I went to the gym today thinking I was going to do some chest and bicep lifts, but as I was doing bench I thought that today might be a good day to do some leg stuff. I took Saturday off, ran 9.4 on Sunday and 8.4 yesterday so I thought this may not be a great idea, however there is no time like the present to do something. All of my lifting life I have HATED two things: leg days and ab work. Can't stand them. After my last marathon, I decided that maybe doing some lower body strength training will give me that extra boost later in the race when I need it the most.
So today I lifted before I ran. I did some squats, Romanian dead lifts, leg curls, and leg extensions...all at 3 sets of 15 reps. I've decided that for my strength training I'm going to keep my repetition range at 12-17, which would encourage muscle recruitment rather than pure strength training. Curls and extensions are not a problem, however I hate squats. Dunno why, it may be because for a three month period in high school whenever I lifted a ton of weight on squat and leg press I would get intense migraine headaches (which was due to a freak digging grave/backhoe accident). Thus, I hate them. I finished my three sets and washed my hands of that exercise until next week.
Interesting things I noticed about my leg lifts today were: minor, no thought knee injuries are brought to the forefront during leg curls, I'm not as strong as I used to be, my hammies are wussies, and again, naked old men are gross.
I ran 6+ miles after my lift (I would usually run before my lifts, but for some reason I wanted to get into the gym, I may have seen a cute girl, who knows). The run was fine, a new route through the metropolis that is Great Falls, MT. A few hills, lots of wind, you know, the norm for this part of the country.
Has anyone here done any lower body strength training while in the midst of a marathon? If so, what sort of exercises/sets/reps did you do?
I'm out. I have a few fence posts to pound tomorrow...
