This is more of a fitness related post. There are people that run long distances and have improved their cardiovascular strength and stamina so that they can run long distances.
This is great for your health, but to condition your body for peak athletic performance, you need to progressively overload the muscles so that it will break through the performance plateau.
Running alone won’t get you there. You must incorporate power exercises into your training to get legs that will be more explosive and that will generate more horizontal force so that you will perform better in your runs.
Additionally, your legs will take on a more athletic shape.
What things do you need to do to start getting runners legs?
Resistance training with your legs.
This includes doing squats, Bulgarian split squats, reverse lunges, weighted step-ups, and cleans to train your body to shift weight in an athletic movement with power.
Plyometrics
You have to do plyometrics training, which is explosive movements. You can do exercises such as:
- Skipping
- Bounding
- Hopping
- Box jumps
- Jumping lunges
- Jumping squats
Sprinting
You need to do sprinting to condition your body to fast athletic movements. This is likely to be in intervals where you focus on speed endurance, acceleration, and running with a high tempo.
How soon should you notice the changes to your body?
These changes happen pretty quickly. You should see a physical change in 30-90 days.
