As a trail runner, I get the most enjoyment when I am out on the trails and experiencing the nature around me. At the same time, I know that getting into the gym for strength training will help me stay injury free. The great news is that it is possible for us to get stronger without a gym.
Trail runners can get stronger without a gym by using resistance bands or improvising weights with whatever they have at hand. It is also possible to get stronger out on the trails by running lots of hills, doing interval training, and running higher mileage.
Let’s take a closer look at the methods we can use to get stronger as trail runners without needing to step into a gym.
How Trail Runners Can Get Stronger Without A Gym
We all know that as trail runners strength training is massively important in order to be able to minimize the risk of injury. This is especially true seeing that our favorite activity involves running up and down steep mountains and we need to be able to keep our bodies strong enough to deal with whatever the trail throws us.
From my point of view, I’d say that the best idea would be to incorporate some sort of resistance training or weight training like what you do in the gym as a way of incorporating strength training into your program. However, if you don’t have access to a gym you can still do some degree of resistance training using resistance bands and whatever heavy objects you have at hand. During the time when none of us had any access to gyms, I did Romanian Deadlifts, Goblet Squats, and Single Leg Romanian Deadlifts using a two-gallon water bottle as a weight instead of a kettlebell that I would use in the gym.
As you can see from this example, not having access to a gym requires a little imagination but strength training is still possible. Maybe you don’t have access to a gymnasium, you don’t have any resistance bands, and lifting heavy things doesn’t appeal to you at all. Luckily it is possible to incorporate a degree of strength training out on the trails and I’ll cover all the ways that you can do that right here.
Run Higher Mileage
The first way that you build strength is by running higher mileage. However, this is a process that is a lot slower than most other forms of strength training simply because you can’t just go out today and run double or triple your normal mileage. If you tried that you will get injured instead of gaining any strength.
Building up to high mileage is something that needs to be done gradually and takes many months if not years. But, if you have built your running volume to where you can cope with running higher mileage then running high mileage (as in 60+ miles per week) will be enough volume for you to build strength in your legs while you’re doing so.
You have to remember that when you are running such high mileage you need to pay particular attention to your nutrition and recovery to make sure that you don’t get overtrained and injured.
Work On Getting Faster
A quicker way to be able to build strength as a runner out on the trails is by working on getting faster. By this, I mean doing interval training. These can be short intervals which are just about all-out efforts of between 30 seconds to a minute each, or they can be long intervals of anything from 3 to 10 minutes for each interval.
By doing interval training you will be increasing your strength far more quickly than you would by just racking up vast numbers of miles each week. Doing intervals will also build your cardio fitness a lot quicker as well.
Again when it comes to interval training and getting faster, these types of workouts are more taxing on your body so it’s important to make sure that you’re able to recover and recuperate properly from each of these types of speed sessions.
Run A Lot Of Hills
We all know only too well that running up hills is much more tiring than running on the flat or for that matter running down hills. Therefore, if you want to get full strength as a trail runner without going to the gym you should run as many hills as you can.
I’m lucky in that situation that I live in the Spanish mountains and all around my village more than 90% of the trails angle up toward the sky. The others start downhill for a few miles before going uphill again. This means that every run I do involves running a lot of hills.
Running hilly trails will make you stronger and it will make you a stronger runner and better able to cope with the terrain you encounter in most trail races. Uphill mountain trails build strong legs quicker than high mileage and interval workouts so you will do well by including various hill workouts in your training.
The good news for you is that right here on Trail Run Planet, I’ve written an article for you called The Best Hill Workouts For Trail Runners. So, make sure to go and check that out as soon as you finished reading this.
Combining The Three Methods For Greater Benefit
Each of these three methods will help you to build strength without going to the gym. While running hills build strength quicker than the other two methods, I don’t advocate only doing hill workouts at the expanse of mileage or interval training.
The training methods I’ve just talked about each place a different kind of stress on our body. Therefore, We will get the best overall benefit by combining all three in our training plan to get stronger while running trails.