Should I Run Before or After a Strength Workout?

It is 6.30pm, you have an hour before dinner, and your plan says "easy 5km plus legs". You are standing between the treadmill and the squat rack, trying to decide which comes first. Ask around the gym floor and you will get both answers, each said with total confidence.

The research is calmer than the gym floor, and more useful. Here is your complete guide to running before or after a strength workout: what the studies found, when the order matters, and how to plan your week so your runs and your strength work stay out of each other's way.

Run First or Lift First at a Glance

Based on reviews by Eddens and colleagues (2018), Methenitis (2018) and Blagrove and colleagues (2018). Full links are at the end.

What the Research Found

The Order Studies: Lifting First Built More Leg Strength

In 2018, researchers at Northumbria University pooled ten studies that tested both orders over training programmes of at least five weeks. Doing resistance training first and endurance work second gave a bigger gain in lower-body dynamic strength, around 7% more than the reverse order. The order made no difference to muscle growth in the legs, to static strength, or to maximal aerobic capacity and body fat.

A 2023 review of randomised controlled trials in Frontiers in Physiology landed in the same place. The order did not change VO2max, and strength first improved lower-limb strength more, mainly in the muscles that straighten and bend the knee.

Why the Order Matters Less for Your Running

Look at what stayed the same in both reviews: aerobic fitness. The order you choose decides how much strength you build. It does not decide how fit your heart and lungs get. For a runner, that takes most of the pressure off the question.

The Exception: When Your Run Is the Key Session

A 2018 review in the journal Sports puts the rule plainly. When the goal is muscle, strength and power, do the resistance exercises first. When you need to build endurance, or the strength gains matter less to you, do the endurance work first.

So if today's run is your tempo or your intervals, run first and hit your paces on fresh legs. Just expect the gym work afterwards to feel harder. In studies by Schumann and colleagues, runners who lifted straight after a running session saw no extra benefit over running alone, and the researchers put it down to leftover fatigue lowering the quality of the strength sessions.

The order decides how much strength you build. The gap between sessions decides how well you do both.

The Better Answer: Split Them Up

Most of the trouble comes from doing both back to back. A 2022 review of 43 studies found that adding aerobic training to strength training did not compromise muscle growth or maximal strength. It did hold back explosive strength, and that effect was more pronounced when both were done in the same session than when the sessions were separated by at least 3 hours.

How Long to Leave Between Them

• After a hard run: wait more than 3 hours before you lift. That is the recovery period the 2018 review of strength training for distance runners recommends after high-intensity running.
• Before a hard run: leave at least 24 hours after a strength session. The same review notes that a single bout of resistance training can cause enough fatigue to hurt the run that follows.
• When you have the time: the Sports review suggests separating the two by 3 to 6 hours, up to 24 hours, while admitting that this is not always practical for real athletes with jobs and families.

What That Looks Like in a Singapore Week

Plenty of Singapore runners already head out early before the day heats up, which makes the split easy: run in the morning, lift after work, and you have well over 3 hours between them. Here is one way to fit two strength sessions around two key runs.

Each strength session comes more than 3 hours after the morning run and at least 24 hours before the next key run. The hard work sits on the same days, so your easy days stay easy.

If You Only Have One Session

Sometimes the only window is one hour at the gym. Here is how to order it:

• Strength is the focus: lift first, then run. The Northumbria review recommends this order for anyone short on time who has to train both with little rest between them.
• The run is easy: either order works. The distance-running review notes that strength work placed straight after a low-intensity run has been shown to give a better stimulus for endurance than separate sessions, without compromising the signals for strength gains.
• The run is hard: run first and keep the strength work short. If the strength session matters to you that week, move it to another day instead.

Build Your Strength Work with ATHLO+

If you would rather have the strength side planned for you, STR Fitness Club's Run Strong is a 12-week running-specific strength programme. After you buy, STR get in touch within 3 working days and send you your plan as a PDF, and you train wherever you like. Training for HYROX instead? HYROX Build is a 12-week block where you choose the focus: Station Conditioning, Strength or Running.

Ready to see why strength work matters for runners in the first place? Read why runners need strength training next. Adding ice baths to the mix? Read how to time a cold plunge around strength and endurance training.