The Gym Should Build What Running Cannot

Strength training should support your running, not compete with it.

In this episode, Cliff Pittman explains how ultrarunners should approach the weight room, why most strength programs miss the point, and how to build strength that transfers to better performance, greater durability, and fewer injuries.

HOST

Cliff Pittman is the Coaching Development Director at CTS, leading the Ultrarunning and Cycling Coaching staff with a specialty in guiding athletes from first-time ultrarunners to elite competitors at races like Western States 100, Leadville 100, and the Triple Crown of 200s. A competitive trail and ultra athlete himself, Cliff brings firsthand experience and a rare ability to turn complex training science into simple, actionable coaching.

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Find more free resources here: https://trainright.com/blog/

Resources:

• https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4532714/
• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33629972/
• https://www.nasm.org/certified-personal-trainer/the-opt-model

Transcript

Two Strength Training Mistakes

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Most runners fall into one of two camps. They skip the weight room entirely because they're afraid it'll take something away from their running, or they treat it like a second sport, chasing soreness and volume that has nothing to do with why they wanted to integrate strength training in the first place. And both approaches miss the point. I'm Cliff Pittman, Director of Coaching at CTS. I work with first-time ultrarunners and world-class athletes competing on the biggest stages. I'm also a certified personal trainer. I say that up front because today we're talking about strength training for ultrarunners. Not for CrossFit athletes, not for bodybuilders, and not for hybrid athletes who are intentionally trading run volume for strength volume because they want both qualities and accept the trade-off. If that's your goal, the progression I'm about to walk you through still applies. But the volume and phase emphasis look completely different. This video is for ultra runners who want one thing from the weight room better running. Faster, more durable, more resistant to injury, and more resilient against the effects of aging. And before we go any further, let's be honest about something. If you don't have the time, the energy, or the competence in a gym to lift right now, that's okay. Strength training isn't and cannot replace running. It's a complimentary tool. And it only works when it's added in appropriately on top of a training life that's already built around running. It's not the season for it, then skip it and come back later. Nothing about what follows is mandatory for you to be a good runner. On the other side of that same coin, if you have other goals beyond running performance, general strength, building muscle, aesthetics, whatever it is, that's great too. Just go in with your eyes open. Chasing those goals at real weightlifting volume means accepting some trade-off and running performance. That's not a failure, it's just a different set of priorities. And you should be at peace with that trade-off rather than expecting to have it all. In many ways, you're choosing where to sit between two different physiological goals, running performance on one end and maximal strength or size on the other. And both ends are legitimate. You just can't fully occupy both at once. Here's where we're headed. We'll

The Real Job Of The Gym

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start at a 30,000 foot view and map out how the phases progress from one to the next. And then we'll bring it down to the earth, how often you should actually be lifting, when in the week, and how it fits around your running. And we'll finish at ground level, the individual workouts themselves, broken down into six movement patterns that cover everything you need. Now, for the runner who wants strength training purely in service of running, let's talk about the goal because everything in video depends on getting this right. Running already builds a tremendous amount of what your legs need. Aerobic capacity, local muscular endurance, movement efficiency at race pace. Running makes you better at running. The weight room's job is not to duplicate that. Its job is to build what running structurally cannot. Maximum strength and power, high force production, fast force production, the neuromuscular capacity that running, by its nature, doesn't ask enough of your body to develop. That's the entire thesis. Strength training complements what running doesn't achieve. It's not a second training season. It's not a place to chase fatigue. It's a tool for building qualities your sport needs but cannot build on its own. So how do we get there?

The Phase Progression Framework

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This is where progression model helps. At CTS, I use a NASM optimum performance training model, or OPT. It's not the only framework that works. There are several respected models out there, but they're all built on the same underlying evidence about how strength develops in a trained body. You don't walk into maximum strength work on day one. You progress through phases, and each phase prepares you for the next.

Phase One Stabilization First

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The first phase is stabilization. This is where you learn to move correctly under load before you load a movement that isn't correct yet. If you skip this phase, you're not saving time. You're building a stronger version of a compensation pattern. Load a faulty hip hinge or a collapsing single-leg stance, and you're just reinforcing the exact mechanical fault that eventually shows up as an overuse injury. Stabilization is where your nervous system learns the pattern. Everything after this phase is built on top of it. Once movement quality is established, you move into the second phase.

Phase Two Strength Endurance Done Right

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NASM calls this strength endurance. In the run world, you've probably heard this referred to as muscular endurance. This is a higher rep work, lighter to moderate loads, and is designed to bridge stabilization into heavier lifting. Here's why I want to be very direct with you, because this phase doesn't just get de-emphasized wrong. It gets fundamentally misapplied. For an endurance athlete, a properly built strength endurance workout has one job: bridge the gap between moderate load and heavy load. It's teaching your muscles, tendons, and nervous system to tolerate more resistance over more repetitions. So you can safely progress to phase three. That's it. It has nothing to do with your cardiovascular system. What most runners get instead is a workout that's been quietly tuned into a conditioning session. Add a cardio component, keep the rest period short, chase a certain heart rate or a certain burn, and call it strength endurance.

Why Fatigue Circuits Waste Time

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That's not a strength phase at all anymore. That's cardio wearing a strength training costume. It makes sense for the general population, but it's addressing cardiovascular fatigue. And that isn't the limiter for an ultrarunner. If you're trying to train your cardiovascular system in the gym, you have a far better tool sitting right outside your front door. As a runner, you want to move through the actual strength endurance phase quickly because done correctly, it isn't meant to be lived in. Let me explain why, because the physiology matters here. High rep, moderate to low load training primarily drives local muscular endurance adaptations. Better capillary density, improved local energy metabolism, and a muscle's ability to keep producing submaximal force over time. It's a real adaptation, and it sounds like evidence that you should do a lot of this training. However, as a runner, it's just not a new one for you. You already do tens of thousands of submaximal contractions every time you run. Your legs are exceptionally well adapted to producing modest force repeatedly, because that's the exact stimulus running provides over and over for years. So if the primary adaptation of high rep circuit work is muscular endurance, and running already builds muscular endurance better than any gym circuit can, you have to ask what you're actually gaining by staying in that phase or by dressing it up as cardio. The honest answer for most runners is not much. If you want more muscular endurance, you already have the better tool for that, and it's called running. Here's the deeper reason why. The adaptation is local to the modality. Training it in the gym builds muscular endurance in the gym. You get a lot better at lunges. That doesn't transfer to muscular endurance and running, at least not as well as running itself does. I want to drive this next point home as hard as I can because it's the root of almost every wasted hour runners spend in the gym. Coaches and trainers who build these fatigue circuits aren't thinking about what a runner's body is actually missing. They're trying to meet the specific demands of running inside the gym using gym tools. Now that's not specificity, that's imitation. It's mimicry of what running feels like without any of what running actually does. Here's the distinction that matters. Specificity means the training you do transfers to your event. It does not mean the training has to resemble your event. You cannot manufacture the specificity of running inside a weight room. Running specificity can only be met by running. The gen's entire value comes from doing something that running doesn't do, not from doing a worse version of what running already does perfectly well on its own. This is the mistake showing up on both sides of the aisle. Endurance coaches who don't understand strength training build fatigue circuits because they think replicating late race exhaustion builds resistance to it. Personal trainers who don't understand endurance training default to high-rep cardio adjacent circuits because that's what builds general fitness in their world. Both groups are solving a problem that doesn't exist, while ignoring the one that does.

Tendons Need Time To Adapt

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So why does the strength endurance phase matter at all if the goal is to move through it fast rather than live there? Because tissue adaptation doesn't happen on your timeline, it happens on the tendon's timeline. A systematic review and meta-analysis by Baum and colleagues examining exercise intervention studies in healthy adults found that meaningful tendon stiffness adaptations require a minimum of about eight weeks of consistent mechanical loading with continued adaptation over longer training periods. Tendons remodel far more slowly than muscle. Muscle can show meaningful strength gains within a few weeks. Tendon material properties take considerably longer to catch up. That mismatch is exactly why you can't skip straight into heavy loading. Your muscles might feel ready for more weight quickly, but your connective tissue isn't there yet. Strength endurance, done correctly and briefly, is what prepares tendons, motor unit recruitment patterns, and general work capacity for the heavier loads coming up. It's a short bridge to a destination, and is built from moderate loaded movement, not from cardio circuits wearing a strength label.

Phase Three Heavy Strength And Power

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Which brings us to phase three. This is where the actual transformation happens. Muscular development and max strength work is where you finally load the qualities running can't build alone. Heavy resistance, explosive output, real neuromuscular adaptation. This is the phase that improves running economy and is backed by strong, consistent evidence. A systematic review and meta-analysis published in Sports Medicine found that heavy and plyometric strength training improved running economy and distance runners, while low load, high rep training showed little to no benefit on that same measure. That's not a fringe finding, it's one of the most consistent results in the concurrent training literature. Now, within this phase, there's a decision most runners need to make, whether to pursue hypertrophy, meaning muscle growth, as an intermediate step. Now, for most runners, I suggest you skip it. Added muscle mass is tissue you have to carry uphill and supply with oxygen for the rest of your race. If you're not trying to build mass for a separate goal, outside of running, hypertrophy work is a cost without a return that you actually need. It also comes with some soreness and fatigue cost that competes directly with your quality run days, which is exactly what we said at the start we're trying to avoid. But realistically, most of you couldn't build significant mass through a hypertrophy phase even if you tried. You're running adequate volume, you're likely in some degree of energy deficit relative to what real muscle growth requires, and your recovery capacity is already being spent on your running. That's a catabolic environment, not one set up for building tissue. So this isn't really a restraint you need to exercise. It's more that the juice isn't there to begin with, so there's no reason to spend time and fatigue chasing it. Go from stabilization and strength endurance into heavier, low rep max strength and power work, progressing the low gradually rather than jumping straight to near max weight. You've already built enough tissue tolerance in the phases before this one, you don't need a separate mass building block to bridge the gap. Now,

Ultrarunning Versus Road Running Needs

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I want to pause here because everything I just described applies more cleanly to track and road running than it does to what most of you are watching actual training for. Ultrarunning and trail running are different sports from road racing. And the strength conversation has to shift with them. On the road, running economy is one of the central pillars of performance. In the mountains, it matters far less. Research comparing elite road and trail runners found trailrunners were measurably stronger but showed a greater cost of running, the direct measure of economy on flat ground, and it didn't hold them back. Separate research on ultra trail races beyond 100 kilometers found aerobic capacity and speed at that capacity predicted performance, while running economy's influence remained unclear. The variables that decide an ultra are different from the variables that decide a road marathon. So I want to be precise about what strength training's job actually is here, because it's easy to overstate this. Descents are where trail races do the most damage to your legs, and the specific adaptation that protects you against that, the ability to absorb repeated downhill loading without your legs falling apart, comes from running downhill. That specificity again. You build it by doing it on the terrain at the volume your training requires. What strength training gives you is something upstream of that. It builds your generally centric strength and tissue capacity, and it preserves the muscle mass and force output you're going to need as a foundation. Especially as you get older and start losing both by default. Think of it as raising your general capacity for absorbing force. The ceiling downhill running then draws from and sharpens into race-specific durability. It's not a substitute for the downhill running itself. You still have to run the descents. Strength training just makes sure the legs you bring to that work can absorb more force they could before you started.

Maintenance During Peak Mileage

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As you approach peak run volume, especially into a race build, strength shifts into a fourth phase, maintenance. And I want to be precise about what this phase is actually protecting. Maintenance is not just about reducing training stress so you can absorb more running volume, although that does matter. It's about frequency. Strength qualities you spent months building do not hold themselves. If you stop lifting entirely during your peak running volume block, you will lose ground on all of those strength adaptations, right when you need the most for durability late in a race. A review by Mujika and colleagues on minimal dose training found that strength and endurance adaptations can be maintained for extended periods, in some cases 15 weeks or more, but that maintenance still requires some ongoing frequency, with a meaningful drop in volume rather than a full stop, as long as some intensity is preserved. The volume can shrink substantially. The frequency, however, can't disappear. In practice, that means maintenance phase strength work is lower in total workload, but still shows up on the calendar, just enough stimulus to hold on to what you built without adding fatigue on top of peak mileage.

Minimum Effective Dose For Runners

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So, how much of this do you actually need overall? This is the question I get asked more than any other, and the research gives us a clear answer. A randomized controlled trial by Stonzel and colleagues compared recreational female runners doing either 30 minutes or 60 minutes of strength training per week, alongside reduced running volume against a running only group. Both strength groups significantly improved maximal running performance compared to running alone. Once or twice a week in modest total volume was enough to move the needle. That is your minimum effective dose. One to two sessions per week. That's it. You don't need more than that to get the performance benefit, and going beyond that starts training against your run training rather than supporting it. Now

Timing Lifts Around Quality Runs

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let's talk about timing because when you lift matters as much as how often. The framework is hard days hard, easy days easy. Strength training pairs with your quality run days, not your recovery days. If your rest day is supposed to let your body absorb training stress, don't spend it tearing down muscle tissue in the gym. But there's a more specific rule inside that. Give it at least three hours after a quality run before you lift. Two things are happening in that window. Endurance training spikes a molecular signal called AMPK, and research shows it takes roughly three hours to return to baseline. Loading heavy while that signal is still elevated blunts some of the strength and power adaptation you're in the gym to get. At the same time, that gap gives your body a head start on glycogen replenishment. So you're not asking your legs to produce force on an empty tank. Three hours is the minimum. It's not a magic number that guarantees full recovery. Full glycogen restoration takes considerably longer than that. But it's enough separation to stop working against yourself on both fronts. Now, if your schedule doesn't allow for that kind of separation, quality run in the morning, lift three plus hours later, that's just worth being honest about. Heavier strength work benefits from that spacing, and if you can't reliably get it, you're not getting the full return on that investment and just adding risk. In that case, the better answer isn't to force a heavy session into a bad window. It's to stay in the stabilization phase and let it live wherever it fits in your day. That work is low load and low volume by design, and it doesn't create the same molecular competition or glycogen demand that heavier lifting does. You can do it in the morning before a run, in the evening after one, whenever you actually have 10 or 15 minutes. It won't meaningfully interfere with your running either way. You're not missing out on much by staying there. You're just being realistic about where your life supports you right now and still getting real protective value out of the time that you have. Now let's

Six Movement Patterns To Keep Simple

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simplify the actual exercises because this doesn't need to be complicated. Everything breaks down into six movement patterns. Push, pull, hinge, squat, carry, core. Master those patterns first and load and complexity only once you're moving well and confident in your form. Here's where I want to bring this all the way back down to earth. Everything I just walked you through, the OPT phases, the tissue adaptation timelines, the dose response research, the timing between sessions, all of it is optimized programming. It's careful load management aimed at real performance gains, lower injury risk, and fighting the effects of aging on muscle and connected tissue. That's real and it matters. But at the end of the day, just keep it simple. Two sessions a week on your quality run days, at least three hours removed from the run itself. It doesn't have to be perfect. Master the movement before you chase the load. Progress to heavier weight only when you're confident in your form. And here's something worth hearing clearly. It's not a failure if you stay in phase one, stabilization, longer than planned, or if you never progress past it at all. Those sessions carry minimal cost and some real protective value on their own. That's a far better outcome than rushing into heavier loads or careless volume and turning the very tool you brought in to prevent injury into the source of one. Strength training for ultrarunners is only complicated because of misapplication from well-meaning coaches, trainers, and athletes. But it doesn't have to be that way. Build what running can't build on its own. Meet running specificity through running and nothing else. And respect what your specific sport actually rewards. Never let the gym compete with that reason you're doing any of this in the first place, which is running stronger, longer, and with fewer setbacks along

Key Takeaways And Coaching Invite

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the way. If you found this useful, subscribe for more coach driven training breakdowns. And if you want coaching built around these principles for your specific goals, visit trainright.com to connect with a CTS coach.