More miles, faster times, bigger goals... Here is what most runners and cyclists miss.
- Emma O'Toole
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
Increasing your running mileage, cycling volume or training intensity places greater demands on your muscles, tendons and connective tissues, not just your cardiovascular system. Many runners and cyclists improve their aerobic fitness faster than their body's ability to tolerate training load. This article explains why strength training, recovery and progressive loading are essential for supporting higher training volumes and reducing the risk of overload.
Strength training for runners and cyclists over 30 is a game-changer for performance, resilience, and long-term health.
If you want the full breakdown, check out my Strength Training Over 30 Guides:
TRAINING BREAKDOWN
"Your ability to complete a training session and your ability to tolerate that training consistently are different things."
By Emma O'Toole
Hi there,
Today’s blog post is a short and simple one to give you some food for thought. I want you to ask yourself this: Are you asking more of your body but giving it the same?
For instance, you now might be riding 4 days a week instead of 3 when you started out, or chasing a sub 25 minute 5k at parkrun instead of a sub 30 that you were aiming for 2 years ago. You might have signed up for a longer or harder event than anything you have done before. These are all brilliant signs of progress, but each one means that you’re placing greater demands on your body than you were before.
Your cardiovascular fitness can respond relatively quickly to consistent training. As you add another ride, run a little faster or gradually build your weekly volume, your aerobic system adapts over the following weeks and months.
That’s why you can feel ready to do more, because from an aerobic perspective, you often are. However, your ability to complete a training session and your ability to tolerate that training consistently are different things.
Your muscles, tendons and other connective tissues also adapt to training, but they need enough time, recovery and an appropriate loading stimulus alongside your running and cycling.
Let me expand on the above examples of what I mean:
The 40+ cyclist adding a 4th day on the bike.
Aerobically, this cyclist may be ready for the extra ride and fit enough to complete it comfortably. Their body, however, now needs to tolerate and recover from four days of training on-the-bike rather than three.
As we get older, we naturally begin to lose muscle mass, strength and power, particularly if we do nothing to counteract it. These changes can begin during our 30’s, and while running and cycling are brilliant for developing aerobic fitness, they do not provide everything our bodies need to maintain and build muscular strength.
The runner targeting a faster 5k.
Moving from a sub-30-minute to a sub-25-minute 5K involves more than improving your aerobic fitness.
Faster running typically requires the body to produce, tolerate and redirect greater forces with every stride. The muscles and tendons need to manage those forces repeatedly, often thousands of times during a single run.
If the runner’s pace and training demands continue to increase while their strength remains unchanged, a gap can begin to develop between what their body is being asked to do and what it has been prepared to tolerate, aka the capacity-demand mismatch.
This does not mean that an injury is inevitable, because injuries are multifactorial. Previous injuries, recovery, sleep, nutrition, training history and sudden changes in workload can all play a part. However, repeatedly asking the body to handle more than it is currently prepared for can increase the likelihood of problems developing.
We’re pretty aware of this around nutrition. If you go for a longer ride or complete a harder training session, you know that your body needs more fuel because you have asked more from it.
The same principle can be applied to strength and recovery. As your endurance training develops, the support you give your body needs to develop with it.
What does that look like in practice?
Progressive strength training gives your body more of the support it needs.
For many runners and cyclists, 2x 30-45-minute strength sessions each week can be enough to make a meaningful difference over time. Those sessions should reflect the demands of your sport, your current training level, your injury history, your experience with strength work and the amount of endurance training you are already completing.
The important part is that your strength training progresses alongside your endurance training, rather than remaining unchanged while your running or cycling continues to move forward.
Progression does not mean making every session harder or constantly adding more weight. It means continuing to provide your body with an appropriate challenge as your ability and training demands change. That can mean working through greater ranges of motion, additional repetitions, heavier external resistance from dumbbells, kettlebells etc.
The simple message I would like you to take from today’s newsletter is that when you ask more of your body through greater distance, faster speeds or additional training, you also need to give it more support through strength, recovery and appropriate nutrition.
I have a brand new, free strength workout for runners over 30 and a free strength workout for cyclists over 30 waiting for you in our free coaching community. Both sessions are designed to help you build the strength that supports your running and cycling.
In other news, I competed in the British Cycling Masters Time Trial Championships last weekend. It was a great day out and brilliant to see the cycling community come together.
I hope today’s blog post has given you some food for thought. If you would like any help talking through your training or working out how strength training could fit around it, please get in touch.
Happy running and riding!
Emma x
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So true, i definitely need to start strength training