Speed

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 299 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGill. Ray, the weight loss coach for runners in today. Muscle is your metabolic secret weapon. A lot of runners I talk to are obsessed with burning calories, cutting carbs, logging endless miles, trying to get leaner, and while running, you know, does burn some calories.

It’s actually not the most efficient way. To change your body composition, the real magic happens when you build lean muscle mass. So today I’m gonna break down exactly how muscle boosts your metabolism, increases your fat burning potential, improves your running economy, and helps you to stay lean for life.

By the end of this episode, you’re going to have a whole new appreciation for your muscles and hopefully. Some motivation to start strength training if you haven’t already. But first, if you’re looking for guidance and support to lose weight, the right way, to get stronger, to run faster, and to make it all sustainable, I got you covered.

Just go to my website, running lean coaching.com, click, click on work with me, and together we’ll put together a personalized plan that’s going to help you to reach your goals without all the confusion and the frustration. That’s running lean coaching.com. Click on work with me. So muscle is your metabolic secret weapon.

Let’s start with why muscle matters. So most runners think of muscle as something that bodybuilders care about, not something that runners actually need. And I hear this all the time, I don’t wanna get too bulky, or I just wanna run. I don’t care about lifting weights, and I talk to a runner. Uh, just yesterday, who is, uh, very strong.

She’s a, a young woman. She is a very fast runner. Her, her, uh, marathon PR is a 2 51. That’s pretty speedy, and she is incredibly strong. She’s got some muscle mass on her. I would not call her a bodybuilder. She is not a power lifter. She does lift heavy weights. Um, and she is doing everything that I’m gonna be talking about in here.

Today, she’s doing all of these things the right way. Um, she has definitely put on some muscle, but she is a very, very efficient runner. But if you looked at her, you would say like, oh, you know, she just looks like she’s a pretty fit person. Okay. She’s not bulky. If you are worried about getting too bulky, um, just put that outta your mind.

I’m just gonna tell you right now, it is very, very difficult to get bulky. Okay. I’ve been trying to get bulky for a while now, and as a runner it’s hard because. You know, running kind of breaks down muscle tissue. It, it breaks down. Um, you, it just breaks you down, right? It’s, it’s a, it’s a, a catabolic activity.

That means it breaks down muscle tissue. It’s not an anabolic activity muscle, uh, uh, strength training is a muscle building activity. It’s a anabolic activity. So if you’re doing both, if you’re lifting weights and. Running a lot. Chances are you’re not gonna put on a ton of muscle. You can put on some muscle, but it’s more difficult when you run a lot, especially if you’re a ultra endurance athlete.

Um, have you ever seen these guys that run, uh, the Olympic marathon? Men and women? They’re very, very lean. They’re muscular, but they are incredibly lean. They’re very small people in general. So getting bulky is not something I want you to worry about. It’s very hard to get bulky. It takes. Years of going to the gym, you gotta eat a ton of calories, tons of protein.

You gotta be very intentional about bulking up. Um, yeah, don’t worry about that. Okay? And listen, muscle is not just about how you look, it’s not just about aesthetics. It’s metabolically active tissue. That means that the more muscle you have, the more energy your body requires. Yeah, just to keep you alive.

So think of your muscles like little calorie burning furnaces, right? Even when you’re just sitting on the couch or sleeping those furnaces, your muscles are cranking away. They’re burning fuel. So if your goal is to lose fat and keep it off building muscle is your secret weapon. Here’s a stat that might blow your mind a little bit.

For every pound of muscle that you add, you burn seven to 10 extra calories per day at rest. And it might not sound like a ton, but imagine adding 10 pounds of lean muscle, that’s an extra 70 to a hundred calories per day every single day without losing, uh, without doing anything extra. And that adds up over time.

Okay, so muscle is metabolically active tissue. It’s very important and it can really help to, uh, make you a better fat burner because it just burn. You burn more calories at rest when you have more muscle, and if the type of calories you’re burning is mostly fat, then you’re gonna burn more fat. Let’s get into metabolism a little bit more though, because most people just think that metabolism is something.

That you are born with, like you either have a fast metabolism or a slow metabolism. I hear this from people all the time. Oh, my metabolism is just slow. I’ve always had a slow metabolism. The truth is your metabolism is largely influenced by your body composition. So if you have more muscle relative to fat, you’re going to have a faster metabolism.

If you have more fat relative to muscle, you’re going to have a slower metabolism. Why? Because fat is basically just storage. It just sits there, and it doesn’t require much energy to maintain fat muscle. On the other hand. Is like an expensive luxury item for your body, right? It takes work to maintain it.

Your body has to devote energy resources every single day. To keep that muscle tissue alive and functioning properly. So if you want to speed up your metabolism, stop worrying so much about cutting calories and start focusing on adding muscle so muscle can definitely improve your metabolism. Even if your whole life, you’ve thought, oh, I just have a slow metabolism.

Well build some muscle. Let’s, let’s give your metabolism a little bit of a boost here. Um, another benefit is when you have more lean muscle mass, your body becomes a more efficient. Fat burning machine. So muscle improves something called insulin sensitivity. This just means that your muscles are better at absorbing and storing glucose from the food that you eat, which prevents excess glucose from being stored as fat.

And when your insulin sensitivity improves, your body’s more likely to tap into fat for fuel. Think about it like this, having more muscle is like. Upgrading your engine from a four cylinder to a V eight. I’m not a big car guy, but this one kind of makes sense to me. So you’re not just burning more fuel overall, but you’re burning a better mix of fuel.

You’re able to use fat more effectively. As an energy source, both at rest and while you’re out there running, and for intern athletes, obviously this is huge because the more efficient you are at burning fat, the more or, or the longer that you can go. Without hitting the wall, without bonking. And the less reliant you are on constant gels and goos and things like that, um, the easier running is going to feel for you.

Okay? So the, the better fat burning you are, the, the easier, uh, running’s gonna feel. Um, the more muscle you have, the better fat burning you are. So just keep that in mind that if you want to improve your endurance, uh, muscle. Is the way to go. Again, secret weapon. Um, I wanna talk a little bit about running economy now.

So there’s another myth out there, um, a about building muscle, which. A lot of people subscribe to this, that it’s going to make you slower, right? So the first one is, I go, I’m gonna bulk up too much and then if I have too much muscle, it’s gonna make me slower. And this is one of the biggest objections I hear from runners.

Um, besides getting too big, it’s getting too slow. And the truth is that strength training and building lean muscle actually improve your running economy. So a running economy is basically how efficient you are at a given pace. And stronger muscles mean stronger. More resilient joints, better biomechanics, improved stride power, and overall less fatigue over time.

And they’ve done some studies and they’ve consistently shown that runners who add strength training to their weekly routine get faster. They can maintain their pace longer because. You know, strong muscles take longer to fatigue. They reduce their injury, uh, risk, and they recover quicker than people who are not as strong.

And that doesn’t sound like something that would really hurt your running, does it? It’s not gonna make you slower, okay? You’re not gonna bulk up, you’re not gonna turn into the Hulk overnight. And, and, uh, building muscle is not gonna make you slower. What you are going to do is become a stronger. More efficient and more durable.

Runner, that runner that I was talking about, um, who is very fast. She, she has some muscle on her. You know, you can, you can see that she’s very strong. But she is not the Hulk by any stretch, and she is extremely fast. And, you know, talking to her about this, she said that the game changer for her was strength training.

And that’s why she’s, um, so keen on consistently, uh, getting stronger, uh, all the time. She’s constantly working on, on getting stronger and, and it’s very smart. It really works well for her. So let’s zoom out a little bit because I wanna talk about. Some long-term health. So one of the biggest problems that people face as they get older is something called sarcopenia.

That’s, uh, the natural loss of muscle that happens with age, right? Starting as early as your mid thirties, um, the average American, uh, loses about three to 5% of muscle mass every decade. Um, that’s average. Some people lose a lot more, some people less. Um, but you, you can reverse this, right? You can actively do something to stop that and reverse that process.

A lot of people don’t realize this though, but imagine that from your mid thirties until whatever, 80, 90, a hundred years old, you just lose three to 5% of your muscle mass every decade. Ooh, that’s not gonna be good. Losing muscle though, listen, it also means that it slows down your metabolism. Um, it’s easier to gain fat.

Staying lean becomes harder because your metabolism has slowed down. And this is why so many people, they hit middle age and they suddenly feel like their body’s working against them. And the truth is they just lost muscle. And it doesn’t have to be this way. You gotta prioritize strength training and start building lean muscle.

Starting today. You’re essentially future proofing your body. If you do this, you’re keeping your metabolism revved up, you’re making fat, loss and and maintenance much easier, and you’re setting yourself up to stay lean, strong, and active for the rest of your life. So when I say muscle is your metabolic secret weapon, I mean it, it’s the thing that’s going to keep you healthy, fit, and lean, not just for running, not just for your next race, but for the rest of your life.

Okay? This is important. I, I tell my runners that I work with. Every single day that the most important type of exercise they can do for themselves is strength training. Yes, you should be running and yeah, running is great, blah, blah, blah. But strength training, it’s more important. It is more important than running.

And running is great, and I love it. Okay, so how do you get started with all this? How do you, um, actually build lean muscle without it, you know, interfering with your running? So I’m just gonna give you a few quick tips. I’ve talked a lot about strength training in the past. You can go back and look at some of those episodes.

Um, but number one is just. Lift heavy. Don’t be afraid to lift heavy weights. You know? Um, don’t, don’t think that you’re going to, uh, do some, uh, good for yourself If you just get this, the lightest dumbbells that you can find and lift them, you know, a hundred times, yeah, that might do something for you. You need to find something that’s challenging in the five to 10 rep range, somewhere around there.

Okay? ’cause that’s where you actually build strength and build lean muscle, right? So lift heavy. Don’t be afraid to lift heavy. That’s another big misconception is that lifting heavy is gonna bulk you up. That’s kind of the opposite is true. A hypertrophy that is building larger muscles comes from lifting lighter weights and doing a lot more sets and reps, lifting heavier weights, uh, fewer times.

So, um, shorter sets and reps. Will, uh, with heavier weights will get you stronger. And that’s really what we want. We wanna get stronger. Um, focus on the big compound movements. So these are the things that, uh, work multiple body parts like squats, deadlifts, lunges, pushups, pull-ups, rows, presses. These give you the most bang for your butt ’cause you’re working.

Multiple muscle groups all at the same time. One of my favorite, um, exercises of all time is the deadlift ’cause it’s working the whole posterior chain from the, from your head to your toes basically, and everything on the backside of your body, um, and a lot on the front as well. Um, but all those exercises I just mentioned, just get good at those and, and you’ll be, uh, super strong.

You’ll be a super strong runner. Um, keep your, your strength sessions short and focused, right? You don’t need to be in the gym six hours a day, six days a week. Two to three strength sessions per week, maybe a half hour or so. 45 minutes at each session is fine. You know, like you don’t have to like, spend your whole life, um, in a gym in order to get stronger.

You can do this relatively quickly. I did a really killer workout today. I only had about 45 minutes and I was surprised at how much I could get done in 45 minutes. Um. So that was number three and number four, um, getting started on all this is to prioritize recovery. ’cause your muscles don’t grow in the gym.

You know, you don’t recover in the gym, you don’t get stronger in the gym. Uh, your muscles grow, you get stronger at rest, like when you are at home, uh, sleeping essentially. So make sure you’re getting good quality sleep. Make sure you are. Eating enough protein and spacing out your strength sessions from your harder runs.

Do not do hard strength sessions and you know your long run on the same day, or don’t do a super heavy, hard leg day, and then the next day expect to have a, a really good, long run. That’s just a recipe for disaster. Um, and then number five, just stick with it. Building muscle takes time. It’s not going to happen overnight, but if you stay consistent, you’re going to start seeing benefits in, in a few weeks, in a few months.

So it’s not gonna take you years. Okay. But, um. A, a couple of years ago, I was pretty lean, I lost a bunch of weight and, and I lost a bunch of muscle in the process and I was able to, to gain about 12 pounds of muscle, and I think it took me like eight months. Okay, so that’s not that long of time to, to build some muscle.

Um, so just stick with it though. Everybody’s a little bit different. It depends on how you’re doing it, how often you’re doing it, if you’re getting enough protein, if you’re getting good quality sleep, all those things matter. Um, the thing is that you have to commit to this as a, as a lifestyle. It has to be part of what you’re doing.

Every single week, you know, we all plan our, our, uh, runs. We all know, oh, I’m gonna be running five times this week, and then next week I’m running four times. I’m doing these workouts like you got your whole month. Your, sometimes, you know, your whole training cycle is 16 weeks. Uh, 20 weeks, 12 weeks, whatever it is, all planned out every single day.

You know what you’re doing from a running standpoint, but when it comes to strength training, people are like, yeah, I just do it every now and then when I feel like it. No, you gotta, you gotta map this stuff out. It has to be planned. It has to be part of your, uh, weekly regimen. It just has to be something that you’re committed to doing and that you are doing consistently.

So just to wrap up, um, muscle is metabolically active tissue, which means it increases your resting, uh, metabolism. The, the calories that you burn at rest. Um, more muscle equals a faster metabolism and greater fat burning potential muscle improves insulin sensitivity. It helps you tap into more fat for fuel, stronger muscles improve.

You are running economy, reduce your risk of injury and just make you a more efficient runner. And then building and maintaining muscle keeps you lean and healthy for life, especially. As you get older, and if you take away one thing from today’s episode, it’s this stop being afraid of building muscle.

It’s not going to slow you down. It’s not gonna bulk you up. In fact, it’s the very thing that’s going to help you to run faster, burn more fat, and stay lean for life. And then remember, if you want help putting all of this into practice, if you wanna lose weight the right way, if you wanna get stronger, if you finally wanna just feel good about the way you look and the way you run.

Go to running lean coaching.com, click on work with me. I would love to help you make that happen. Okay, that’s all I got for you today. Love to you all. Keep on running lean. I will talk to you soon.