Targeting neglected running muscles

[veganjoggler]

I must say this really is a fantastic site. Like a lot of runners I am looking to improve my speed and decrease my risk of injury. I often hear runners talk about "neglected muscles", or I read about them in articles, and how targeting them with strength-training, or during actual runs, or while cycling as cross-training has helped them improve their speed and endurance. Does anyone here have any experience with this? Some runners will tell me which muscles need to be targeted, while others are vague, and I think some are peddling pseudo-science.

In my own experience, it seems I am better able to run hills ever since I started doing hip exercises with resistance bands. I also think this has improved my general endurance. Doing jumping squats 2 to 3 times a week has also improved my running, in my opinion. I've already been doing leg lifts with ankle weights for the longest time, and I believe this has also helped me run longer than if I didn't do them, besides preventing injuries.

Is there anything that I am missing? Any suggestions, and anything I can do that doesn't require a gym membership? Thanks!

[Mr. Cleetus]

If you are meaning purely in terms of performance, the best thing you can do is spend that time running (and doing more running) and not on other excercises. For aerobic endurance exercise, you are generally going to get little benefit out of explosive anaerobic stuff. You are going to be limited by your running specific fitness, in the end it doesn't take all that much strength to get yourself up a hill quickly, or fast on the flat, it is all about your fitness. For injuries it may be a completely different story. Anyway, I am quickly out of my depth of knowledge talking about any of this!

Having said this, I know my best hill running has come with I have good cycling fitness as well. That's not to say that if I had spent that time running instead, I wouldn't have been faster...

[kallefs]

Core training such as plank and all the various variants of that. Lunges, heel-raises and such. There are a lot of running specific strength training to do if you want to, most of it aimed at pre-hab and not specifically to improve speed or endurance.