Why would a runner hire a bodybuilding coach?

It’s a good question right?!

To a degree I fell into bodybuilding training by accident but I think the curiosity of pursuing pure strength and physique transformation had always been at the back of my mind from a very young age.

When I was a teen and young woman and competing as a runner, it was rare to meet other women who were training to intentionally and purely build muscle and get strong.

To be honest there wasn’t even much strength training being encouraged for amateur female runners at all back then. And whilst strength training for running performance is different to pure bodybuilding, it would have enhanced my performance as a 400m sprinter to have a bit more strength and muscle.

I remember watching Gladiators every Saturday as a kid then flexing my arms in the mirror afterwards with a deep feeling that my body was built to grow. But societal norms of people pleasing and shrinking yourself were the cages women were encouraged to stay within back then.

However you can only cage a free spirited bird for so long……

Competition fatigue

I have competed in sport all my life apart from a gap when my children were little. I’ve won some things and failed at many things. I’ve felt the kaleidoscope of nerves and emotions on more start lines than I can remember. I’ve sweated, I’ve bled, I’ve cried and I’ve strived through a wide range of disciplines from running and triathlon to Hyrox and Martial Arts.

One day I just felt like I was done with competing against others. I was craving an inward journey of intrinsic motivation and that was coming from a truly honest place of growth within myself. What did I really want at this stage in my life? What was my true heart’s desire in terms of my training? There is absolutely nothing wrong with being competitive but I was beginning to feel more passion about helping others compete and the joy of competing myself was diminishing rapidly.

What was this telling me?

I just wanted to be better than I was yesterday

When I answered these questions honestly it was the little girl inside me that answered. Like most women on this planet I’d fallen victim to body image pressures in my younger years. I’m old enough to remember the first time around when skinny and ‘heroin chic’ was deemed fashionable. Women come in so many different shapes and we should never be expected to be a homogenous group of billions.

From long distance runners to wrestlers, from tall and lean to short and muscular and everything in between, your body has attributes that if you harness them and love them will make you more capable than you could imagine.

The little girl in me who loved Gladiators and female muscles wanted to grow and this was something that I could pursue in competition with only myself. Yes bodybuilders compete but I just wanted to pursue the training and the lifestyle in my own little lane. Getting better each week without any need for external validation or other people’s expectations.

However this was a new area of training for me and so I decided I needed a bit of help.

A coach needs a coach

Whatever discipline I’ve pursued I’ve always taken guidance and inspiration from other coaches and experts around me. You’re not going to be the best coach you can be if you think you know it all or think your way is the only way.

I hired a bodybuilding coach to help me in this new phase of training and honestly she has grown to be a huge source of support in my life and one of the best mentors I’ve had. She listened and understood where I was coming from. She still saw the potential in me.

I threw myself into her programme and followed her guidance. I quickly grew to love training on my own, minding my own business and stacking up those reps in the gym. I loved checking in with her and celebrating my wins without the pressure of competition and her cheering me on all the way.  It was still a big mental and physical challenge for me and really hard at times which has developed discipline and resilience I didn’t know I had.

It became about so much more than muscles

As my body changed and my strength grew, there was mental growth too. All sports or fitness programmes require discipline but this did require a change in my nutrition habits which was hard. Nutrition is often the hardest area of change for people I think. I did do a calorie deficit phase initially but it was controlled and complemented by high protein, good hydration and improved sleeping habits. Your body needs this and I realised that I’d not been drinking enough and my sleep habits weren’t optimal.

But what surprised me the most and actually provided most growth and learning was going into a sustained improvement phase after this. Increasing food to higher levels than I would ever have been comfortable with before and training and lifting harder than I’d ever done. I realised that previously I’d not actually been eating enough to sustain a high load of high impact and high intensity training during the week and this was causing me to burnout at the weekends.

And all the extra food was quality macros with good sources of protein, plenty of carbohydrates, healthy fats and colourful food. I felt so much better, I had more energy and my skin and hair were in better condition too.

And the muscles were definitely growing!

BUT

There’s always a but and I like to be balanced in my perspective when it comes to sport and training. What I will say is that it has been hard to maintain the same level of running fitness whilst the focus has been muscle growth. I’ve still felt a pull to my previously most loved sport so I didn’t want to give this up completely.

Cardio is always factored into a quality bodybuilding training programme for conditioning and heart health. I still run every week (usually intervals to get most bang for my buck) or do a one off high intensity session for my cardio and conditioning. My coach has always encouraged this too.

And I feel I’m actually maintaining a pretty decent level of fitness even if my top end endurance has dipped a bit. It would definitely be too much to do my lifting sessions to the intensity I’m aiming for and try to do a full running programme too. But I like the balance I’m striking and if I decided to fully focus on running again I actually think the benefits of this phase of training would come into play and maybe even enhance my performance in the long term, particularly for speed endurance distances. My glutes and core are much stronger, my posture has improved and my joints have been so much better. I was suffering with a lot of severe hip pain previously.

I’m so much more confident in my body and running without Strava stats and pressure has brought  joy back to my running.

We can all learn from each other

Personally I don’t like to see sports and disciplines criticising each other. They are all worthy of admiration and actually can learn a lot from each other. I knew very little about bodybuilding previously and I’ve learnt a lot by really listening to my coach and asking questions too.

I’m in a really happy place with my training and I have goals but if I do switch to running goals again I would be taking what I’ve learnt over the last year and applying it. I would definitely eat properly to fuel any gruelling sessions and training weeks.

I would accept that I’m built to have muscle, I have broad shoulders and a big back and that’s absolutely fine! As I said previously women are supposed to be different. From the rugby field, to the marathon course and to a swimming pool I’ve seen so many different body types and physiques do amazing things. I love my body more than I’ve ever done through acceptance and listening to that little girl inside me and what she wanted all those years ago.

Structured and adequate strength training would still be non-negotiable and if I did want to lose some body fat there is a time and structured way to do this. You cannot perform well at high intensity pursuits if you are under fuelling consistently.

The last year has been an incredible journey with my coach. I said at the start I fell into it by accident but I wonder if it was meant to be and this little bird has been uncaged indefinitely. So I’m off to watch Gladiators and have a wee flex of my biceps…