training, and the other is not eating enough protein, right? Running is a catabolic activity. That means it breaks down muscle tissue. You need protein to build back muscle tissue, you need to be doing some strength training as well. That’s for a whole nother episode.

But you got to do strength training consistently, and you got to get enough protein every day. Not getting enough protein can cause muscle loss. Listen, sarcopenia, that’s muscle loss begins around age 30, for most adults, most adults start losing muscle mass when they hit their 30s, and you can lose up to 8% of your muscle mass every decade from 30 on. So by the time you’re 80, you’re gonna have lost if you don’t do anything to offset this, you’re gonna have lost like 40% of your muscle mass. That’s crazy.

Loss of muscle mass is one of the leading contributors to early death. Because people lose their muscle mass, they can’t ambulate properly, they can’t stand up, they fall. They break a hip. Now they’re bedridden, and then they degrade really fast at that point. So once you’re, like, laid up in bed and you’re, you know, in your 80s or 70s or whatever, like, you’re gonna degrade really fast. Okay, I don’t want to be that person.

So get enough protein, strength train, keep up your cardiovascular health. I want to be able to pick up my grandkids and, you know, run a 5k until I’m 100 years old, whatever. Okay, also listen, when you eat a lot of carbs and sugars, you’re going to be really hungry all the time. You’re never going to feel full, so you’re always going to be craving more carbs and sugar.

When you’re eating more protein, you’re basically going to be full. You’re going to be like, very full all the time, which means that your body will be able to metabolize that nutrient dense food that you’re eating. Protein is very nutrient dense, so you’re going to be getting more nutrition from the food that you’re eating: A. B, you’re not going to be as hungry all the time, and then C, you’re going to burn more fat because you don’t have all this sugar, raising insulin levels and causing your cells to hold on to all that stored body fat.

Okay, protein means you’re probably going to be eating a little bit less, but you’re going to be getting more nutrition from the food that you’re eating, so just make protein the priority at every meal. Okay, all right, that was number nine.

Number ten, this is a hard truth for all of you. There is no finish line, okay? This is a lifestyle. The stuff I’m talking about right here, it’s not a short term thing. You must commit to this as a lifestyle. There is no finish line. Your Health, being a healthy, fit individual, being the most badass version of yourself. It’s not a destination you’re trying to get to. It’s how you live your life. Every day.

Everybody wants to go on a diet. That means you’re going to probably go off the diet at some point. Right? Everyone wants to lose weight fast. Very few people want to commit to a healthy lifestyle. Why? Because it’s hard. It takes hard work. It takes commitment. The people I work with, though, this is where they are different from most people, they get it. They are in this for good, not for some quick fix.

So this is all about sustainability. And the people that I work with are in this because they want to live their life in a different way. Sustainability is really the key, or it has to be something that you can do from here on out. And that’s why, for me, I like that one meal a week where I can eat some pizza or something like that. That’s sustainable for me, what does that look like? For you? It might be a little bit different. That’s okay, what? But that works for me. It helps me to stay fit, helps me to stay healthy, and it’s something that I can sustain easily from here on out. I don’t want to have FOMO all the time thinking that I’m missing out on something amazing.

So I’m going to eat that pizza at that new pizza place down the street. But I’m not going to do it all the time. I’m going to do it every now and then. Okay, but you have to commit to this as a lifestyle, and this takes making a real commitment. That means you’re going all in on yourself. You can no longer blame anybody else or anything else for your results or your lack of results.

You have to take responsibility for all of your outcomes, whether they’re good or bad. It’s the only way you’re going to stick with it. You have to be responsible for your own results. Your success cannot hinge on anyone else or anything else. It has to come from within. So you have to decide who you want to be. You have to make a real commitment to becoming that version of yourself. And then you get to work, and then you never, ever stop.

Every day you want to say to yourself, This is who I am. This is what I do. This is how I live my life from here on out, okay, all right, that’s all I got for you today. Love you all. Keep on Running Lean and I will talk to you soon.

241. The Best Cross-Training Exercises for Runners

August 9, 2024 By Patrick McGilvray

A lot of runners believe that when it comes to exercise, running is more than enough. They love running, do it 6-7 days a week, and don’t feel the need to do anything else. Then there are those …

Continue Reading about 241. The Best Cross-Training Exercises for Runners →

Podcast Transcript

My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, sports nutritionist, Master life coach and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you, properly fuel your body and your mind so you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.

Hey there and welcome to episode 241 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners, and today, the Best Cross-Training Exercises for Runners. So a lot of runners believe that when it comes to exercise, running is more than enough. They love running. They run six, seven days a week. They don’t feel the need to do anything else. Then there are those runners, and you know who you are out there, who believe in the power of cross training, and some believe in it so hard that they find themselves doing some form of cross training six or seven days a week. In addition to running wherever you fall on the spectrum, you know, whatever end of the spectrum you’re on, there are some forms of cross training that provide more benefits to you as a runner. So in this episode, I’m gonna explain what cross training is, what it isn’t, and offer suggestions for the best cross training exercises for you as a runner.

But first, if you’re interested in getting leaner and stronger, if you’re interested in running faster or longer, then you need to change your behaviors, because doing the same things is not going to get you there. Nothing changes, if nothing changes, right? But the real secret is doing these new things, making these changes and making them consistent. If you decide you want to get stronger, so you go to the gym once a month, it’s not going to get you the results that you want. If you want to get faster and you do speed work once a month, that’s not going to get you there. You need to adopt new behaviors, and you need to start doing them consistently. And this is where coaching really helps, because trying to stay on track yourself is very challenging. I know I’ve tried it a million times, and it never really worked for me until I got a coach. Then everything changed. Now, you know, I had somebody there was that guiding me every step of the way, holding me accountable, calling me out when I started slipping back into old behaviors. But most importantly, I had a coach that would never let me quit. So if you’re ready to start doing new things, adopting new behaviors and doing them consistently, consistently, then let’s get you there. Just go to running lean coaching.com. Click on work with me, and I’ll show you exactly how to become the most badass version of yourself yet.

Cool. Okay. The reason I wanted to talk about this today is because a lot of runners think that just running is enough of an exercise to do. I talk to runners all the time who tell me they don’t do any kind of cross training, they don’t do any kind of strength training, and that they run, and that’s good enough. And you know what? Running is great for you. There’s a lot of benefits for running. And then there are some runners who do all the cross training, and they work out all the time. They don’t take time off. They really don’t take enough time off, probably. And so there’s people on both ends of the spectrum here, like I mentioned at the intro here. So wherever you fall on that spectrum, let’s kind of get into what might be some of the best exercises that you can engage in so that you can start getting better results.

Okay, so first of all, what are we talking about here? What is cross training? So cross training is really, it’s engaging in one or multiple forms of intentional exercise in order to improve performance in your main sport. So for us runners, this would be any type of intentional exercise that complements your running goals or helps you to achieve your running goals. And your running goals might be to run faster or to run longer, to improve your running efficiency or to reduce your risk of injury. Okay, so any type of intentional exercise that complements your running goals helps you to reach those running goals.

What cross training isn’t for one. Cross training is not a substitute for running. So if you want to improve your running, you have to run right. You just can’t do cross training solely and then hope to run a marathon right? I think we kind of know that, but cross training should be used as a supplement to running, not a substitute for running, okay? And the one exception to that would be if you are injured and you can’t run, then cross training is a great way to, you know, supplement running and to maintain some level of fitness or without actually running. A lot of people who have maybe an overuse injury, let’s say something like a stress fracture of their, you know, tibia, or something like that. And they’re they can’t run, they need to take some time off running, but they can do other things like swimming or elliptical. So those are considered cross training exercises for runners that really help to improve your cardiovascular system, to keep your fitness up, to improve your endurance, but they’re not running, you know? But that’s that would-be one exception there. So in that case, it’s kind of a substitute for running, because you can’t run.

The other thing cross training is not, it’s not strength training necessarily. So there are types of cross training that are exactly that, that are strength training. So like weightlifting comes to mind, and I’m going to talk all about this in a minute, but keep in mind that all cross training is not strength training. And I talk to people all the time who tell me, you know, ask them specifically, are you doing anything to build strength? Are you getting stronger? Are you lifting weights? Are you doing regular strength training? Oh, yeah, I do yoga, or, you know, I swim, or I cycle, those things. You know, you might build a little bit of strength, but there’s a limit to which you’re going to get there. It’s really not intentional strength training. A lot of that stuff is more cardio type of behavior. So just keep that in mind, that cross training is not a substitute for running, right? It’s a supplement, and that it’s not necessarily strength training, but it could be so.

Is cross training recommended for runners? Is it good for you as a runner, or is it harmful? And this all depends on how you do it, how often you do it if you’re recovering properly between workouts and things like that. So there are tons of benefits to cross training for runners, and there are also some downsides. You know, there are some things you got to be careful of, and most of the downsides are based on when you start doing too much and you’re not recovering properly. In other words, when you start to cross over into overtraining, doesn’t matter what you’re doing. If you’re overtraining, this can lead to injury, you know? It can lead to burnout. It can lead to exhaustion, lethargy, like there’s all kinds of things that you can experience if you’re overtraining. So you got to be careful not to overtraining.

But cross training. If you want to do cross training, you should be incorporating some sort of cross training into your weekly training schedule. You know, I’m a big proponent of cross training for runners. I think it is good for you. I think the benefits really outweigh any kind of negatives. As long as you’re doing it properly, you should be training to run, not just running to train. In other words, use cross training to help improve your running, but don’t overdo it. Obviously. Don’t just run and make that your only form of training. I think that as a well rounded fit athlete, if you want to reach your peak performance, if you want to reach your full potential, you should be doing some sort of cross training.

And then another question comes up a lot, which is, how often should I be doing cross training? And again, I hate to keep saying this, but it really depends on your goals and on the individual. If you’re training for the Olympics, let’s say you’re training for the Olympic, you know, 5000 meters, you know. You might be cross training every single day, you know. But if you’re a normal human being like me, then maybe you want to run a faster half marathon, you know. So one to three days of cross training per week is probably where you want to be. That could be enough for you.

Okay, you can do more as long as you are properly recovering from the previous workout. So let’s say you start your workout on Thursday morning and you’re absolutely wiped out from the previous day’s workout, whether it’s a run, you know, cross training session, whatever, if you’re absolutely wiped out, then you might be over training. And some forms of cross training are easier on your body than others. So if you’re doing some mobility or flexibility work like foam rolling, stretching, yoga. These are not as taxing on your body as, you know, high impact intervals or, you know, plyometrics or something like that. So you can get away with more cross training sessions per week if you’re incorporating some of these types of trainings into your weekly schedule.

The key though is really just listen to your body. Make sure you’re seeing improvements in your fitness. You don’t want to be breaking yourself down. So how often you should train is really an individual. It’s up to the individual. Again, one to three days a week is probably good for most people. But, you know, for example, I lift weights five days a week, you know, I do yoga once a week, and then I do some other forms of, maybe some rucking, or some, you know, brisk walking a few days a week. So it just depends on the individual and what types of exercises you’re engaging in. Okay, really, it’s just, it’s mostly about making sure you’re improving and that you are recovering from the previous workout.

Okay, so if you’re interested in getting into some cross training, then the first step is to determine your goals for cross training. So you have to have one or more goals in mind in order to get the most out of the cross training that you choose to do. So instead of just saying, like, oh, people say I should be doing, you know, some swimming or rowing, you know, just determine what your goals are, you know, first, and then you can just decide what exercises might best help you reach those goals. So a few goals that I would challenge you to kind of think about would be to prevent injury, to gain strength, you know, to actually get stronger, to run faster, to run longer, so either increase your speed as a runner or increase your endurance as a runner. You know maybe you want to PR a race, to build lean muscle, to improve your bone density, to increase mobility, to improve flexibility, to improve your cardiovascular system, to improve your explosive power, or maybe it’s all of the above, or some combination of aforementioned goals. So whatever your goals are, and there might be more than I’m not thinking of, but those are the ones that, the big ones that kind of came to mind. Once you know your goals, you can start looking at different exercises, different cross training exercises that actually help to help you to reach those goals.

Okay, so let’s go through some of these. So if you want to prevent injury, a few cross training exercises you might want to consider would be strength training. You know, when you get stronger muscles, you’re less likely to get injured. You also build stronger connective tissues, ligaments and tendons, which is where most runners tend to get injured. You build just a stronger structural system, you know, stronger bones as well. So if preventing injury is one of your goals, then regular strength training will go a long way to help with that, also preventing injury. Mobility work like stretching and foam rolling, and flexibility work like stretching, yoga, Pilates.

So all of these things can help you if your goal is to prevent injury, right and, and you don’t have to do everything I just mentioned under that category, but you can just pick a few things. You know? Maybe you do pilates and some foam rolling every week, and some regular strength training, and then you’re doing enough to prevent injury, okay? Maybe your goal is to get stronger. Again, strength training like this is intentional resistance training like weightlifting, right? You have to have some resistance. You got to overload your muscles. You know? We want to progressive overload the muscles in order to get stronger. And we want to be doing upper body as well as lower body exercises that work various muscle groups will give you the best overall results by just doing a few exercises.

For example, the three big ones that come to mind that work the most muscle groups are deadlifts, squats and bench press, like these are the big power lifting moves. But they work a lot of muscle groups, and they cover pretty much all your bases right there. Rucking with a weighted backpack or a vest. So this is just, you know, power walking or hiking in the woods, however you want to do it. This will get you stronger, and this helps to directly improve your running as well. If your goal is to run faster than obviously, you need to be doing some speed work, like some high intensity intervals, but also some things like pool running or jumping on a stair climber, doing hill repeats. And then again, strength training will help you to run faster as well, because you’re going to have more powerful muscles you know, to propel you down the road or on the trails. If your goal is to improve endurance as a runner, then any exercise that raises your heart rate and keeps it there is going to go a long way to help you improve your endurance.

So things come to mind like swimming, cycling, elliptical, stair climber, pool running, cross country skiing. It’s kind of hard to think about that. We’re in the middle of summer right now, but you know, maybe you’re on the other side of the world, and cross country skiing is something you can engage in. It’s awesome, awesome exercise to build endurance, and then strength training goes a long way to help improve endurance as well, because strong muscles take much longer to fatigue than weak muscles. So you want to improve your endurance as a runner, you know, get stronger. Do that regular resistance training, maybe one of your goals is to build lean muscle.

So hypertrophy training, this is going to be probably the best type of cross training that you can do to build lean muscle. So this is resistance training done with lighter weights and more sets and reps. So your volume is going to be much higher but the amount of weight you’re using is going to be quite a bit lower than strength training. If you’re actually training to build strength. You’re going to be working with heavier weights and fewer sets and reps. And I did a whole podcast about this a while back. I don’t remember which number it is. I’ll try to put a link in the show notes to that episode.

Rucking is another way of building lean muscle, especially lower body, but also core, back, neck. You know, if you’re doing anything with a weighted backpack, you know, it does put some type of strain on your shoulders and your upper body, and so it does help to improve strength all over. Let’s see, improve bone density.

So impact activities like running actually help improve bone density. So bone stress is one way that this works. So when you run, your muscles pull on your bones, which causes them to reform and become stronger, right? It’s called Bone metabolic activity. And then the higher impact stuff like running is a high impact exercise, and higher impact activities generally have a greater effect on bone density than lower impact activities.

But in addition to running, since we’re talking about cross training here, strength training helps to build stronger bones, rucking, hiking trail running, Plyometrics, jumping rope, any time you’re engaging in any kind of high impact or higher impact activities is going to help improve bone density.

Keep in mind, though, that again, when we talk about over training, you know, there’s a point of diminishing returns where you could be over training when it comes to too much impact, and this could start to have some diminishing returns on bone density, so just be sure to stay out of that over training zone. Make sure you’re not over training if your goal is to increase mobility, then you want to be engaging in functional mobility exercises like kettlebell swings and yoga and stretching and foam rolling. So all of these things can help improve your mobility.

Plyometrics is a good one for that as well, if we’re talking improving flexibility, yoga, stretching. I love my power Yin class that I take every week. So this is a yoga class. The first half of the class is building strength and endurance. So this is the power part of the class. Second part of the class is the Yin yoga part of the class. So this is where we are holding poses, and not, you know, it’s not building endurance. So you might be seated and you’re holding a stretch for a longer period of time. That part I love. I love that part of the class, because I just feel whenever I leave there, I feel more flexible.

If your goal is to improve your cardiovascular system, you might want to consider HIIT training, you know, again, high intensity intervals, stair climber, elliptical, swimming, cycling, cross country skiing, hiking, even just brisk walking, anything again to get your heart rate up and keep it there.

And then, if your goal is to improve explosive power, then plyometrics and any type of resistance training done with power, as opposed to, like, slow lifts. So if you’re doing, you know, bench press instead of just, you know, pushing the weight up very slowly, you’re going to power that weight up and power that weight up like, that’s how you’re going to do your reps, if you want to build power into your muscles. So improving explosive power can be done with, you know, plyometrics specifically, but also with explosive resistance training as well.

And then, if your goal is maybe to improve your running form, HIIT training like sprinting is an awesome way to improve your running form. Because if you think about this, try this the next time you’re out running, go sprint for a few minutes, you know, or 30 seconds at a time, or whatever it is, and you will find that your running form is much different when you’re sprinting, it’s much more efficient, like you just run differently when you’re sprinting. It’s really hard to run with bad form when you’re sprinting, so practice intervals like sprinting to help improve your running form, but also things like yoga and pilates can help with that too, because they help improve your core. Pilates is an awesome core and back strengthening type of exercise.

So as you can see, there are a ton of awesome cross training exercises that you can do, that you can choose from. So the first step is to figure out your goals, and then decide which of these might help you to reach those goals, and pick a few from some of these categories, you know, just be sure that you’re not over training right. Again, maybe one to three days of cross training is enough for you. You can do more as long as you’re recovering properly from each of these workouts.

The important thing is that you are doing some sort of intentional exercise to help supplement and improve your running and help you to reach those running goals that you have. You know, running is great and you need to keep running in order to get faster as a runner, or to run longer distances or improve your running form. All those things are going to help, but consider some of these cross training exercises that will help you to also accomplish those goals and maybe a little bit faster and stay injury free in the process.

Cool, that’s all I got for you today. I know you guys got this. Love you all. Keep on Running Lean and I will talk to you soon.

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