Be honest with yourself, are you a runner who could probably benefit from doing some strength and conditioning? Do you struggle to stay motivated to do it? Are you recurrently injured? Perhaps you don’t really know what to actually do or where to even start?
In this podcast episode I’m joined by fitness instructor and Health Coach, Chantel Oakley. With huge experience as a trainer, including working with Nike, Chantel walks us through why strength work is so important for runners. She explains what benefits we’ll get, how quickly we’ll notice them and how to do exercises with good form. Starting with simple body weight exercises and progressing to resistance bands and one set of dumbbells, we’ll discover how it’s actually quite simple for us all to add some strength work into our week. I always hop over to Chantel’s Instagram or Facebook when I need a boost or a few ideas to try out.
I find it easy to get going with strength work. Motivation is high initially but it’s tough to keep that up. Chantel helps us to reconsider our motivations for training. How to move from a life of ‘should dos’ and shame to one of ‘can dos’ and hope. A mind set switch can prove very powerful when it comes to creating and sticking with new habits.
I certainly wanted to grab my dumbbells by the end of this. I’m sure you’ll feel the same too!
Active Health is hosted by WiSPSports. You can listen on their website, on any of your favourite podcasts platforms (please subscribe and leave a review!) or simply click play below. Enjoy!
Listen to “S2E2: Strength Training for Runners” on Spreaker.If you enjoy the podcast, you’ll enjoy my book Run Well: Essential health questions and answers for runners, published by Bloomsbury and available from all the usual booksellers.
