Following his impressive performance at the World Indoor Championships, Josh Kerr spoke to Runner’s World about his training for that event and how he’s planning to take on the mile record later this year. <\/p>\n
The biggest takeaway? Anyone looking to get faster over those middle distances including 5K<\/a>, could easily take a steer from the 3000m champ and look to improve their power-to-weight training alongside some quality mileage. <\/p>\n This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.<\/p>\n How often do you run?<\/p>\n ‘I run six days a week and I take Saturday off. Tuesday, Friday and Sunday are the three sessions of the week. Tuesday is a tempo session, up to 10 miles; Friday is track work; Sunday is the long run, and then the rest is just easy runs. <\/p>\n For Sunday’s long run, we took a mile off it this year to 16 [miles], but we added a little mini fartlek<\/a> in there. <\/p>\n What about gym work?<\/p>\n ‘I’m in the gym Monday or Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. So reasonably simple, but we get it right. I think it’s important.<\/p>\n ‘My gym coaches have done a really good job of finding where my weaknesses are. I need to create more power. My goal is that my power-to-weight ratio needs to be good.<\/p>\n Power-to-weight exercises you can try <\/p>\n Improving your power-to-weight ratio is often something cyclists talk about, but it’s also a key metric of performance for runners, especially when looking at shorter races. The training relies on recruiting more of the fast-twitch fibre muscles and is focused on components like plyometrics<\/a>, fast, equipment-free bodyweight moves that teach your body to be explosive. Exercises like single-leg hops, box jumps, and medicine ball overhead slams all help you gain muscular power. <\/p>\n Want to build power outside the gym? Find a hill<\/a>.<\/p>\n Hill sprints develop explosiveness. Make incline repeats a regular part of your training to enhance your muscular power while on the run. One example hill workout might look like 4 x 20-30 seconds up a steep hill with 45-second rest intervals between sets. While completing those sprints, focus on your form, making sure to stay efficient and strong.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t have a hill nearby? Crank up the incline on a treadmill<\/a> to emulate sprinting up a hill. Or, tack on strides<\/a> (eg. 4 x 50 meters with 45 seconds rest between sets) after an easy run<\/a> or as part of your next workout to develop your muscular power.<\/p>\n Any other training advice? <\/p>\n ‘I’m not like a fluff mileage guy. I don’t like to add a bunch of stuff that’s unnecessary. I mean, we looked at it after the 2023 World Championships in Budapest and we went, well, maybe we get to seven days of training. And then after a week of it we were like, why are we doing seven days. <\/p>\n ‘More is not more.’<\/p>\n Related Story<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following his impressive performance at the World Indoor Championships, Josh Kerr spoke to Runner’s World about his training…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":371803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[8913,194346,2117,565,134,2116,111,139,69,194345],"class_list":{"0":"post-371802","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fitness","8":"tag-content-type-advice","9":"tag-contentid-c587f4d0-4fcf-4ff0-8e7c-37bb37eae55a","10":"tag-displaytype-standard-article","11":"tag-fitness","12":"tag-health","13":"tag-locale-gb","14":"tag-new-zealand","15":"tag-newzealand","16":"tag-nz","17":"tag-shorttitle-josh-kerr-swears-by-power-to-weight-training-to-improve-his-speed-heres-how-and-why-you-should-do-the-same"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}