Does lifting make you a faster runner? The evidence

Mostly yes, but the clearest effect is on running economy, not race times. Across the meta-analyses, adding strength work to running made runners use less oxygen at the same pace, with heavy loads and mixed programs showing the most consistent effect. Time-trial evidence points the same way but it's thinner, and almost everyone studied was already a trained runner doing a 6 to 24 week block.

What the studies actually measured#

Most of this research doesn't time races. It measures running economy: how much oxygen you burn holding a given submaximal pace. Lower is better. If you lift, think of it as how much a fixed working weight takes out of you. Better economy is the same weight feeling lighter.

Economy matters because it sits next to VO2max and the lactate threshold as one of the things that set your pace. Two runners with the same VO2max can run very different times if one of them wastes less per stride.

So a 5% gain in economy and running 5% faster aren't the same claim. They're different measurements, and the studies mostly measured the first one.

The pooled numbers#

Here are the headline effects. All of them are standardised effect sizes, so negative means better economy after strength training compared with running alone.

Strength training and running economy: pooled effects with 95% CIs

	Low (effect size (negative favours lifting))	High (effect size (negative favours lifting))	Mark (effect size (negative favours lifting))
High load, Llanos-Lagos	-0.52	-0.02	-0.27
Combined methods, Llanos-Lagos	-0.77	-0.08	-0.43
Plyometric, Llanos-Lagos	-0.3	0.05	-0.12
Heavy resistance, Eihara	-0.55	-0.1	-0.32
Plyometric, Eihara	-0.47	0.21	-0.13
Mixed programs, Balsalobre	-2.23	-0.6	-1.42

Mark = pooled estimate, bar = 95% confidence interval. Sources: Llanos-Lagos 2024 (31 studies, 652 runners); Eihara 2022 (22 studies); Balsalobre-Fernández 2016 (5 studies, 93 highly trained runners).

The biggest review is Llanos-Lagos 2024: 31 studies and 652 middle- and long-distance runners. High-load training (80% of 1RM or more) gave a small improvement in economy, g = -0.266, and combined methods a moderate one, g = -0.426 ¹. Plyometrics on their own weren't significant overall. They only showed an effect at slow speeds, 12 km/h or below. Submaximal loads and isometrics didn't clear the bar either, though the submaximal analysis rested on three studies.

Eihara 2022 compared heavy lifting with plyometrics head to head across 22 studies. Heavy resistance training came out small but real, g = -0.32 (95% CI -0.55 to -0.10). Plyometrics came out trivial, g = -0.13, with an interval that crosses zero ².

Then there's Balsalobre-Fernández 2016, which gets quoted a lot because its number is huge: SMD -1.42 ³. Read the fine print first. It pooled only five studies and 93 runners, all with a VO2max above 60. A small pool of elite runners produces wide intervals, and this one runs from -2.23 to -0.60. It's a real signal. It's just not a precise one.

The narrative reviews agree on direction. Blagrove 2018 looked at 24 studies and found economy improved 2 to 8% against control groups in most of the 20 that measured it, "although this was not always the case" in the authors' own words ⁴. Beattie 2014 reached a similar conclusion from 26 studies of trained endurance athletes ⁵.

How big is "small"?#

Effect sizes are hard to feel. The percentages are easier: 2 to 8% in Blagrove's review ⁴, and 5.0% in Støren's heavy-squat group ⁶. The meta-analyses calling the effect "small" and Støren's 5% aren't in conflict. An effect size is measured against how much results vary between people. A percentage is measured against the runner's own starting point. The same change can be small on one scale and noticeable on the other.

What a few percent of economy turns into on race day isn't something these studies can tell you. They didn't measure it that way, and the time-trial data below is thin. So treat it as a better engine-to-pace conversion, not a promised time.

What "heavy" meant in these studies#

This is where most articles get vague. "Lift heavy" covers everything from a 5RM squat to a set of 15 on a leg press. Here's what the studies actually did.

Støren's study is the cleanest example of the heavy end. Four sets of four reps at the heaviest weight they could move for four, three times a week. After eight weeks the lifting group's half-squat 1RM was up 33.2%, rate of force development up 26.0%, economy up 5.0%, and time to exhaustion at maximal aerobic speed up 21.3%. VO2max and body weight didn't change. The control group didn't change at all ⁶.

Eight runners lifted in that study. It's a strong result from a small group, which is exactly why the meta-analyses matter more than any one trial.

Eihara's subgroups point the same way. Loads of 90% of 1RM or more gave g = -0.31 (95% CI -0.61 to -0.02). Lighter loads gave g = -0.17, with an interval running from -1.05 to 0.70. Longer blocks did better too: 10 to 14 weeks gave g = -0.45, 6 to 8 weeks gave g = -0.21 ².

So the honest reading is that heavy means heavy. Low reps, near-maximal loads, mostly squats and similar lower-body lifts. Pump work for the legs isn't what these trials tested.

Faster, or just more economical?#

The time-trial data is thinner, and one number in it is broken.

Paavolainen 1999 is the classic positive result. Swapping 32% of training for explosive work improved 5K time over nine weeks in well-trained athletes, and VO2max didn't change in that group. The authors tie the gain to better economy and better maximal anaerobic running speed ⁷. Blagrove's review says time trials from 1.5 to 10 km "tended to improve" ⁴.

Eihara's meta-analysis also pooled time trials and got g = -0.24 for heavy lifting and g = -0.17 for plyometrics. Be careful with the heavy number though. The abstract gives a confidence interval of -1.04 to -0.55, which doesn't even contain -0.24, and the paper's results section says those intervals crossed zero ². One of the two is a reporting error, so don't lean on that figure until it's corrected.

One detail from Paavolainen is easy to miss. The strength group had swapped about a third of its training for explosive work, and over the nine weeks the control group's VO2max went up while theirs didn't ⁷. Their 5K still got faster. That's a trade: some aerobic work was given up, and the authors credit better economy and speed for the faster time.

What does seem consistent: lifting didn't hurt the things runners worry about. Blagrove found VO2max, blood lactate and body composition were typically unaffected, and Støren's runners didn't gain weight ^{4 6}. If the fear is "I'll get bulky and slow", the trials don't support it, at least over 8 to 12 weeks of this kind of work.

Heavy or plyometrics?#

On the current evidence, heavy lifting has the better case. It shows up as a significant effect in both large meta-analyses, while plyometrics on their own don't ^{1 2}.

There's one interesting wrinkle. Llanos-Lagos found that pace changed things. Plyometrics helped economy at 12 km/h and slower, which is 5:00 per kilometre and slower. Heavy lifting helped more at faster speeds and in runners with a higher VO2max ¹. If most of your running is easy and slow, jumps might do something. If you care about race pace, the barbell has more behind it.

Doing both might be the best option. Combined programs had the biggest pooled effect in Llanos-Lagos, though the authors rated that estimate low certainty ¹.

Why does any of it work? Nobody has nailed it down. Rønnestad and Mujika list delayed recruitment of less efficient fibres, better neuromuscular efficiency, fibre-type shifts and stiffer muscle-tendon units as possibilities ⁸. They're presented as suggestions, and that's the right way to read them.

The limits#

Most participants were trained runners. In Llanos-Lagos the split was 195 moderately trained, 272 well trained and 185 highly trained, and 472 of the 652 were men ¹. Results for beginners, or for people whose main sport is lifting, are mostly inference.

The blocks were short. Six to 24 weeks at most, and Beattie's review explicitly asks for interventions longer than six months ⁵. Nobody knows from this data what happens over a year or three.

The samples were small and the quality middling. Blagrove rated the included studies 4 to 6 on the PEDro scale ⁴. And "running economy" was measured at different speeds in different studies, which is part of why the effects vary.

None of this makes the finding wrong. It makes it modest. Strength training is one of the better-supported things a runner can add, but the realistic expectation is a small improvement in economy, not a new PB on its own.

What the evidence adds up to#

Pulling the studies together gives a fairly specific picture of what's been tested. This is a summary of the trials, not a prescription from any one of them.

Blagrove's own recommendation lands in the same place: two to three strength sessions a week, using a mix of strength methods, are likely to benefit middle- and long-distance runners ⁴.

If you already lift#

Hybrid athletes don't need convincing to lift. The useful question is whether your lifting looks anything like what was tested.

My own log is a decent warning. In the six weeks from 7 September to 19 October it shows 150 working sets, and not one of them is a squat, a deadlift or any other lower-body lift. That's plenty of lifting. It's just none of the kind these trials studied.

So check three things. Is there heavy lower-body work in your week, near 80 to 90% of 1RM for low reps? Is it there most weeks, two or three times, for more than a couple of months? And is it heavy enough to count? If you want a reference for that last one, the hybrid athlete standards put a squat and deadlift next to your bodyweight, and how strong a runner should be goes into what that means for running.

If you're coming from the other direction, a lifter starting to run, running for lifters covers the opposite problem. And if extra muscle on the frame worries you, running with more muscle looks at what body mass does to the cost of running. The full concurrent-training picture is in the hybrid training hub.