I am standing in a small gym in London surrounded by dumbbells, kettlebells, weightlifting bars and a handful of people, mostly women. What we are about to do is written on a screen on the wall: Romanian deadlifts, Bulgarian split squats, Nordics, snatches, bent-over rows. This is a foreign language to me, a whole new world. I don’t do gyms. I loathe treadmills. I just want to run free outside. I’ve done a decade of marathon Raworth on the Run: Why Im raising the bar on strength training strength training, always assuming that 30 to 40 miles a week of running was enough for my muscles. But over the past few months, I keep hearing people talking about the need to lift heavy as you get older. Having just tipped into my 56th year, I decided to sign up for a six-week programme. I’m curious to find out what it will do for my running.
Ashton Turner is the man who runs ‘Evolve’. ‘Into what?’ I wonder. He’s in his late thirties, endlessly enthusiastic and passionate about the business he set up seven years ago. He calls it boutique fitness – small, 50-minute classes for men and women of all ages and sizes, targeted mainly at the over-forties. Everyone does the same sessions, just with different weights. ‘Your heavy is different to my heavy,’ he tells me, reassuringly. Although I have no idea what my heavy is.
We launch into back squats – loaded up like proper weightlifters. It turns out my legs are strong. I push more 10kg and 5kg discs on to the bar for each set of eight squats. By the last round, I’ve hit 50kg without too much trouble. Alas, my arms and shoulders are a mess. I can only just manage a few press-ups before collapsing on the floor. ‘Most people don’t want to do strength training when they’re running because they are time-poor,’ says Turner. ‘But if you add just one or two strength sessions a week that are focused on lower body and core, the easier it is to run. The more efficient you make yourself, the less energy you use. If you’re stronger, you won’t fatigue as quickly.’
I like the sound of this. I’m rather enjoying the heavy lifting, too. In fact, I start to swap my running time for another session at the gym. Within a couple of weeks, my body starts changing – a different shape to my arms, leaner around my waist, quads that look defined. I feel strong.
‘As you get older, you have to think of the floor as your enemy,’ Turner tells me. I think of my mother who toppled over at the age of 80 while weeding in the garden. She couldn’t get up and lay there for half an hour before my dad found her. That story made me throw myself on the ground to do press-ups – which I discovered I couldn’t do. ‘Your muscle mass declines after the age of 30,’ says Turner. The good news is that strength training will help rebuild that muscle at any age.
Six weeks after I first walked into that gym, I can feel a difference. I can squat 65kg, deadlift 75kg. I can bang out multiple press-ups and do one solitary pull-up. There’s still work to do, but I’ve lost body fat and gained muscle mass. And running does feel easier. I’m not tiring as quickly. ‘Is all this going to make me a faster runner?’ I ask Turner. ‘Absolutely! If you don’t get a PB in your next marathon, I’ll sign up fo rmy first,’ he fires back, then looks worried. We’ll see. I may find him a training plan – Sophie Raworth on how she started running.
