Most runners here only run. More kilometres, more weekend long runs, another race on the calendar. It feels like the right way to get better. Then the knee starts to niggle, or the shin, or the Achilles, and the training that was meant to make you fitter is the thing breaking you down.
You cannot out-run a weak link. For most recreational runners in Singapore, the weak link is strength.
This is the part of training most of us skip. No time, or the worry that lifting will slow us down, or the simple belief that to run better you just run more. The research says otherwise, and so does every coach who has watched runners fall apart in the last 5km of a race.
Here is what the strength work actually is, why it matters, and how to structure 2 sessions a week around your running.
The evidence is not subtle
In 2014, a review in the British Journal of Sports Medicine looked at what actually prevents sports injuries. Stretching did almost nothing. Strength training was the clear winner: it cut overuse injuries by close to half, and the more of it runners did, the fewer injuries they got.
Staying in one piece is only half the return. A 2016 meta-analysis in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found that 2 to 3 strength sessions a week improved running economy in trained runners. Better economy means you burn less energy at the same pace. That is free speed, without adding a single kilometre.
Half the injuries, and a more efficient stride, for 2 sessions a week. Nothing else in the sport pays back like that.
Why running alone breaks you down
Running is a repetitive, single-plane movement. Thousands of times per run, you load 2 to 3 times your bodyweight through one leg at a time. Do that with gaps in your strength and the gaps eventually show up as injuries.
The common weak links, and where they leave you:
– Weak glutes and poor single-leg control. The knee collapses slightly inward on each step. This is where a lot of runner’s knee and IT band pain begins.
– Under-built calves. The calf and Achilles take the highest load in running. Too little capacity, and you are looking at Achilles pain or shin splints.
– No braking strength. The ability to absorb load, not just produce it, is what holds your form together late in a race and on downhills. Without it, both punish you.
None of these get fixed by running more. They get fixed by loading them.
The 5 moves that do the work
You do not need a complicated programme. Five movements cover almost everything a runner needs. Two sessions a week, heavy enough to matter, progressing over time.
1. A squat or hinge
The foundation. A goblet squat or a Romanian deadlift builds the whole chain: quads, glutes, hamstrings, back.
– 3 to 4 sets of 5 to 8 reps.
– Heavy enough that the last 2 reps are hard.
2. Single-leg work
You run on one leg at a time, so train on one leg at a time. Split squats, step-ups and single-leg deadlifts expose the side-to-side imbalances that running hides.
– 3 sets of 6 to 8 per leg.
– Start with bodyweight, add dumbbells as you steady.
3. Loaded calf raises
The most under-trained tissue in running. Do both straight-knee and bent-knee versions to cover the whole calf and protect the Achilles.
– 3 sets of 8 to 12, slow and controlled.
– Add load. Bodyweight raises stop working quickly.
4. A braking move
The one most runners miss. Step-downs and slow lowering teach your legs to absorb force, which saves your knees on descents and holds your stride together at the end of a long run.
– 3 sets of 6 to 8, lowering slowly.
5. Anti-rotation core
Not sit-ups. Planks and Pallof presses build the trunk stability that stops energy leaking out of your stride with every step.
– 2 to 3 sets of 30 to 45 seconds, or 8 to 10 controlled reps.
Heavy means a weight you can manage for the stated reps with the last 2 feeling hard, not 20 easy ones. Add a little load or a rep each week. That progression is the whole game.
The structure is what makes it work
Here is the part a coaching studio thinks about that most runners miss. The 5 moves are only the ingredients. What turns them into results is how they are structured.
– Progression. The weight that felt hard in week 1 should be your warm-up by week 6. If you do the same 3 sets of 10 with the same dumbbells all year, your body adapted months ago. Add load, reps or control every week or two. No progression, no point.
– Sequencing. Strength supports your running, it does not replace it, so your key runs come first. Place the lifting around them: hard days stacked together so easy days stay easy, and never a heavy leg session the day before a long run.
– Periodising to the race. The strength work should change shape across a block. Build the base in your early weeks, then shift toward maintenance and freshness as the race nears, so you arrive strong but not fatigued. Random gym sessions never do this. A plan does.
– Your weak link, not the average one. The 5 moves are a starting point, not a prescription. The real gain comes from loading your specific deficit. A runner with a big left-right imbalance needs more single-leg work on the weak side; a runner whose calves give out needs more there. An honest self-check, or a proper assessment, tells you where to aim.
Most of this you can apply yourself, and that is the point. Good structure is not a secret, it is just rarely done. It is also the whole job of a coach: to load the right thing, in the right order, progressed at the right rate, for the runner in front of them.
“Won’t I get slower and heavier”
The most common worry, and the wrong one. Lifting heavy for low reps builds strength, not size. At 2 sessions a week alongside your running, you will not add the kind of size that slows you down. You get stronger, more durable and more efficient. The research is one-directional on this.
The other worry is time, and it is fair. Everyone here is busy. But 2 sessions of 30 minutes a week is nothing next to the 6 weeks you lose to one bout of runner’s knee. Strength work is not extra training. It protects the running you already do.
None of this needs a fancy setup. A pair of dumbbells, a bench and 30 minutes will do for most of it. You already do the hard part. You are up at 5am for the East Coast Park stretch before the sun turns it into a furnace, or grinding the reservoir loops at MacRitchie on a Sunday. Two proper strength sessions a week are what let you keep doing that, for years rather than months.
The runners still going strong into their 40s and 50s are rarely the ones who ran the most. They are the ones who stayed healthy long enough to keep getting better. Strength is how you get there.
Written by the co-founders of Catalyst Performance, a studio in Singapore’s CBD that coaches runners across every distance (catalystperformance.sg/personal-training-for-runners-singapore): Bervin Manoharan, Dr Luqman Haris (a medical doctor) and Jeremy Soh (more than 25 marathons and three HYROX podium finishes).
References:
– Lauersen JB, Bertelsen DM, Andersen LB (2014). The effectiveness of exercise interventions to prevent sports injuries: a systematic review and meta-analysis. British Journal of Sports Medicine.
– Balsalobre-Fernandez C, Santos-Concejero J, Grivas GV (2016). Effects of strength training on running economy in highly trained runners: a systematic review with meta-analysis. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research.
