Why Running Economy Is Important to Running Success

Of all the key performance variables which influence running performance, perhaps running economy is the most important.

Running economy is the oxygen cost of running at a specific speed. Runners with good running economy use less oxygen to run at a specific velocity compared to runners with less optimal economy.

A runner with a greater economy will tend to work at a lower percentage of VO2 Max for various speeds than a runner who requires lots of oxygen and therefore has poor economy.

In a post on why 10 weeks of Lydiard’s 100 Mile weeks of Marathon Training makes a runner faster, I asserted the main benefit from this style of base training was that it substantially improved running economy.

But there are a handful of other types of training which have a significant influence on running economy as well.

These include:

• Tapering

• Hill Training

• Strength Training

• Explosive Training

• Pace Specific Training

• Improved Mechanics

Tapering improves running economy in the short term because reducing the quantity and quality of training reduces fatigue. This is why it is common practice to take a few light days of training before races in a season and 2 weeks of very light training before the target race of a season.

Hill Training can have a very strong effect on running economy. Regular hill training increases muscular strength, motor-unit activation, heart rate and oxygen consumption-rates due to the demanding nature of propelling one’s body mass up an incline.

Strength Training improves coordination while running, thus lowering the cost of movement because lower energy and oxygen expenditures are required to correct movements that are not optimal. Additionally, strength training improves force production when the feet interact with the ground.

Explosive Training, like plyometrics, converts runners’ legs into slight stiffer springs that provide more propulsive force with each step. By contrast, less-stiff springs tend to collapse too much during stance and lack adequate recoil power.

Pace Specific Training. Running economy is velocity specific. Runners who bias their training towards running long miles at moderate tempos tend to become economical at moderate speeds, while runners who train at very quick paces regularly tend to enhance their economy at faster speeds. Lydiard’s 100 mile weeks of Marathon Training as a base phase only proves advantageous if runners then progress to their training to heavily emphasize race pace specific training in the later stages of the training year.

Improved Mechanics reduce oxygen consumption costs at any running speed. A key characteristic of effective running mechanics is positioning the body’s torso, legs, and arms (posture) in such a way that increases the influence of the elastic (avascular) properties of the body to create and sustain locomotion. Since elastic reactions require no oxygen, increasing their influence through better posture creates a situation where the oxygen cost of sustain locomotion is instantly reduced thereby improving running economy.

Reference: Running Science, Anderson.