STRONG-ARM TACTICS

To become a better runner you need a strong upper body. It’s time to reach for the heavy stuff

LET’S FACE IT:

runners aren’t known for their arms. That’s not a dig – it’s just that it’s easy to neglect your top half when it seems like your legs do all the work. But failing to train your upper body can hold you back on the run.

‘Have you ever tried to run without using your arms? It’s weird, inefficient and hard as hell,’ says exercise physiologist Pamela Geisel. ‘Arm drive is a big part of running – when your legs get tired, you use your arms more because of the kinetic chain; you can’t have one without the other.’

That means your strength training has to include more than just dead lifts and squats. Building a strong upper body will help you maintain good form as the miles tick by, and that stable, upright posture can increase your endurance by improving your lung capacity, explains Geisel. ‘Improved upperbody strength also reduces oxygen requirement, meaning you’ll run faster while using the same amount of energy.’ In other words, you slice seconds off your splits.

And a faster pace is not the only reason to strengthen from the waist up. ‘Just pumping your arms back and forth only builds muscle endurance, but you need to also build muscular strength to create bone density and prevent injury,’ says personal trainer Nick Pags. Why? Remember, our nerves, bones and joints are interconnected. ‘The gold standard for runners is 165-180 strides per minute – if every one of those strides is bad, that’s thousands of strides per run that you’re doing poorly, often leading to injuries such as tendinopathy and stress fractures,’ says Geisel. ‘It all goes back to poor mechanics, and that results from not strengthtraining your entire body.’