I’m a 45, 6’2", 183 lbs. runner who just trained for and ran the Army 10 miler. I usually train and run a handful of races a year. I’m excited to give running a break and do the SSLP and get a lot stronger. After this I plan to go back to running, but incorporating the basic strength lifts with my training.
My question is about any cardio training while doing the LP. I know your recommendation for detrained individuals is to not think about cardio until they’re an intermediate, but wondering if I qualify as “detrained” in this situation and if there’s any cardio training I should think about to help prevent the loss of my aerobic base without (significantly?) affecting strength gains I’d otherwise make on the LP.
I ran a LP this spring as I was training up for a June marathon, and am also looking for a recommendation on how to modulate my training to accommodate a moderate running base. I posted here, but haven’t gotten a response. Looking elsewhere, the stock response is what Jordan gave above. I’m still not out of the novice phase, despite it being 9 months due to the interference of the running.
My experience was that as running volume went up, the total training just left me beat up. I made strength progress, but had to take 1-2 weeks off strength training before a race, so I had little periods of deload. I’m going to try and keep to 3 runs a week with under 25 miles a week and focus more on strength training, and then flip it in the spring. I’m racing a half marathon this weekend, and I should beat my time from last year by 3-5 mins, despite putting on 15 lbs of mostly lean mass, so I’m quite happy with my year over year progress.
If there are others here that have been training and running for a while, I’d love recommendations on how to adjust weight training around races, putting weight training into a maintenance/slow gains while increasing mileage, and putting aerobic base in maintenance while focusing on strength training. Someone on the SS subreddit linked Jordan’s article: The Double Funnel of Programming | Barbell Medicine so I’ll check that out now.
I’m planning on going cold-turkey on cardio and following the SSLP pretty religiously, but def interested to hear thoughts on how to incorporate strength training with training for road races.
Generally speaking if you haven’t run an LP, you’re detrained. Why would you want to rob yourself of easy strength gains on your novice LP just to maintain the ability to run? You already know the answer: you maximize your gains on the novice LP by concentrating on just lifting and minimizing outside drains on your recovery resources. Any additional stress outside the squat, bench, deadlift, press and powercleans prescribed for a novice robs you of resources and hurts your body’s ability to get stronger. Is your “aerobic base” worth it?
Aerobic conditioning erodes rapidly after you stop training for it, but it comes back rapidly once you start training it again. You can lose your “aerobic base” over a two week vacation. During your LP and for perhaps a month after you won’t be much good at running. But if you’re lucky maybe you’ll discover you love lifting more than running, like I did.