Top 4 Rules For Building Muscle While Running

Many runners want to build muscle but aren’t always sure how to go about it. Strength training can feel unfamiliar, and without the right plan, it’s easy to waste time making little progress. This guide breaks down four essential rules to help you build size and strength while still progressing in your running.

Create a Calorie Surplus

A calorie surplus means eating more calories than your body needs to maintain weight, which is essential for muscle growth, especially with increased energy demands from running. Many ‘hard gainers’ underestimate their intake, so tracking food is key for progress.

Understand your maintenance calories

Maintenance calories are the amount needed to keep your current weight. You can estimate this with online calculators or by tracking intake and weight consistently over one to two weeks. When looking at weight gain or loss, focus on weekly trends as weight fluctuates daily for a number of reasons.

Stick to a moderate surplus

Your surplus determines how fast you gain weight. A 500-calorie surplus adds about one pound or 0.45 kilograms per week, while a 250-calories adds around half a pound or 0.23 kilograms. For runners, a moderate surplus of 250 to 350 calories is best to build muscle steadily without excess fat that can hinder performance. Focus on clean, nutrient-dense foods rather than large surpluses that mainly increase fat gain.

Consuming the correct macronutrients

Once you’ve set your calorie target, the next step is to break it down into the right balance of macronutrients: protein, carbohydrates, and fats.

• Protein is essential for muscle repair and growth; aim for around 1.6–2.2g per kg of body weight daily.

• Carbohydrates fuel your training, especially running, and help with recovery—about 45–60% of your total calories should come from carbs.

• Fats support hormone production and overall health, making up roughly 20–30% of your daily intake.

Quick Tips For Achieving A Calorie Surplus

• Protein Shakes between meals

• Cooking with caroie dense ingredients like olive oil or nut butter

• Snacking on trail mix or dried fruit

• Choose calorie-dense carbs like pasta over potatoes

Train With Progressive Overload

Progressive overload means gradually increasing the stress placed on your muscles over time. Your muscles need a reason to grow; this is done by lifting more weight, doing more reps, or increasing volume to keep building strength and size.

It’s the same principle you’ve likely followed in running, whether by adding distance, increasing pace, or tackling tougher routes to improve performance.

Gym Terminology

Weight - Amount of resistance or load you lift during an exercise.

Repetitions (Reps) - Number of times you perform a specific exercise movement in a row.

Sets - Groups of consecutive repetitions performed without rest.

Find and Stick to a gym routine

Finding and sticking to a consistent gym routine is key to making progressive overload work. When you follow the same structure each week, it becomes much easier to track your weights, reps, and sets—and gradually increase them over time. Repeating the same exercises also helps you improve your form, build confidence, and make consistent progress in strength and technique.

Track progress

A famous saying that I love, which applies to all areas of life, is “What gets measured gets improved”. Tracking your progress massively helps with building muscle. By recording your weights, sets, and reps, you can aim to improve week by week as this gradually increases the stress on your muscles, which drives growth. You can track your workouts by simply using a notepad or one of the many phone apps.

Master Scheduling Workouts and Recovery

Time Workouts Strategically

Timing your workouts strategically can make a big difference in performance and recovery. If you’re doing double sessions, aim to space them about 8 hours apart or between two meals to give your body time to refuel and recover. Avoid stacking a heavy leg day right before an intense run, especially speed work or long intervals, as this can increase fatigue and the risk of injury. Planning your training week with recovery in mind helps you get the best out of both lifting and running.

Treat Recovery Like A Job

Set a consistent bedtime to make recovery easier and ensure enough sleep, which is vital for muscle repair and overall performance. Recovery also includes using tools like foam rollers and doing light stretching to reduce soreness and prevent injury.

That said, life can disrupt your routine, and it’s okay to adjust workouts or recovery as needed. Consistency over time matters more than perfection, and sometimes other priorities come first.

Stay Committed To The Long-Term Goal

Muscle isn’t built overnight

Muscle isn’t built overnight. Like anything worthwhile, it takes time and consistent effort. The good news is that beginners often experience rapid progress known as newbie gains. With proper training and nutrition, this phase typically lasts 6 to 12 months and brings noticeable improvements in size, strength, and coordination. After that, progress slows, but with smart programming and consistent effort, you can continue to build muscle over time.

Muscle isn’t the enemy of runners

Adding muscle does have some impact on your running since muscle adds extra weight. While this additional muscle makes you stronger and more resilient, it can slightly reduce your speed, especially over longer distances. This is why most elite runners avoid heavy strength training focused on hypertrophy; they aim to optimise pure running performance. However, for most runners who have goals beyond just running and aren’t competing at an elite level, building muscle is still a great choice. Excess muscle may hinder performance at the ultra-lean Olympic level, but for everyone else, having a muscular frame won’t hold you back. You can still be strong, fast and capable.

Hopefully, you have come to the end of this article ready to start your muscle-building journey or are more well-equipped to make improvements. Resistance training in the gym has so many benefits. It can help you look better, become stronger, boost confidence and add variety to your training beyond running. Now go get yourself to the gym. 😁

Thanks for reading,

- Oli