Running and Strength Training

Running and Strength Training 

Monday, August 22, 2011 

The day after I started training for running, my calves are a bit tight. Fair enough. I've seen this before, only worse, when I was trying to train but not doing it right. And I've seen it much worse after running a race without even bad training. 

One of the things that seems to have helped with the calves, even without training to run, is strength training. After I started lifting weights, I'd still get sore calves the day following a race; but they didn't keep me from walking. I concluded that those lowly calf raises, which were mostly rests between major lifts, helped me out. 

Besides being the day after I started a running program, today was a normal weight lifting day. By the time I get out of work, I've walked enough that my calves aren't bothering me. I've talked to a runner I work with, and confirmed that the calf raises are helpful. I realize that when I climbed back on the weight lifting band wagon, I did standing calf raises, which work the gastrocnemius; but I hadn't done seated calf raises, which work the soleus. If I'm going to run, both of those muscles are important. Today I'll add seated calf raises. 

Had a nice session with the weights. Got my seated calf raises in along with the more major lifts. Give up after one set of walking lunges, because I don't have enough gas left in the tank to pull them off. I remember that I used to rotate through three workouts, with walking lunges being on the workout that had neither standing calf raises nor seated calf raises. 

Run through my stretches. Pick a different hamstring stretch, hunting for the elusive hamstring stretch that I won't hate. Meh. I need to keep looking for that one. When I get to the calf stretches, I can feel my soleus. 

It's been a long time since I've really felt my soleus when doing the bent leg calf stretch. I guess running yesterday really did work it. Too bad I didn't get the seated calf raises into my routine before deciding to run. 

Oh, well. I've made some mistakes, but they aren't fatal. I can get the lifting routine arranged so that it supports the running as well as general strength. It is a bit of an eye-opener about the seated calf raises, though. The last time I was doing them, I couldn't tell that they were doing any good. Now, when I'm not doing them but ran a little anyway, I can tell. They're useful. 

I guess this is one of the reasons I'm supposed to take the training to run slow. It's going to take a little time to build those calf muscles up to where they need to be for running continually for a half hour.