Summary

Strength training for a marathon helps you prevent injury and chase faster miles, but can you actually build muscle in the process?

Muscle hypertrophy, or the process of increasing the size of your muscles, doesnt typically fall in line with endurance training. Your strength workouts, when training for a big endurance event like 26.2, will likely consist of training for muscular endurance and power to support your runs, while hypertrophy training focuses on increasing muscle mass. While theres overlap in how you approach those goals, there are some differences — and all the cardio work you put in when training can affect results of the latter.

While its technically possible to build muscle while running many miles per week, there are many caveats. We spoke with experts to unpack what they know about muscle building while marathon training, and what it takes to build or maintain your gains.

You can technically build muscle and train for a marathon at the same time, but it makes it more difficult to optimize strength gains and endurance gains at more advanced levels. How much muscle you can build depends on your experience level, training volume, as well as sleep and nutrition, says Sara Rosenkranz, Ph.D., exercise physiologist and professor in kinesiology and nutrition sciences at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

First, its important to note that aerobic training doesnt promote the same skeletal muscle hypertrophy as resistance or strength training, according to research done by Brad Schoenfeld, Ph.D., C.S.C.S., certified strength and conditioning coach and professor of exercise science at Lehman College in the Bronx, New York and other colleagues, published in Sports Medicine. Thats why incorporating strength work into any run training that you do is crucial fo

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