Everything hinges on strength
I had a quick flick through the 50+ drafts dating back to 2013 sat in the back-end this morning and spotted one near the top entitled ‘West Midlands Autumn Cup Powerlifting Competition’. That comp happened nearly three years ago (September 2023) which really cements how bad I’ve been at blogging over the last few years. Coincidentally, I’ve been just as bad at powerlifting since then too.
I haven’t lifted in any consistent capacity since around the start of 2024 when Gaz and I separated. I mentioned at the end of 2024 “catch up” that I was trying to ‘hard reset’ and do shorter low pressure sessions with the guidance of my old powerlifting coach, but that didn’t work out (cost and time pressures) and I stopped again.
Back in April 2025 I mentioned that I was seeing some issues from my lack of strength training impacting my running, and ended up dropping out of Newport marathon a week before the race as a result. I trained for Edinburgh marathon (for the second time) this year instead and ended up with a hip/groin issue, DNFed, dropping out around 12 miles in.
I am convinced that both the Newport drop out and the Edinburgh DNF were caused by the lack of strength training. Sitting for 8+hrs a day for work and then going out and running (lots of the same repetitive movement) for increasing lengths of time basically nuked my glutes, hips, and lower back.
The Edinburgh DNF broke me, though; in more ways than one. As well as being physically battered, the emotional hit of failing a course I’d sailed through years prior (and ruining Shane’s likely marathon PR in the process because he stopped to support me) really did a number on my mental state. I had to pull my finger out and make the time to rehab my injuries before something went seriously wrong (not exactly getting any younger).
I went to see a local sports injury chap (if you’re local – Andy, at Apollo Sport Injury – 10/10 highly recommend) and he spent an hour going through every movement, stretch, range of motion etc possible to find the cause of the problem and to rule out any potential issues from starting a rehab program. His attention to detail and thoroughness was impeccable, and although we weren’t able to pinpoint a specific trigger for my pain, he gave me guidance for next steps and the confidence to start working on things.
So I took an additional 2 weeks off, and then eased back in. Capped running at about 5km max each session, and introduced some daily hip and glute strengthening work. I started with some glute bridges and clam shells for a week, 5-10 minutes every week day morning to get the habit going. Then added in some kickbacks, fire hydrants, planking for another week. Then added in some resistance bands to the glute bridges, then some ankle weights to the clam shells, and so on.
Before my body really knew what it was doing, I’d integrated a 20-30 minute workout into my routine every single morning. It was so short that it didn’t feel like I needed to bargain with my brain to get it done, and I was literally falling out of bed into the sets before anything else could get in the way.
Once I’d cemented the habit I went through my old plans and programmes and built a tracking spreadsheet with an 8 week plan split over 4 days a week, focused specifically on continuing to rehab my weak areas and also working in the powerlifting stuff I’ve been sorely missing (literally and figuratively). I’m now on week 4, day 1 and am continuously progressing in terms of both reps and weight.
Those workouts are now taking an hour and a half easily each morning and I’ve had to set my alarm earlier to get them in. The funny thing is though, I’ve yet to wake and feel like I don’t want to train, but if you’d said to me a year ago “get up at 6am and lift for 90 minutes” I’d have probably laughed in your face.
The good news? I’ve had no hip pain for weeks despite scaling up my running again, and my general mood and wellbeing feels solid. It feels like everything really does hinge on strength for me.