by Clare Kennedy
Level 4 personal trainer UCD, Certified nutritionist with MAC Nutrition
My passion is helping people reach goals they have struggled to achieve. While weight loss and body composition are the most active part of my practice, I also work with clients diagnosed with conditions such as osteoporosis and sarcopenia.
In fact, most of us stay consistent with fitness by doing what we enjoy most. If you love the rhythmic meditation of a long run or the focused burn of a hilly bike ride, then those activities are naturally going to be the cornerstone of your fitness. They bring you joy, reduce stress, and improve your cardiovascular health – and that’s fantastic!
Looking down the road
If you want to keep being able to enjoy your chosen activity into the future—if you want to run faster, cycle longer, and generally feel stronger doing it—then you need to start thinking beyond the miles.
If your fitness routine consists solely of logging miles on the road or hours on the bike, you’re hitting a major milestone in cardiovascular health. But when it comes to achieving a full-body workout, maximizing your strength, and building a body resilient to injury, focusing on a single, repetitive exercise is only half the story.
The repetitive exercise trap
When you run, cycle, or perform any highly repetitive activity, you become incredibly efficient at that one movement pattern. Your body, however, is being trained in only one plane of motion (e.g. the sagittal plane: forward and backward).
While your quadriceps, hamstrings, and glutes are getting a phenomenal workout, other vital muscle groups are being neglected. Here’s what you might be missing if you only run:
Upper body strength
Your chest, back, shoulders, and arms – which are crucial for good posture and overall functional strength – are largely left out.
The neglected core
While running requires core engagement, it often doesn’t build the deep, stabilizing core strength needed to support your spine and hips during all types of movement.
Muscle imbalances
Your dominant, overused muscles (like the hip flexors in cycling or hamstrings in running) can become tight and dominant, while opposing muscles (like the gluteus medius or deep core) become weak. These imbalances can lead to injury.
The solution: Embrace variety for whole body fitness
To truly achieve a stronger you, you must challenge your muscles from multiple angles and planes of motion. The best fitness routines incorporate a variety of activities that address strength, cardio, flexibility, and stability.
By adding activities like Pilates, yoga, and resistance training to your schedule, you ensure your entire body benefits.
1. Resistance training: Build your armour
Bones need a signal to stay strong and dense. Without weight-bearing exercise (like walking, running or lifting weights), the bones don’t get the stress they need to remodel and stay hard. They become weaker and more porous.
Adding full-body resistance training (using weights, bands, or even just your body weight) is the most effective way to give your body a full workout, keep all muscles strong and healthy:
Full body muscle recruitment
You force all major muscle groups – from your lats and rhomboids in your back, to your deltoids and pectorals – to work, addressing those upper-body deficiencies.
Boosted metabolism
Lean muscle mass is metabolically active, meaning you burn more calories at rest.
Balanced strength
Targeted exercises like squats, deadlifts, and overhead presses ensure your body is strong in multiple planes, not just the forward movement of running or cycling.
2. Pilates and yoga: The stability and mobility powerhouses
If resistance training is your armour, then Pilates and yoga are the maintenance crews that keep your armour flexible, aligned, and ready for action.
Deep core mastery
Both disciplines emphasize central stability. Pilates, in particular, focuses on the deep abdominal and back muscles (the powerhouse) that support your spine. A stronger core improves your running form, cycling efficiency, and protects your lower back.
Flexibility and range of motion
Repetitive motion causes muscle tightness. Yoga and Pilates actively work to restore balance, length, and range of motion in stiff joints and tight muscles, particularly the hips and shoulders.
Injury prevention
By improving your proprioception (your body’s awareness of its position in space) and reinforcing healthy joint movement, you patch up the weak links that would otherwise snap under the stress of high-mileage cardio.
Stronger you: Less pain, more performance
The goal isn’t to stop running or cycling – it’s to make those activities better, faster, and sustainable for life!
By committing to a varied routine – e.g. two days of resistance training, one day of Pilates or yoga, and your favourite cardio – you create a comprehensive fitness programme where every part of your body supports the whole. This synergy means:
You’ll be stronger
Everyday tasks become easier, and you’ll have more power for hill climbs and sprints!
You’ll be less likely to get injured
Balanced muscles and a resilient core act as a shock absorber, protecting your joints and connective tissues from overuse and strain.
Start diversifying your movement today and experience the benefits of being Stronger You For Life!
Improved running
My passion is running, which I’ve enjoyed for fifteen years. However, as I approached 50 I noticed that I was suffering more injuries, and that my times were getting slower. I felt really down about it and a friend suggested I talk to Clare. This was a revelation. She explained that as we age we lose muscle mass and that this was impacting my running.
Six months of resistance training with Clare and I feel as fit as I have ever been. I love her sessions, remarkable for someone who hates the gym. I’m now posting times that I was doing years ago and, most importantly, without injury.