Two Good Programs Can Make One Bad Program

Most people trying to combine lifting and running don't have one training program.

They have two separate programs masquerading as one.

Most programs that promise to make you stronger and faster use the same basic formula: take a full lifting program, take a full running program, mash them together, and hope it works.

It almost never does.

Each program was written as if it were the only program. The lifting program assumes outside of the lifting, you'll be recovering. The running program assumes outside of the running, you'll be recovering.

Neither program knows you're a dumbass and are spending what is supposed to be your recovery time doing another full program.

When you combine the full workload from both, it just doesn't work. Ever.

You're too fatigued to run well, too beat up to lift well, and at best, you won't make much progress at either. At worst, you'll get injured, burnt out, and quit.

You don't need to go hard every day

You do not need to go hard five or six days a week to get stronger and run faster. Not only do you not need to, but if you want to get stronger and faster, you can't go hard 5-6 days per week.

It just does not work long-term. At all.

A productive week will usually look more like:

• 1-2 quality running sessions
• 2-3 lifting days
• Mostly easy running or low-intensity conditioning around them

That doesn't mean every lifting day needs to smoke you, either. You need enough hard work to drive progress and enough easier work to keep building without carrying fatigue into every important session.

Everything needs a purpose

When you're trying to improve both, especially if you don't have 10+ hours a week to train, everything needs to have a purpose.

You don't have time for junk miles. You don't need extra lifting sets added just for the sake of doing more volume. Every session should drive progress, build the base that supports it, or help you recover for the work that matters most.

If your main running workout is a threshold session, your lifting needs to leave you capable of doing it well.

If increasing your squat is the priority, your hardest run shouldn't repeatedly leave your legs dead for the lifting sessions that will drive that progress.

You get stronger and faster by deciding what matters most right now, organizing your training around it, and removing the work that interferes without giving you enough in return.

That priority can (and usually should) change throughout the year.

You might emphasize a race for a few months and maintain your strength. After the race, you can push the lifting harder while keeping enough running to maintain what you built.

It doesn't need to be an even split all year.

But it does need to be intentional.

It's all stress

Fatigue doesn't care whether it came from a barbell or a five-mile run. Stress doesn't care whether it came from a hard workout, a bad night of sleep, a sick kid, or a work deadline.

It's all stress; it all accumulates, and it all affects your training and your quality of life.

The goal isn't to cram as much work as possible into your schedule.

The goal is to give you the right amount of the right work, then make sure you can recover well enough to keep progressing.

Capacity Training

Balancing lifting and running is hard, so I built Capacity Training to do it for you. It plans your running and your lifting together, built from your training history, your goals and the time you have to train, and adjusts as you log.

Run faster. Get stronger. capacitytraining.app

Mike