You don't need to spend hours in the gym to get stronger. Discover how 30-minute, at-home workouts could help you stay on track with your running goals.
During summer breaks from college, I used to have plenty of free time on my hands. To an extent, I had almost too much of it at my disposal. But, as a runner who can’t sit still for long periods of time, I decided to put the free time to good use by chasing after my strength goals.
Five days a week, I spent upwards of an hour at the gym, working on everything from my arm strength to my core stability. I structured my strength session intensity to correlate with my tougher running workouts, and I fell in love with my extensive fitness routine. Come fall, I returned to school more than capable of tackling any hills or strength-based work thrown my way during cross-country training and racing.But fast forward to now, and let’s just say entering the working world doesn’t leave much time—or energy, for that matter—to dedicate to extracurriculars. Once I started my career, I quickly found it much more difficult to run and lift as I once had. I don’t even have parenting or other family obligations to tend to once I step back into my apartment after work. Nonetheless, carving out multiple hours in a day to dedicate to both my mileage and strength training goals often feels like a herculean order.So the past couple years, I’ve completely shifted my approach to strength training. Two or three times a week after work, I’ll either head to the apartment complex gym or pull out my free weights at home to complete 30-minute strength workouts. No, I’m not waking up at 4 a.m. to go spend two hours at the gym before work. And no, I refuse to work myself to exhaustion just to fit running, strength training, and life responsibilities all into a single day. But you don’t need to go to the gym every day to become a stronger runner. Instead, it could be as simple as laying out your yoga mat in your living room and picking up some dumbbells a few times a week.That’s also a lesson associate health and fitness editor Kristine Kearns learned recently and shares in her latest piece on how half-hour, at-home workouts transformed her strength routine as a runner. Kearns doesn’t shy away from explaining how much she used to despise doing strength work from her home, but she’s since embraced our Race-Ready Strength workouts that feature step-by-step guidance from our experts.Add up the time you spend commuting to the gym, completing your workout, and heading back home, and that likely makes up a decent portion of your free time. Add in the hour or so you have set aside for your daily run, and suddenly you’re struggling to fit your training, meals, and other obligations into a 24-hour day. With 30-minute workouts you can complete from your home, you know precisely what time commitment you have in store. “Knowing exactly how long each session would take made me feel like I could manage my schedule more easily and fit in a workout no matter what I had on my plate,” Kearns writes in her story.You also don’t need to dedicate hours out of your weeks to gym workouts to build your strength as a runner. As explained in our Race-Ready Strength guide, you can still train for a PR and support stronger miles with shorter sessions. The training program even comes with a four-week plan that shows you how you can pair up your workouts with our 30-minute, runner-focused workouts. “We know fitting in strength work is tough, so we made it simple with three progressive routines each week that complement your runs,” explains host Winnie Yu in the full guide.Not training for a race? No problem. Our Guide to Strength Training features six beginner-friendly workouts that you can complete from the comfort of your living room, giving you all the tools you need to make strength training a prioritized part of your overall running regimen.Discover what other ways you can level-up your running journey. Dive into our full library of training programs as a Runner’s World+member to work toward your next goals, from completing your first half marathon to running faster than ever before.
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