Over two thousand years ago, a Greek King named Pyrrhus of Epirus and his army fought soldiers of the Roman Empire at the Italian city of Asculum.  Unlike so many others who attempted to stand up to the growing empire, Pyrrhus and his army actually won the battle.

However, the battle was extremely costly for Pyrrhus – he had lost nearly 10% of his soldiers and many of his generals.

After the battle, the Roman army was soon brought back to full strength with a new supply of recruits.  Pyrrhus’ army, on the other hand, had no new reinforcements.  While Pyrrhus enjoyed his victory on that specific day, he knew that the cost for winning the battle was too great – with his large losses, the Romans would soon defeat him and his army.

The phrase “pyrrhic victory” is now used to describe a short term victory that ends up ruining the victor.

Pyrrhic Victories in Training

Almost every runner has experienced a “phyrric victory” in his or her training.

When designing a training plan, many runners focus only on mileage volume and the time and intensity of workouts.  There is a certain excitement in running super fast workouts and being able to brag about lengthy long runs.

Unfortunately, going for the glory in a specific workout can ultimately doom a training plan. Injuries and overtraining often follow workouts or mileage amounts that were done without proper build-up.

Rather than focusing on the “epic” workouts in a training plan, runners should focus on a more important metric for judging training success: Consistency.

Consistency: The Key Ingredient to Running Success

The fact that a runner may have run an amazing 4 X mile or 6 X 800 meter workout while running 80 miles per week is irrelevant if the runner got hurt the next month and had to take two weeks off.  Similar to Pyrrhus, a runner’s decision to go “all out” on one workout when he or she is not ready is a recipe for disaster.

The true plan for running success is one based on consistency.

While all runners want to run amazing workouts, we also have to be smart about whether taking on increased intensity is appropriate for our specific fitness level – the costs of overestimated our fitness are just too great.

For example, a recent study found that an endurance athlete’s VO2Max declines about 6% after taking two weeks off from training. For a such a short period of time,  this is a significant drop off.

To avoid going backwards in your training, fight the urge to run workouts that are a drastic increase in intensity from prior sessions. Make the decision to be patient.  Learn from Pyrrhus and make sure you achieve “victory” in your ultimate goal race rather than some workout in the middle of your training plan.

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Additionally, many runners who do go to the gym allow their competitive side to get the best of them and lift more weight than they should, which can lead to injury. The good news is that there is a now much better way for runners to gain the specific kind of muscle strength that will prevent injuries and improve performance – this method is called Functional Strength Training.

What is Functional Strength Training?

Functional Strength Training is a new and innovative idea that focuses on viewing the human body’s muscles as one unit and strengthening them cohesively. This makes sense because the human body uses many different muscles together when running – quads, hamstrings, hips, etc. To better target running muscles, many of the exercises are done from a standing position and emphasize rotational and diagonal motions – opposite shoulder to opposite hip.

The goal of functional training is to develop the core and stability muscles much better than traditional “heavy lifting” techniques. Not only does it make runners stronger, but it makes them much more efficient.

How Does Functional Strength Training Differ from Other Weight Training?

The key concept of functional strength training is that muscles are best strengthened for use in the world by working them together cohesively. For example, in order to lift a leg during a run, the body relies on coordinated movements between numerous muscles, including the hips, back, quadriceps and hamstring muscles.

Conversely, many traditional weight and machine based training isolates individual muscle groups.  For example, leg extension machines do a good job of strengthening the quadriceps or hamstrings (depending on how you use the machine), but it is not going to do a lot for back or hip muscles.

It is of course important to note that tradition weight or machine training does have positives.  One of the most important benefits is the ability to isolate and strengthen a specific muscle that may have become weak and underused.  Muscle imbalances are a huge problem for many runners so isolated strength training of a specific muscle group can really cut down on the risk of injury.

Sample Functional Strength Training Exercises

Good exercises for runners can be as simple as controlled lunges and squats.  YouTube also has a lot of good sample exercises to try.  One of the best functional strength training videos that I have seen is the one below. In the video, the trainer provides an example of 10 of the best exercises for runners.

If you want to try any of these examples, please note that the trainer goes really fast and has an impressive range of movement.  Therefore, it may be smart to make these movements more slowly and only try one or two exercises to start out.  Additionally, please immediately stop any movement if you feel any pain.  The purpose of functional strength training is to cut down on injuries, not cause them or make them worse.

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