Running Marathons in 2010 on the left – March 2024 lifting weights and walking on the right!
I have been getting this question quite a bit lately. I used to run marathons believe it or not. But even by my late 20’s/early 30’s I started seeing that it was too hard on my body and it wasn’t giving me the results I was wanting with energy or physique.
Mixing lots of running with weight lifting can potentially inhibit muscle growth due to several reasons:
- Caloric Deficit: Running burns a significant amount of calories, which can create a caloric deficit if not compensated for by consuming enough calories to support muscle growth. When you’re in a caloric deficit, your body may prioritize using energy for running and other activities over building muscle.
- Different Muscle Fiber Types: Running predominantly engages slow-twitch muscle fibers, which are optimized for endurance activities. Weight lifting, on the other hand, typically targets fast-twitch muscle fibers, which have greater potential for hypertrophy (muscle growth). If you’re focusing on both activities simultaneously, you may not be maximizing the stimulation of fast-twitch muscle fibers necessary for muscle growth.
- Recovery: Both running and weight lifting place stress on the body, and adequate recovery is crucial for muscle growth. If you’re doing a lot of both activities, you may not be allowing your muscles enough time to recover and grow between sessions.
- Hormonal Factors: Endurance activities like running can elevate levels of cortisol, a stress hormone that can have catabolic (muscle-breaking) effects if chronically elevated. Weight lifting, on the other hand, can increase levels of anabolic hormones like testosterone and growth hormone, which are beneficial for muscle growth. Balancing these hormonal responses can be challenging when engaging in both types of activities extensively.
- Specificity of Training: To maximize muscle growth, it’s often beneficial to focus on progressive overload with weight lifting, which means gradually increasing the weight lifted over time to continually challenge the muscles. If running occupies a significant portion of your training time and energy, you may not be able to dedicate enough focus and intensity to weight lifting to achieve this progressive overload effectively.
- Energy Availability: Running requires a lot of energy, and if you’re expending a significant portion of your energy on running, you may not have enough left for intense weight lifting sessions, which are necessary for muscle growth.
So these are the nuts and bolts! While incorporating both running and weight lifting into your fitness routine can offer various health benefits, including cardiovascular fitness and overall strength, it’s essential to strike a balance and consider how these activities may complement or potentially hinder each other, particularly concerning muscle growth goals. Adjusting training volume, scheduling workouts strategically, ensuring adequate nutrition and recovery, and prioritizing progressive overload in weight lifting can help mitigate potential inhibition of muscle growth when combining these activities.
Today I enjoy lifting heavy (progressive overload training), walking and hiking for cardio. That’s it. I aim for at least 10k steps per day and stay in Zone 2 for 30 minutes – 4-5 times a week.
This goes without saying that NUTRITION is key!! Prioritizing protein at our age is so important! I aim to hit my bodyweight (lbs) in grams of protein daily! Healthy carbs and fats too! Here is a FREE Calculator to give you a baseline for where to start depending on your goals.
It comes down to what you want most? And what’s going to be the most beneficial for you? What are your goals? Start there and decide what your next steps will be!
Whichever way you decide, you can grab one of my lifting PROGRAMS to get started!!!
