Companion to the marathon plan · 71 kg
Two sessions a week that make you harder to break, faster per step, and stronger than you are now — without ever costing you a run. Plus a six-minute daily block aimed straight at that knee.
Lower + vertical pull · 40 min falling to 25
Warm up six minutes: five easy on the bike, then leg swings, bodyweight hinges, and the banded lateral walk from the hip block. Then, from block week 3 onward, the ankle plyometrics — they go first, while you're fresh, and they take two minutes.
| Exercise | Why it's here | On-ramp + W1–4 | W5–8 | W9–13 | Rest |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pogo hops plyo | Ankle and Achilles stiffness — the cheapest running-economy gain there is. Small, fast, quiet. Knees barely bend. | 3 × 20 | 3 × 25 | 2 × 20 | 45 s |
| Trap-bar or dumbbell RDL heavy | Hinge. Hamstrings and glutes under real load, with almost no knee flexion — the heaviest thing you can do without provoking the knee. | 4 × 6 | 3 × 5 | 2 × 5 | 2–3 min |
| Bulgarian split squat or step-up hard | Single-leg strength — running is a single-leg sport and this is the most specific lift in the plan. Also directly trains the hip control your knee is asking for. | 3 × 8 / leg | 3 × 6 / leg | 2 × 6 / leg | 2 min |
| Seated calf raise, bent knee heavy | The most important lift on this page. Bent knee targets the soleus, which absorbs the largest single load in running and is the tissue that protects the Achilles and the shin. | 4 × 10 | 4 × 8 | 3 × 8 | 60 s |
| Standing calf raise, straight knee | Gastrocnemius. Full range, pause at the bottom stretch. Both calf variants are needed; they load different muscles. | 3 × 12 | 3 × 10 | 2 × 10 | 45 s |
| Weighted pull-up heavy | Your headline calisthenic. Placed here because it costs the legs nothing and Wednesday has the recovery room for it. | 4 × 5 | 3 × 5 | 2 × 5 | 2–3 min |
| Suitcase carry | Anti-lateral-flexion core and grip. One heavy dumbbell, walk tall, don't lean. Transfers to holding form late in a marathon better than any crunch. | 3 × 40 m | 2 × 40 m | 2 × 30 m | 60 s |
Session A, demonstrated
Start with the step-up — a 30–40 cm box, dumbbells at your sides, drive through the front heel and do not push off the back foot. It's the knee-friendlier option and it loads the glute hard. Move to the Bulgarian split squat once four weeks of step-ups have passed without lateral knee complaints. If either one provokes the knee, shorten the range before you lower the weight — a partial rep is a legitimate rep, as your old plan already told you.
Upper + hips · 35 min falling to 22 · legs stay fresh for Saturday
| Exercise | Why it's here | On-ramp + W1–4 | W5–8 | W9–13 | Rest |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weighted dip heavy | Your best press. Torso slightly forward, stop at a shoulder-comfortable depth. | 4 × 6 | 3 × 6 | 2 × 6 | 2–3 min |
| Chest-supported row hard | Horizontal pull with no lower-back cost — the chest support matters on a day before a long run. | 3 × 8 | 3 × 8 | 2 × 8 | 90 s |
| Overhead press, dumbbell | Vertical press and overhead shoulder health. Seated or standing. | 3 × 8 | 3 × 6 | 2 × 6 | 2 min |
| Weighted push-up | Second press dose. At 30–40 bodyweight reps this is endurance, not stimulus, so it must carry a plate or elevated feet to count. | 3 × 12 | 2 × 12 | cut | 90 s |
| Hip thrust, barbell or dumbbell | Heavy glutes with essentially no knee flexion and minimal next-day soreness — the one lower-body lift that's safe this close to Saturday. | 3 × 10 | 3 × 8 | 2 × 8 | 90 s |
| Face pull or reverse fly | Rear delts and upper back. Counterweight to the pressing and to hours at a desk. | 3 × 15 | 2 × 15 | 2 × 15 | 60 s |
| Superset: EZ curl + overhead triceps | Arms. Present because you want to be strong and it costs the running nothing. First thing cut when time is short. | 2 × 10 each | 2 × 10 each | cut | 90 s |
| Ab wheel or long-lever plank | Anti-extension. The trunk stiffness that stops your form folding in the last 10 km. | 3 × 10 | 3 × 10 | 2 × 10 | 60 s |
Session B, demonstrated
You have three weeks of on-ramp left, running 22–28 km a week. That is the only window in the next 19 weeks with genuine room for a third lift, and it is worth taking. Add a Session C on a non-running day: repeat Session A's RDL, step-up and both calf raises at the on-ramp set counts, plus bodyweight pull-ups and push-ups to two reps short of failure. Drop it the week you start block week 1. Do not try to keep three sessions once running passes 40 km — that is the exact decision that turns this into an injury.
Strength falls as running rises · that inversion is the whole design
Bar height is running volume · colour is the strength dose · hover any bar
Running volumes are read straight off the 16-week plan
| Phase | Weeks | Running | Lifts | What you're doing | Eating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| On-ramp | B–D | 22–28 km | 3 | Build. Full set counts, learn the movements, establish the hip block as a daily habit. Your only real strength window. | Deficit ~350 kcal |
| Base | 1–4 | 30–42 km | 2 | Build. Two sessions, full volume. Add pogo hops from week 3. Add weight every week you can. | Deficit ~350 kcal |
| Build | 5–8 | 38–52 km | 2 | Consolidate. Sets drop, loads hold or creep up. Fewer reps, same weight — this is where you defend what you built. | Deficit, closing by W8 |
| Specific | 9–13 | 46–66 km | 2 | Maintain. Minimum effective dose — two working sets per lift, 25 minutes, in and out. Never within 3 reps of failure. Drop plyos in week 13. | Maintenance. No deficit. |
| Taper | 14–16 | 52–23 km | 1 → 0 | Shed. Week 14: one light full-body session at 60% of usual load, ~12 days out — the last lift. Weeks 15–16: hip block only. | Maintenance, carbs up |
Eight numbers · retest at weeks 4, 8 and 13
Take these before you start, because in eight weeks you will not remember what "annoying" felt like, and the knee work in particular is impossible to judge without a number.
| Test | How | What good looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Single-leg calf raise, max reps | Standing, straight knee, full range, one every two seconds until form breaks. Both legs. | 25+ reps. A gap of more than 10% between legs is a flag — and at 66 km a week, the weaker calf is where the Achilles goes. |
| Side plank hold | Full side plank to failure, both sides. | 45–60 s, symmetrical. The right side being clearly weaker fits the knee picture. |
| Single-leg squat, filmed | Five slow reps each leg, phone on the floor in front of you. | Hips level, knee tracking over the second toe. Keep the video — the week-8 comparison is the most convincing evidence you'll get. |
| Knee-to-wall | Kneel, front foot flat, drive the knee past the toes without the heel lifting. Measure toe to wall. | 10 cm+ both sides. Under 10 cm is a genuine ankle restriction and it changes how the leg above it loads — the one "mobility" measure with a defensible link to running injury. |
| Hip extension | Lie on your back at the edge of a table, pull one knee to your chest, let the other leg hang. Both sides. | The hanging thigh should reach horizontal. If it doesn't, the TFL works harder and band tension rises. A secondary contributor, not the cause — measure it, don't build a routine around it. |
| Bodyweight pull-ups, max | Strict, one set, honest. | Baseline was 7–8. Holding 8 through a marathon block is a win; you're stronger relative to bodyweight if you also lose 3 kg. |
| Single-leg semi-squat, 0–10 | Five slow reps on the right, quarter-depth. Score the sharpest moment. Fifteen seconds, every morning. | The short-cycle marker. It was positive on 22 August, so there is a number to beat. This moves before the after-run ache does. Note whether the pain spikes at a specific depth or builds throughout — the former fits ITB, the latter needs assessing. |
| Knee pain, 0–10 | Three numbers each week: worst during a run, worst in the two hours after, and the distance at which it first showed up. | The after-run number should fall first, and the onset distance should push further out. Log it weekly — it's the only way to know whether four weeks of hip work did anything. |
The baseline tests, demonstrated
You said you feel heavy and not strong. Those are the same measurement. If you finish block 2 at 67–68 kg still doing 8 pull-ups and a heavier RDL than today, you haven't held steady — you've made a substantial gain in the thing that actually matters for both a marathon and a strong athlete, which is force per kilogram. Track bodyweight and lifts on the same page so you can see it.