Strength Training During Marathon Training: How to Keep Lifting Without Killing Your Running

You Do Not Have to Choose Between the Barbell and the Start Line

Most marathon training advice treats strength training as an optional extra. A couple of bodyweight circuits here, some calf raises there, maybe a plank if you are feeling ambitious. That advice is written for runners who have never touched a barbell.

But what if you already lift three or four times a week? What if squats, deadlifts, and presses are not something you are adding to your routine but something you are trying to hold onto while marathon mileage climbs? That is a completely different problem, and almost nobody writes about it well.

This guide is for the hybrid athlete who wants to train for a marathon and keep lifting. Not bodyweight-only maintenance. Not "runner's strength" with 2kg dumbbells. Actual barbell and dumbbell training that preserves the muscle and strength you have spent years building, programmed intelligently alongside 40 to 70km of weekly running.

The answer is not to do everything at full volume. The answer is to periodise your strength work across your marathon block so that lifting supports your running rather than competing with it. Here is exactly how to do that.

Why Most Lifters Lose Strength During Marathon Training

The typical pattern looks like this. You sign up for a marathon. You keep lifting the same way you always have. Running volume starts climbing. You start feeling flat in the gym. Your squat drops. Your sleep suffers. Something starts hurting, usually a knee or a hip. You cut the gym sessions. By race day you have lost 10 to 15 percent of your strength and feel like a completely different athlete.

This happens because running and lifting both draw from the same recovery budget, and most people never adjust spending on either side. A 20km long run on Sunday morning creates systemic fatigue that your body is still processing on Monday when you try to hit heavy squats. The interference is not theoretical. It is something you will feel in your first heavy session after a genuine long run.

The research backs this up. A 2017 systematic review in Sports Medicine found that concurrent strength and endurance training can blunt strength gains, particularly when training volume is high and recovery is insufficient. But here is the important part: the same research shows that well-structured concurrent training can maintain strength while building endurance. The problem is not that the two are incompatible. The problem is that most people never structure them properly.

What if your plan handled all of this for you? Most athletes juggle a running app and a separate gym programme that have no idea what the other is doing. That is why your squat drops when mileage climbs. Edge programmes your strength, running, and conditioning as one integrated system, so when your long run gets longer, your lifting volume adjusts automatically. No guesswork. No interference. Try it free.

How to Structure Strength Training Across a Marathon Block

A standard marathon training block runs 12 to 18 weeks. Your strength training should change across that block, not in a random "listen to your body" way, but with a deliberate plan that shifts volume, intensity, and exercise selection as running demands increase.

Think of it in three phases.

Phase 1: Base Building (Weeks 1 to 6)

During the early weeks of marathon training, running volume is moderate and long runs are manageable. This is your best window for real strength work. You will not get this opportunity again until after the race.

Lift three to four times per week. Keep your big compound movements: squat, deadlift, bench press, overhead press, rows. Train in the 3 to 8 rep range with loads that are genuinely challenging. This is not the time to back off in the gym. Your running volume is low enough that your body can handle both demands.

The key adjustment is session placement. Put your hardest lifting on the same day as your hardest running, or as close together as possible. This sounds counterintuitive, but it keeps your easy days genuinely easy and gives your body proper recovery windows. A hard run in the morning followed by a heavy upper body session in the evening is far better than spreading hard efforts across every day of the week.

Phase 2: Build and Peak (Weeks 7 to 13)

This is where marathon training gets serious. Long runs extend past 25km. Weekly mileage climbs. Tempo runs and intervals get harder. Your legs are accumulating fatigue that does not fully clear between sessions.

Drop to two to three lifting sessions per week. Reduce total volume per session by 20 to 30 percent but keep the intensity high. This is critical: do not switch to light weights and high reps. If you were squatting 100kg for sets of 5, you are better off doing 95kg for sets of 3 than dropping to 60kg for sets of 15. Heavy loads with lower volume maintain strength with far less muscle damage than lighter loads with higher volume.

Start favouring movements that have lower eccentric stress. Trap bar deadlifts instead of conventional. Leg press instead of deep barbell squats on days when your legs are cooked. Keep single-leg work like Bulgarian split squats and single-leg Romanian deadlifts in the programme, as these build the unilateral stability that directly helps your running.

Schedule your lifting around your running week. The day after a long run should be either a rest day or an upper body session only. Never go heavy on lower body the day before a key running session like a tempo or interval workout.

Phase 3: Taper (Weeks 14 to 16 or 18)

Running volume drops. The temptation is to ramp the gym back up. Do not do this. The taper exists to let your body absorb the training you have already done, and adding gym volume now will only leave you sore and flat on race day.

Lift twice per week at most. Keep the loads moderate to heavy but cut the volume significantly. Two to three working sets per exercise, two to four reps per set. No new exercises. Nothing that will cause delayed onset muscle soreness. Your final heavy lower body session should be 10 to 14 days before the race. In the final week, you can do a short upper body session or light movement work, but nothing that taxes your legs.

The goal of the taper is to arrive at the start line feeling strong and fresh. If you have been consistent with your lifting through the base and build phases, you will not lose meaningful strength in two to three weeks of reduced training.

Running and Lifting on the Same Day: How to Make It Work

This is one of the most searched questions in hybrid training, and the answer is straightforward: yes, you can run and lift on the same day, and for most marathon training schedules, you will need to.

The order depends on the type of run.

If it is a hard running session (tempo, intervals, marathon pace work), run first. You want fresh legs for the workout that has specific pace targets. Lift afterwards, accepting that you will be somewhat fatigued. An upper body session works best here. If you must train lower body, reduce the weight by 10 to 15 percent.

If it is an easy run, either order works. Many hybrid athletes prefer to lift first and then do their easy run as a form of cooldown or active recovery. The easy run should genuinely be easy, which means running on slightly tired legs is fine and may actually prevent you from pushing the pace too hard.

If possible, separate the two sessions by at least four to six hours. Morning run, evening lift, or vice versa. If you can only train once per day, combine them but keep the total session under 90 minutes. Long gym sessions after a hard run are where injuries happen.

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What to Do With Your Lower Body Training

Lower body is where the interference between running and lifting is most acute. Your legs are absorbing 50,000 or more impacts during a marathon, and every heavy squat session adds to that load.

The solution is not to stop training legs. Runners who abandon lower body lifting during marathon blocks often end up weaker and more injury-prone, not less. The solution is to be strategic about exercise selection, volume, and timing.

During base building, keep your full lower body programme. Squats, deadlifts, lunges, hip thrusts, calf work. Train them hard.

During the build phase, simplify. Pick two to three lower body movements per session instead of four or five. Prioritise hip-dominant exercises (Romanian deadlifts, hip thrusts, step-ups) over quad-dominant exercises, as these support running mechanics while creating less overall fatigue. Keep at least one heavy compound movement in each session to maintain top-end strength.

During the taper, lower body work becomes minimal. One session per week with moderate loads and low volume. Think of it as keeping the neural pathways active rather than driving adaptation.

Can You Build Muscle While Training for a Marathon?

Realistically, no. Not in any meaningful way. Marathon training creates a sustained caloric deficit (or at least a significant energy demand) and chronic endurance stress that makes hypertrophy extremely difficult. If you go into your marathon block expecting to add muscle, you will be disappointed and probably overtrained.

The realistic goal is strength maintenance. If you can finish your marathon block squatting within 5 to 10 percent of your pre-block numbers, you have done an excellent job. Most lifters who do not periodise their training properly lose far more than that.

After the marathon, when running volume drops and recovery capacity opens up, you can push the gym hard again. Many hybrid athletes find that the aerobic base they built during marathon training actually supports faster recovery between lifting sessions, making post-marathon strength gains come faster than expected.

Nutrition for the Hybrid Athlete in a Marathon Block

You cannot eat like a pure runner or a pure lifter during a marathon training block. You need to fuel both demands, and getting this wrong is one of the fastest ways to lose muscle, tank your performance, or get injured.

Protein intake should stay at 1.6 to 2.2 grams per kilogram of bodyweight per day. This is higher than most running nutrition guides suggest, but it is essential for maintaining muscle mass under the catabolic stress of high mileage. For a 95kg hybrid athlete, that means 150 to 210 grams of protein per day, every day, including long run days when appetite often drops.

Carbohydrates are your primary fuel for both running and lifting. On high-volume days (long runs plus a gym session), total carbohydrate intake may need to reach 5 to 7 grams per kilogram. On rest days, 3 to 4 grams per kilogram is sufficient. Do not go low carb during a marathon block. Your performance in both the gym and on the road will suffer.

Total calories matter too. Many marathon runners lose weight during training blocks because they undereat relative to their energy expenditure. For a hybrid athlete who wants to maintain strength and muscle, you need to eat enough to support both training modalities. A sustained caloric deficit during peak training weeks is a recipe for lost strength, poor recovery, and increased injury risk.

A Sample Week: Strength Training During Peak Marathon Training

Here is what a well-structured week might look like during the build phase, when you are running 50 to 60km per week and lifting twice.

Monday: Easy run (8 to 10km) in the morning. Full body strength session in the evening: trap bar deadlift 4x4, dumbbell bench press 3x8, Bulgarian split squat 3x6 each side, weighted pull-up 3x6, pallof press 3x10.

Tuesday: Tempo run or interval session (key running workout).

Wednesday: Easy run (6 to 8km). Optional: light upper body or mobility work.

Thursday: Easy run (8 to 10km) in the morning. Strength session in the evening: front squat or leg press 3x5, Romanian deadlift 3x6, overhead press 3x6, barbell row 3x8, farmer carry 3x30m.

Friday: Rest or very easy 5km shake-out run.

Saturday: Long run (22 to 30km).

Sunday: Full rest. No lifting. No running.

This structure concentrates stress on Monday and Thursday (easy run plus lifting), keeps Tuesday and Saturday for hard running efforts, and protects Friday and Sunday as genuine recovery days. The total gym volume is modest, roughly 25 to 30 working sets across the week, but the intensity stays high enough to maintain strength.

When to Stop Lifting Before Your Marathon

Your final heavy lower body session should be no closer than 10 days before race day. For most runners, 12 to 14 days out is the sweet spot. This gives your muscles enough time to fully repair and supercompensate without losing the neural adaptations that keep you strong.

Upper body work can continue until 5 to 7 days before the race, as it does not affect your legs. A light pressing and pulling session mid-taper week can actually help you feel normal and manage pre-race restlessness.

In the final 5 days, do nothing in the gym. Light walking, gentle stretching, and maybe some foam rolling. That is it. Trust the work you have done.

The Integrated Approach: Why This Is Harder Than It Sounds

The challenge of strength training during marathon training is not any single session. It is the accumulation of fatigue across weeks and months of trying to be good at two things that pull your body in different directions. This is what makes it a genuine programming problem, not just a willpower problem.

Most training apps and plans treat running and lifting as separate tracks. Your running app gives you a marathon plan. Your gym programme gives you a lifting split. Neither knows what the other is doing, so you end up managing the interference yourself, usually by feel, usually badly.

This is the exact problem that Edge was built to solve. Edge programmes your running, strength training, and conditioning as a single integrated system. When your long run gets longer, your lifting volume adjusts. When you are in a taper, your gym sessions scale down automatically. You do not have to guess how to fit it all together because the plan already accounts for both demands.

If you are training for a marathon while wanting to keep your strength, or if you are a hybrid athlete preparing for any combination of running and lifting, try Edge free and see what integrated programming actually feels like.

For more on how to approach running and strength training as one system rather than two competing plans, read our guide to why the best running training plan is the one that knows you also lift.