Can you lift heavy and still run fast? Adam Meyer, a 6'5", 215-pound contributor at Outside Run, has spent ten years proving you can. His weekly setup — four lifting days on an upper/lower split, a functional fitness session midweek, around 25 miles of running, plus low-key weekend recovery — works because he stopped treating strength work as a side dish to running and started treating it as part of the same plan.
The core insight, backed by the two experts he consulted, is simple: stack your hard days together and let your easy days actually be easy. Coach Mike Thomson recommends pairing speed or tempo runs in the morning with a lift that same afternoon — or immediately after — rather than spreading intensity across the week. The alternative, lifting the day after a tough run on heavy legs, wrecks both workouts. In practice: intervals plus a lower-body session on Tuesday, then nothing heavier than upper-body work leading into a Saturday long run.
Short on time? Prioritise single-leg strength. Physical therapist and running coach Katie Cyrana Hillery points out that running is a single-leg sport, so split squats, single-leg Romanian deadlifts and step-ups deliver more injury-proofing per minute than bilateral lifts. Meyer's own stripped-back two-day split pairs those with Poliquin step-ups, hamstring curls, core circuits and a short menu of compound upper-body moves — pull-ups, bench press, rows, overhead press, dips.
Timing matters across a season, too. During base-building, when mileage is low, you can chase strength gains. But as peak mileage and race prep arrive, the goal flips to maintenance: keep the weight, cut the reps, sets and accessory work. Meyer drops from four lifting sessions to two in the final five or six weeks before a goal race — mentally tough if you also chase gym PRs, but it's the difference between racing fresh and racing flat.
And no, the lifting won't make you slow. Hillery notes that added strength improves running economy, so the same pace feels easier, and translates to better hill running, accelerations and speedwork. Thomson's rebuttal to the bulk myth is blunt: he doesn't know a single Division 1 college programme whose athletes don't lift and run. A decade in, Meyer's race times have improved alongside his lifts.
Why does this matter here? Because active travellers increasingly build holidays around running — race trips, trail weekends, running tours of new cities — and getting injured halfway through ruins the trip. If you're someone who squeezes training around flights, long sightseeing days and hotel gyms, the takeaways travel well: put your one available gym session on the same day as your run, make it single-leg focused, and ease off the volume (not the weight) when your running ramps up. Your legs — and your holiday plans — will thank you.
