Running and Weight Training

by Chantal

I need to lose 70 lbs, and I have started to run. What weight training exercises should I include in my beginners running program so that it doesn't tax my body too much... Thx.

Answer by Dominique:
Hi Chantal,
Thanks for your excellent question!

Good on you for starting a running and fitness program to lose some weight.

I'll broaden my advice to the following:

1. Running and weight loss
2. Starting with strength training

So, here we go:

Running and Weight Loss

Running is a great activity to support weight loss. When you are starting out, especially when needing to lose quite a bit of weight, I can highly recommend a combination of running and walking. You will be able to cover more distance and through that, burn more calories.

Stick with it, slowly build up your mileage and implement good eating habits and your success is almost guaranteed!

There are a number of weight loss pages on this website. A good starting point is: Running and Weight Loss.

Starting with Strength Training

When you want to start lifting weights, you need to ease into a strength training program. Pretty similar to running really. Start light and easy and build up from there. A really good entry point is to actually not deal with weights at all and start doing body weight exercises.

Examples are push ups, burpees, lunges, star jumps etc. Body weight exercises are very low cost. I don't mean from a monetary perspective, what I am trying to say is that they are low cost in terms of injury risk.

Looking for workout ideas? I am a fan of a site like FitnessBlender. They provide dozens and dozens of videos depending on the time you want to exercise, equipment you want to use etc. Very easy to find something you can do.

After getting used to body weight exercises you can progress to resistance bands and then light dumbbells or kettlebells with higher rep counts (12-20). Over time you'll be able to progress to heavier weights and less reps (3-8), a good range to build strength.

An alternative to all of this is join a gym (they have all the equipment on offer you could ever want) and work with a personal trainer. Personal trainers I have worked with have been able to teach me the ropes on new machines and do barbell lifts safely, whilst at the same time challenging me and helping me get stronger.

Hope this helps.
Best of luck with the weight loss journey.

Just remember that it is a journey. At times you might take a side trip and get a little lost, but as long as you keep on going, you will get there.

All the best,
Dominique