Runners often neglect strength workouts as a component of training, despite burgeoning knowledge that it might be the best use of their limited time.

Runners tend to believe the cardiovascular workout is more important, said Kyle Will, a runner, personal trainer and Bend High School track coach. But research shows that increasing strength can reduce common running injuries and improve anaerobic capacity, neuromuscular performance and balance, he said.

There comes a point when most runners realize this and decide to try something different, he said.

Julia Scheri, of Bend, ran her first marathon in Eugene in the spring of 2012. Using a traditional training plan, she endured a lot of long, slow, distance runs, called “LSD” in the running community. She ran five times a week in the months leading up to the 26.2-mile race.

“It was miserable,” said Scheri, 27. Her body felt wrecked when it was all over. She had even gained weight.

In August, Scheri decided to approach training differently. She signed up for a program called CrossFit Endurance, offered by Oregon CrossFit in Bend.

Many personal trainers, fitness facilities and physical therapists are providing programs now that emphasize the importance of balanced, muscular power for endurance athletes, especially runners.

The CrossFit approach

CrossFit is a popular strength and conditioning exercise program that combines weight lifting, gymnastics and aerobics into a varied and vigorous style of workout. There are many CrossFit gyms in Bend.

The CrossFit Endurance program’s niche for distance runners is that it eliminates long, slow, distance runs, and replaces them with shorter, faster runs. This follows the CrossFit philosophy of briefer, more intense workouts.

CrossFit Endurance participants only run three times a week. Participants also do CrossFit strengthening and conditioning workouts four to six times a week. Sometimes that means squeezing in two workouts per day, but the workouts are shorter and more intense than the traditional long, slow, distance runs.

“I believe there’s more than one way to do things. Obviously, the LSD stuff is working. This is another way for people to be balanced, individual athletes,” said Collin Brooks, a CrossFit Endurance coach. “They become stronger and more functioning and are still getting faster.”

Sean Wells, the head coach and owner at Oregon CrossFit, said he added the endurance program because he kept seeing injured runners. He believes more strength work and fewer miles logged can keep runners strong and competitive while eliminating some common overuse injuries.

Like many distance runners, Scheri, 27, was extremely skeptical at first.

“How is that possible? Train less and have better results?” Scheri said. “It’s very controversial still. … There is so much resistance to dumping this old-school method.”

But the new method worked for her.

“Every workout you feel like you’re going to die, pushing beyond your limits,” Scheri said. “You have a limited amount of time to work as hard as you can.”

Collin Robinson, 34, of Bend, tried CrossFit Endurance to rejuvenate his fitness and to prepare for the 5K that he ran last year. Not only did he lose 50 pounds and gain considerable strength, he has since completed a respectable list of increasingly long runs, culminating in the Eugene Marathon in April.

He likes the unconventional training, but said he had wished that he’d tried a two- to three-hour run before his marathon.

“I think that’s more mental than physical. I knew my body could take me 26.2 miles, but I didn’t know what would happen to my mind,” he said. “I finished, but not in the time I wanted. My body gave out at mile 15. Then my mind went at 16 or 17. I didn’t get it back until early 20s (mile mark).”

Now he knows what it’s like and said he’ll use the training program to prepare for a marathon again.

Scheri hasn’t run a second marathon yet, but plans to. She has run three half marathons recently, and improved her time by a noteworthy half hour.

More importantly, she said, since using the CrossFit Endurance approach to training, “I’ve had zero injuries.”

Injury prevention

Scheri’s improved all-over body strength helped her maintain good form even after she started to get fatigued during a long run.

“That’s where the strength and the running come together,” she said. Before CrossFit, during her marathon, her legs were plenty strong, but her core wasn’t, she said. Her muscles were probably out of balance, she said.

Runners tend to have strong quadriceps, hamstrings and calves. They tend to have weak gluteal muscles, hip flexors and imbalances in strength.

“The muscles that propel us forward are more dominant than the ones that counter those,” said Will, who offers weekly, drop-in strength workouts for runners at his WillPower Training Studio, and who recently launched a new eight-week “running strong” clinic.

Muscle imbalances can translate into tendonitis in the knee or plantar fasciitis in the foot, just a couple of the common lower body injuries that plague distance runners.

“If we can strengthen and counterbalance everything, it’ll help prevent a lot of those injuries. They’re all interconnected,” Will said.

Recreational runners should engage in a general training plan that strengthens the whole body, he said. Highly competitive runners trying to shave minutes off their marathon time, or injured runners who are seeing a physical therapist, would have more specific and individual strength programs to follow.

General strength training doesn’t have to mean going to the gym and lifting weights. It can be more functional training movements like burpees and lunges at home, Will said.

Jay Dicharry, a physical therapist and biomechanics expert at Rebound Physical Therapy, said stabilizing the body is key to preventing and reducing pains. In addition to imbalances in hip and gluteal muscles, runners often have poorly developed foot muscles, which can exacerbate injuries, including anterior cruciate ligament tears to shin splints. (See Dicharry’s tips for strengthening these weaknesses in “Getting stronger.”)

When done safely, the CrossFit style of strengthening can help a runner’s overall strength and general health, Will said. But he and some local physical therapists doubt that the CrossFit Endurance program adequately physiologically prepares a person for long distances, like a marathon.

That said, if a runner only has five hours a week to exercise, Will would suggest substituting one of those hours with strength work instead of running.