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Strength training for college cross country

Posted: Tue Jun 20, 2017 4:15 pm
by WhoDey
My daughter is about to enter college where she will be running cross country (fall) and track (winter and spring). This past year (HS senior season) she incorporated strength training on her own and I believe it made her a much stronger runner and kept her injury-free while her times improved. She has been on a running rest period the last month and is now beginning to increase her mileage in preparation for the fall cross country season.

While she has been lifting 3x/week (focus on compound lifts with some accessory exercises), I'm thinking it would be good to adopt a 2x/week schedule as she increases mileage. I'm hopeful she could maintain this schedule during the season. While her coach has prescribed running workouts, there is no guidance on strength training. The trick, of course, is to strength train to compliment the running without being so fatigued that the running suffers. Seems a good fit for Tactical Barbell.

Would the Fighter template (2x/week) with maybe an extra SE session (Bangkok version) be a good fit? I was thinking of using the standard BP/SQ/WPU cluster one day/week and BP/SQ/WPU+DL the other day.

Thank you in advance for sharing your thoughts.

Re: Strength training for college cross country

Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2017 8:27 pm
by K.B.
WhoDey,

Keep it simple. Fighter twice a week. Forget about the SE day for now. She likely gets more than enough sport specific SE during CC Trg.

Don't be afraid to get more minimalist with the cluster as her mileage goes up. Play in the 3-5 set/per exercise range.

Remember to reassess periodically and add/subtract work if needed.

Re: Strength training for college cross country

Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2017 2:43 am
by WhoDey
Thank you.