How Strength and Balance Training Can Improve Your Running Performance
Essential Points:
Running is a Complex Coordination of Strength, Balance, and Mechanics
Each stride in running requires a delicate balance of momentum and control, engaging the brain, vestibular system, and proprioceptors to maintain stability and alignment during dynamic motion.Strength is the Foundation of Running Efficiency and Injury Prevention
Key muscle groups like the glutes, quads, and core power running mechanics, absorbing impact forces and converting energy into forward propulsion while minimizing injury risk.Balance is Essential for Stability and Optimal Running Form
Dynamic single-leg stability ensures efficient movement patterns, prevents energy leakage, and reduces the risk of imbalance-related injuries, making balance training a crucial aspect of running performance.
Running is often seen as the ultimate natural exercise, an activity humans are seemingly born to do. But beneath its simple, rhythmic motion lies a fascinating interplay of strength, balance, and mechanics that make every step possible.
I'm far from being a champion runner, but I’ve had my fair share of experiences in the running world. Over the years, I’ve completed numerous half-marathons, a full marathon, and even a 32-mile ultra-marathon starting from my home all the way to Boston. As I write this, I’m currently training for the Chicago Marathon. I’ll admit, running is both physically and mentally challenging. It’s grueling, repetitive, and sometimes downright painful. Yet, it’s also one of the most effective forms of exercise and a powerful outlet for mental clarity. In short, I have a love-hate relationship with running, but the mechanics and rhythm of the movement have always fascinated me.
At its core, running is more than just moving forward. It’s about the perfect coordination of your body to stay upright, maintain balance, propel efficiently, and minimize the risk of injury. Understanding the mechanics of running, particularly the roles of strength and balance, can provide valuable insights into improving your performance and longevity as a runner.
As we dive into the science of running mechanics, you'll discover how small improvements in strength and balance can have a big impact on your running efficiency and performance. So, let’s take a closer look at what happens behind the scenes with every stride you take.
Running: A Series of Controlled Falls
At its core, running is a dynamic, repetitive cycle of single-leg support and airborne motion. Unlike walking, which always maintains one foot in contact with the ground, running introduces a flight phase (swing phase) where neither foot touches the ground. (1, 2) This airborne element transforms running into a high-stakes balancing act, requiring coordination and precision.
Each stride in running involves a delicate interplay between momentum and control. As your body transitions from one foot to the other, you momentarily balance on a single leg while propelling forward. During this split-second transition, your brain, vestibular system, and proprioceptors work in harmony to maintain stability and alignment. Without this intricate coordination, a smooth and efficient gait would be impossible.
Phases of Running
The running cycle can be divided into two general phases, stance and swing, each comprising three key components. (1, 3, 4) While more detailed analyses exist, this simplified breakdown highlights the essentials you should know:
Stance Phase Components:
Initial Contact: The foot strikes the ground, usually with the heel or midfoot, marking the start of the gait cycle and preparing to absorb impact.
Mid-stance: The body's weight shifts over the planted foot, providing stability as the opposite leg swings forward, ensuring balance during this critical moment.
Take-off: The toes push off the ground, converting stored energy into forward propulsion as the stance leg transitions into the swing phase.
Swing Phase Components:
Initial Swing: The lifted foot begins to move forward, with the knee bending to clear the ground and initiate forward momentum.
Mid-swing: The swinging leg moves directly beneath the body, positioning the hip and knee for maximum efficiency in forward motion.
Terminal Swing: The leg extends forward, preparing for the next step by positioning the foot for a precise initial contact.
Momentum and Stability in Running
Running is heavily dependent on forward momentum, with forward lean being a critical factor in conserving energy and maintaining efficiency. Research suggests that an optimal forward lean of approximately 6-10 degrees strikes a balance between energy conservation and performance efficiency. (5)
When the lean is less than this range, stability may improve, but the muscles must work harder to generate forward propulsion, leading to increased energy expenditure. Conversely, leaning too far forward can challenge stability, disrupt efficient limb positioning, and create compensatory patterns that waste energy. Excessive forward lean can also increase braking forces during foot strike, as the center of mass moves ahead of optimal alignment, reducing stride efficiency. (6)
Achieving and maintaining this optimal forward lean requires significant stability, which plays a critical role in proper running mechanics. Stability involves the coordinated activation of core muscles, glutes, and stabilizing structures to maintain alignment and direct energy efficiently into forward motion. Each step in running is essentially a controlled forward fall, where strength, balance, and coordination work together to "catch" the body and propel it onward.
Without sufficient stability, runners may experience what is known as “energy leakage”. Energy leakage is a wasting of energy in unwanted ways, where misalignments and inefficiencies in the running pattern demand extra muscular effort to correct. Over time, this can lead to unnecessary strain, fatigue, or even overuse injuries. Stability training that improves proprioception, core strength, and neuromuscular control can help runners sustain optimal lean and running form for longer durations, enhancing both performance and endurance.
Strength as the Foundation of Running Mechanics
Running might appear effortless when watching experienced athletes float across a track, but beneath their smooth strides is a foundation of raw strength. Without adequate strength, the body simply can’t sustain the repetitive impact, propulsion, and stabilization required in running. Let’s break down the key muscle groups that power running mechanics (7, 8, 9):
Key Muscle Groups of Running
Glutes: These powerhouse muscles generate most of the force needed to propel you forward and play a critical role in hip stability. They ensure your pelvis remains level during the single-leg stance phase of running.
The gluteus maximus, the largest muscle of the buttocks, provides the primary propulsive force during running.
The gluteus medius acts as the primary hip stabilizer, preventing excessive hip drop and maintaining alignment. Read more about this muscle here.
Quads (Quadriceps): The quadriceps, a group of four muscles located at the front of the thigh, are crucial for shock absorption and propulsion in running.
During the landing phase, the quads eccentrically contract to absorb impact forces, reducing stress on the joints.
As you transition to toe-off, they work concentrically to extend the knee and assist in forward propulsion. Strong quads are essential for minimizing energy loss and maintaining running efficiency, especially on uphill terrain or during acceleration.
Hamstrings: The hamstrings bridge the glutes and calves, playing a key role in the push-off phase of running. They provide the force necessary to drive your leg backward while also stabilizing the knee joint during the swing phase.
Calves: Often overlooked, the calf muscles absorb the initial impact of landing and return that energy to help lift your body during toe-off. The gastrocnemius and soleus muscles, along with the Achilles tendon, act as a pseudo-spring to propel you forward efficiently.
Anterior Tibialis: Located on the front of the shin, the anterior tibialis is a lesser-discussed yet critical muscle in running mechanics.
It plays a major role in controlling the foot during the initial contact phase, dorsiflexing the ankle to ensure a smooth landing.
Additionally, it helps stabilize the ankle and contributes to the forward pull of the leg during the swing phase. Strength and endurance in the anterior tibialis can help prevent shin splints and improve stride efficiency.
Core: Running isn’t just about your legs. A strong core provides trunk stability, preventing excessive lateral (sideways) or rotational movement that can waste energy and lead to inefficiencies. It also helps transfer power between the upper and lower body for a more cohesive running pattern.
Force Absorption and Propulsion
Strength isn’t just about propulsion, it’s also about managing the constant impact forces generated with every stride. When your foot strikes the ground, your muscles and connective tissues act as shock absorbers, dispersing forces that might otherwise cause damage to joints and bones. Immediately after this, those same muscles convert stored elastic energy into forward motion, driving the next stride efficiently.
Without a strong foundation, this cycle of shock absorption and propulsion can break down, leaving runners vulnerable to injuries like shin splints, knee pain, rolled ankles, or Achilles tendonitis. Strength training is essential for reinforcing the muscles and connective tissues, enhancing their ability to handle repeated impact and reducing the risk of overuse injuries.
Just as muscles adapt to progressive loading, so do other tissues in the body. Tendons, ligaments, and even bones respond to mechanical stress by remodeling and strengthening over time. Incorporating strength training during the off-season provides an opportunity to build resilience in these tissues while allowing runners to explore movement patterns not emphasized during running. In-season, it serves as a complement to running by maintaining tissue integrity and addressing any imbalances that arise.
By developing both strength and resilience, runners can enhance their functional running capacity, improve performance, and reduce the likelihood of injuries over the long term.
The Role of Balance in Running
Running is as much a test of balance as it is of strength and endurance. Unlike walking, where at least one foot is always on the ground, running propels you into a dynamic state of single-leg balance with every stride. Each step requires your body to manage potential instability while maintaining forward momentum. Balance, therefore, becomes a cornerstone of running efficiency and injury prevention.
Dynamic Stability in Every Stride
During a single stride, your body shifts entirely onto one leg while the other swings forward. This movement demands that your stabilizing muscles and nervous system work together to keep you upright and aligned. Even minor lapses in balance can lead to inefficient movement patterns, energy leakage, or increased risk of injury.
Every runner experiences this challenge, whether navigating a smooth track or rocky uneven trails. The better your balance, the more effectively your body can maintain optimal alignment and conserve energy with each step.
The Science Behind Balance in Running
Balance is maintained through a finely tuned system involving sensory input, neuromuscular coordination, and muscular activation:
Proprioception
Specialized sensors in your muscles, tendons, and joints called proprioceptors provide real-time feedback to your brain about your body’s position in space. Proprioception helps you know where your foot lands, how your knees and hips align, and whether you’re stable during each stride.
Neuromuscular Coordination
Your brain processes this sensory information and activates the appropriate muscles to stabilize your body efficiently. This coordination is especially vital during rapid pace changes or when running over uneven terrain. Runners with strong neuromuscular systems can adjust quickly to maintain balance and avoid injuries in challenging conditions.
How Imbalance Affects Running
Even minor imbalance can disrupt running mechanics, leading to inefficiencies or injuries:
Overpronation: Excessive inward rolling of the foot creates instability up the chain and strains the ankles, knees, and hips. This can lead to conditions like plantar fasciitis or runner’s knee.
Weak Stabilizing Muscles: If key muscles like the glutes, core, or lower-leg stabilizers are underdeveloped, single-leg balance suffers. This increases energy expenditure and raises the risk of issues like rolled ankles or poor posture.
Poor Single-Leg Stability: Inadequate balance often causes compensatory movements, such as veering off course or crossing legs past the midline (scissoring), both of which waste energy and strain the body.
Falls in Vulnerable Populations: For runners with conditions such as neurological diseases or traumatic brain injuries, poor balance can increase the risk of falls, making running unsafe regardless of strength levels.
Why Balance Matters in Running
Improving balance enhances running mechanics by allowing better control of your body during each phase of the stride. Strong single-leg stability minimizes energy waste, maximizes muscle efficiency, and reduces wear and tear on joints and connective tissues. Over time, better balance not only improves performance but also lowers the risk of injury, enabling runners to train and compete with greater resilience.
Balance is not just an innate skill, it’s a trainable quality even in elite athletes. Incorporating exercises that challenge proprioception and neuromuscular control, such as single-leg drills or dynamic balance routines, can significantly elevate your running efficiency and overall performance.
Common Issues with Strength and Balance in Runners
Even the most dedicated runners aren’t immune to the challenges that come with poor strength and balance. Surprisingly, many runners neglect strength training and specific balance exercises altogether, missing out on a valuable opportunity to enhance their performance. Weaknesses or imbalances in the body can throw off running mechanics, leading to inefficiencies and a heightened risk of injury. This, in turn, can sideline a runner for an entire season or result in a lackluster race performance, all of which could have been prevented with targeted training.
Imbalances and Weaknesses
Imbalances in strength, stability, or balance can significantly disrupt the coordination required for efficient and injury-free running. These issues often manifest in various ways:
Overpronation: Excessive inward rolling of the foot strains the ankles, knees, and hips, potentially leading to conditions like plantar fasciitis or “runner’s knee.”
Weak Stabilizing Muscles: Weakness in the glutes, core, or smaller stabilizers such as the peroneals in the lower leg can result in poor posture and misaligned strides. This not only increases the energy required to run but also raises the risk of injuries like rolled ankles.
Weak Glutes and Hip Drop (Trendelenburg Gait): The gluteus medius plays a crucial role in stabilizing the pelvis during single-leg stance. When weak, it can cause a pelvic drop on one side, leading to a limp-like gait known as a trendelenburg gait. Over time, this imbalance places additional strain on the knees, hips, and lower back.
Poor Balance: A lack of single-leg stability forces the body to overcompensate with inefficient movements to avoid falling, wasting energy and increasing the likelihood of injury. This can appear as lateral deviations (veering) or cross-over gait (scissoring like motion of the legs) during strides.
Overuse Injuries: Muscular endurance issues or strength asymmetries, where one side of the body compensates for the other, often result in improper form and repetitive strain, setting the stage for overuse injuries.
Note: Even with perfect balance and strength, if you increase activity too quickly and overtax your body’s tissues you may also get a overuse injury.
Addressing these imbalances by improving strength, stability, and balance not only enhances running mechanics but also reduces wear and tear on the body, paving the way for more efficient and injury-resistant performance.
Injury Risk
Some of the most common running injuries can be at least partially traced back to deficits in strength and balance:
Shin Splints (Medial Tibial Stress Syndrome): Among other reasons, weak lower leg muscles or improper alignment during foot strike can increase strain on the tibia, leading to pain and inflammation. (10)
IT Band Syndrome: Poor hip control can be a player in causing the iliotibial band to become irritated and inflamed, leading to discomfort and limited mobility on the outside of the knee. (11)
Plantar Fasciitis: Insufficient calf strength or poor foot mechanics can lead to overloading the plantar fascia, causing pain in the arch or heel with every step. (12)
By addressing these common issues through a structured strength and balance program, runners can significantly reduce their risk of injury and build a stronger foundation for success.
How Strength and Balance Work Together
Strength and balance are deeply interconnected, working together to create the dynamic stability essential for efficient and injury-resistant running. They exist on a continuum, where foundational balance exercises can serve as an entry point for developing strength, particularly in stabilizing muscles. At higher levels, advanced strength exercises rely on a solid base of balance and coordination to generate power effectively.
Dynamic Stability
Every step of running requires dynamic stability, which is the ability to maintain control and alignment during movement. Strong muscles provide the necessary force to propel the body forward, while balance ensures that this force is applied efficiently in the right direction. Together, they enable seamless transitions between strides, reducing wobbling or missteps.
Energy Efficiency
Good balance eliminates unnecessary side-to-side or rotational movements, allowing runners to channel all their energy into forward motion. This efficiency is particularly critical during long runs or races, where small inefficiencies can add up to significant energy waste over miles or hours of running. With a strong and balanced body, runners can maintain their form for longer, improving both speed and endurance.
Real-Life Examples
Elite runners are the perfect example of how strength and balance work in harmony to achieve peak performance.
Consider marathon runners, with their powerful glutes and legs generating the force needed to propel them forward mile after mile, while their exceptional balance ensures every step is smooth, efficient, and steady, even at high speeds. Trail runners, by contrast, tackle uneven and unpredictable terrain, relying heavily on proprioception and neuromuscular coordination to navigate obstacles, avoid missteps, and maintain stability. Sprinters, on the other hand, produce immense force with each stride, driving into the ground for maximum acceleration while remaining stable to prevent stumbling or loss of momentum.
These athletes illustrate that the synergy between strength and balance isn’t just an advantage, it’s a cornerstone of high-level performance.
The Science Behind Improving Strength and Balance for Running
Improving strength and balance for running isn’t just about working harder, it’s about working smarter. You are already logging a ton of miles during training runs, and your additional workouts shouldn’t take away from that.
Both the muscular and balance systems in the body adapt to stress, becoming more efficient and resilient with targeted training. If you program your workouts right, you can get maximum benefit with just a couple workouts a week outside of running. (13, 14) Understanding this process can help runners unlock new levels of performance while reducing the risk of injuries.
Adaptation to Stress
When you challenge your muscles and balance systems, they respond by becoming stronger, more coordinated, and better equipped to handle future demands. This is due to the SAID principle, specific adaptation to imposed demands. The SAID principle is a cornerstone of all movement science and applies to any athletic endeavor. Essentially, what you practice you get better at.
Resistance training, for example, strengthens muscle fibers and tendons, while balance exercises enhance neuromuscular connections, making your movements smoother and more efficient. This adaptive process is rooted in the principle of progressive overload, which is essential for developing the running-specific strength and stability needed for peak performance. Similarly, with running, the more you train, the more efficient and effortless your stride becomes over time.
Designing a strength and balance program is all about applying specific, intelligent stress to build well-rounded athleticism for running. Apply too little stress, and you won’t see results. Apply too much, and you risk overuse injuries. The key is to find the right balance, your “sweet spot”, and gradually push those boundaries over months and years.
In the running world, this concept is reflected in the 10% rule, which advises against increasing mileage by more than 10% per week. By adhering to this rule, you allow your body to adapt progressively, reducing the risk of overuse injuries. This steady approach not only improves your running performance but ensures you do so safely and sustainably.
The Whole-Body Approach
Running isn’t just a lower-body activity. The arms, shoulders, and core work in tandem with the legs to maintain balance and forward momentum.
For instance, a strong core minimizes excessive torso rotation, while the arms counterbalance leg movements to keep the body stable, while also adding to forward propulsion. By strengthening the entire body, runners can achieve better coordination, energy efficiency, and propulsive force. This is why I’d advise a full-body workout approach for runners using mainly compound movements that target all major muscle groups. We will tackle this concept in-depth throughout the next article in this two part series.
Final Thoughts
Running is so much more than putting one foot in front of the other, it’s a harmonious blend of strength, stability, and efficiency. Each stride relies on the coordination of powerful muscles and precise balance, ensuring smooth motion and minimizing the risk of injury.
If you want to become a stronger, more efficient runner, now is the time to tackle your current strength and balance levels. Are there weaknesses or imbalances holding you back? Do you always feel your hamstrings or calves give out during a run? Is it hard for you to maintain an effortless straight line trajectory? By identifying these weak areas, you can set the stage for improvement.
In the next article, we’ll dive into actionable exercises and drills designed to enhance your strength and balance for running. From dynamic stability work to strength-building movements, you’ll have a complete guide to take your running to the next level with two full workouts you can start right away!
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