Episode 27: Does Running Ruin Your Gains?

I’ve heard it for years: “Running kills your muscle.”
As someone who genuinely loves both lifting and running… I had to dig into the science for myself.

In this episode of the Fit Nerd Podcast, I’m talking about why I refuse to pick sides in the “runner vs. lifter” debate — and why I think most of us actually need both.

I’m sharing:
• Why running has been such a huge part of my life since childhood
• How it helps my mental health, stress levels, and even my faith walk
• The science behind cardio, muscle growth, recovery, cortisol, and endurance
• What the “interference effect” actually means (and when it matters)
• Why overtraining and under-fueling are usually the bigger problem
• How I personally balance lifting, running, recovery, and longevity training

Plus a few ranch life updates, half marathon goals, Garmin nerd talk, and stories about running with my dad growing up. 🤍

This episode is for anyone who wants to feel strong, capable, healthy, athletic, and mentally clear — not just look fit.

So go lift something heavy… and maybe go for a little run after. 😉

Transcript

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Hey, hey guys. So today we are talking about something that is very near and dear to my heart, something that I am very passionate about and I love very much. But I have had to figure out how to work it into my life and what it means for my muscles and my body and my mental health. And that is running. So I love running. I've been a runner since I was very small, thanks to my dad. And I didn't even realize until I was much older that there's a lot of people in the fitness world who look down upon running, specifically in the bodybuilding or muscle building realm of the fitness community. And a lot of people see it as an enemy, in fact. So I've spent a lot of time researching this and trying to figure out how it works best for me and for other people's bodies too. So if you have spent years building muscle, then the last thing you want to do is something that might burn it off or maybe tank your recovery, mess with your physique, any of those things. But here's the problem. We've turned this whole thing into like an either-or conversation. A runner, or you build muscle. And I don't think that has to be the case. So the truth is, I don't think the running is the problem. I think that there could be a programming issue involved. So, anyways, I'm gonna get into all of that, and I'm excited to talk to you guys about it today. So let's dive in. Hey friends, and welcome to the Fit Nerd Podcast. This is the podcast where faith, fitness, and science all collide. I'm Abby, and I'm here to help you work with the body that God gave you so that you can feel stronger, you can feel healthier, and you can feel happier in your everyday life. Around here, we geek out on all the good stuff. I'm talking genetics, nutrition, training, hormones, biohacking, even the spiritual side of health. Because you are fearfully and wonderfully made, understanding how your body works is one of the best ways that we can honor that design. For me, this isn't just about looking good today. It's about feeling good as I age. I want to be fit when I'm old, and I want to enjoy life to the absolute fullest, which means feeling my best. And I want that for you too. So whether you're lifting, running, meal prepping, momming, or just listening on your drive, let's dig into the current fads in fitness, the truth in science, and the hope that we can find in faith so you can make the best choices for the amazing body that God gave you. This is the Fit Nerd Podcast. Let's get started. So life's been a little crazy, as usual. I always think I'm gonna have, I have like these very high ambitions, and I think I'm gonna have all this time to record these episodes that are just circulating in my brain and that I've done some research on and I'm trying to figure out when to when to get them out. And the truth is I just maybe struggle with getting the time to do that. I have to wait till Kitson is asleep and down for a nap in order for me to be able to come record. And lately that just feels like it's it's hard to do, or I have a million other things to get done. So we just finished a week out on the wagon. I say we, I was not out on the wagon. My husband and my kids were big kids, but Kitson and I were home. So trying to get all the things done, holding the fort down here, that also feels like we were out working too, just in a different sense. But it is cool because it's one of those things, you know, we we are so blessed to get to live on this really neat historical ranch. And I do think sometimes we have a tendency, I have a tendency of kind of taking it for granted. You know, it is a it's a very cool life. It's a very neat life and it's a unique life. And sometimes it takes this time of year every year to kind of remind me of how cool this is. You know, it's especially neat this year because my daughter is old enough to go out on her own. And I'm grateful that she has the opportunity to do that. There's not a lot of ranches who allow young girls to be able to go and spend a week and learn how to how to do this and how to rope and drag and work really hard. And they live out of teepee's uh for the week, and they have these two incredible cooks that cook for them that have cooked for a while for this ranch, and it's just an amazing opportunity and it's really, really neat. So, anyways, just finished with that. There's a lot of work involved for our family to get it prepared and ready and everything else. And so now I feel like we can take a little bit of a breath. We're not done branding just yet, but but track is over. Our kids did track this year, and they did awesome, and it was just it's been a good season. It's been a sweet season. Kitson's a fun age right now, and and life is good. It's good. So much to be grateful for. So one of the my New Year's resolutions this year, and a typical New Year's resolution for me is I try to get in at least one half marathon for the year. And that involves training and a lot of planning in order to get that done. Um, at one point in my life, I was trying for three a year. I really like trail half marathons too, so I try to get one of those in as well. And that just hasn't happened since I've had kits in. My last uh half marathon was when I was freshly pregnant with kits and didn't know it. And that was a rough one. So I have to get back in the mode. So I did set this year a resolution to run a half. I haven't been able to get as many miles in a week as I would like, but when I have been running, I've really enjoyed it. And I've done a lot of research in the past on what it means to run for my body, because I've had a lot of trainers tell me not to, to not include it in my weekly schedule. And that's interesting to me because I love it. And the reasons why I love it is because it really benefits my mental health. I feel like movement helps me work through a lot of things, even just a busy schedule. You know, we have we might have a million things going on, and I I like to take the time to go for a quick run. It's almost like I can organize my thoughts and my brain as I'm out in the open air, and um, I I can kind of I feel like it just organizes my brain. I don't know how else to explain that. I also, when I'm really stressed, if I am overwhelmed, if I, you know, need to walk through something, if I'm trying to deal with something, if I need more time with God, if I just want some quiet time to talk to him, that's where I do it. I run. My husband thinks I'm crazy because he feels like he's being tortured when he's running. And so he doesn't understand how that is relaxing for me, but it truly does energize me and helps me to relax. Um, another reason I love it is because I I feel like it helps me to to breathe. And that breath work while I'm running, I do feel like really benefits my muscles and benefits my brain. When I did my genetic nutrition genome a few years ago, it told me that I needed to incorporate some type of breath work, maybe some yoga, that type of thing into my daily life because my body doesn't do well with stress. And I feel like that's why running helps me, it helps me breathe. It helps me kind of reset because I'm deep breathing, very consistently breathing. I did have to learn how to breathe while I was running, by the way. That is something my aunt taught me. Um, I've talked about on here before. But that's another reason I love it. Another reason I love it is so my dad started running with me when I was teeny tiny. Like he would ask my sister and I to go for runs with him when we were like four or five years old. And we started running long distances with him when we were pretty small. So I think that memory also is pretty sweet. I think of my dad every run that I take. Um, I wish we could still be running together because I I love, love running with him. Um, been through so many different changes. I remember um, you know, having to ask him to stop when we went for runs. And then I remember the first time he told me we needed to stop so he could take a breath. He might kill me for saying this, but um, it's just, you know, it's it's neat to think back on those times. And then another weird thing that I love to do, like one of my very favorite things I love to do is if we're in a city, maybe we've been there before, maybe we haven't, but I love to wake up early in the morning, like before most people are awake and go for a run and kind of see the area and see the places, especially if we're staying like in a city or a cute little town. I love to to run and check it, check it all out, you know. Um, when Corey and I we went to New Orleans a few years ago and he would go running with me. And it was so fun to watch like all the shops open and all the people come outside and that were working, you know, to kind of get ready for the day and watch people opening up and um, you know, just tell everybody good morning and just see the layout of the land as the sun's coming up. I just think it's I don't know, that's just one of my little things that I love. Um, out here on the ranch when the sun's coming up, and well, and it's just beautiful out here. It's so pretty. So I I feel like I just get to kind of check in with God, tell him good morning, tell him thank you for this beautiful place that we live. And so yeah, that's an that's another reason why I run. But like I've said, I've had a lot of trainers tell me that running is not good for your muscles, that it physically eats your muscles, that there's different ways to prepare your muscles and it can counteract with building and it's different types of muscle building, whether lean mil whether it's lean muscle or heavy muscle. And I wanted to know if that was all true. I wanted to figure out if that was true quite a few years ago. I started really looking into this, and so I decided to dive into it a little more. Again, I personally right now choose to run about two to three times a week, about two to three miles each time. That's just kind of my sweet spot. Now, if I'm training for a half marathon, I usually try to add a long run on the weekend and I kind of up those miles during the week as I'm going. I haven't done that yet. So I'm still just on two to three times a week, two to three miles a time. And I love that. Sometimes I'll run at my halfway spot and do some like lunges and squats and sit-ups and push-ups and things like that. That was something my dad used to do too. We'd run down to the ditch and he would do um, we would do dips. He always he's big on dips and push-ups and random things. And then when we were when I was real little, he would teach me how to throw rocks into the ditch um so that I wouldn't throw like a girl is what he would tell me. And I was so grateful for that because honestly, it translates over into all sports. You know, I'm I would think about how he taught me how to throw when I was hitting a volleyball and throw to football, all the things it all translates. But anyway, so I want to dive into the science. I was a lot of gibber jabber for diving into the science of running. Let's let's talk about this. When you run, especially at a lower steady pace, you're using your aerobic system. This means that your body is using oxygen to produce energy and it's pulling heavily from your fat stores. So compare that to heavy lifting, which relies more on the anaerobic system, right? So anaerobic is these short bursts of energy. It's very glycogen-driven, high power output. So these are two very different systems. So your body is designed to use both, but it does mean different ways that your muscles are working at the time. So is that bad? Well, I don't know. Let's talk about it. So here's where bodybuilders start to panic. The idea that running will kill your gains is what bodybuilders say. And so let's talk about what that means. There's something called this interference effect. This comes out of exercise, physiology research and exercise science. Basically, if you're doing high volumes of endurance training and trying to maximize muscle growth, your body kind of gets mixed signals. So one pathway is saying build muscle, get strong. And the other saying become more efficient, become lighter, conserve more energy. And if you're doing this at a very high level, those goals can compete. But that interference effect really shows up when you're doing a ton of running. If you're not eating enough, you're not recovering properly. So instead of it being a running problem, maybe we need to look at this in a different context. Moderate, intentional running can actually improve your ability to recover from those heavy lifting days. So isn't that interesting? Running, especially easy, steady state running, improves your mitochondrial density. So that's your body's ability to produce energy at the cellular level. More mitochondria you have, better functioning mitochondria you have, that's gonna mean better endurance for you. But that also means better recovery between your sets, between your workouts, and even between your training days. So instead of hurting your lifting, it really could actually be supporting it. Now, running also improves your cardiovascular health, which sounds obvious, but let's talk about it practically. If your heart and your lungs are more efficient, then you're gonna be able to handle those longer training sessions. You're also gonna be able to, once again, recover between sets and you're gonna reduce your overall fatigue. So that's not weakness, that's capacity, right? So it's helping your heart though and your lungs are helping you get through those sets and through those lifting sessions. Another thing to look at here is hormones. Um, this is where things can get a little wonky. So if you're overdoing high-intensity running while underfueling, and maybe you're also stressed out on top of that, that's gonna be, you're gonna be looking at an increase in cortisol. That will break down your muscle tissue and that will tell your body to hold on to fat stores. So that's not really a running problem. That's a stress load problem, but running just becomes kind of the tipping point. You're really just kind of maximizing the stress zones for your body. I know that there has been times where I have been training for something and I knew I needed to get a run-in, but I wasn't feeling great, or maybe, you know, maybe my immune immune system was a little down, or maybe I wasn't getting enough sleep because of a kid, or because of crazy life. Um, or I just didn't feel like going for a run, you know, like I just felt tired, a little drained. And I'd go for a run and I would watch my stats as I was running on my Garmin. And it was so interesting to see what my heart rate would do. Um, it would absolutely be different than typical on those days. My dad and I have talked about sometimes when you're feeling really tired, I'll go for a run and my heart rate won't come up where I want it. You know, I have a I have a strange heart rate. It's a very, very low heart rate, resting heart rate. And as soon as I run, it kicks up pretty good. It kicks up pretty high. I've done some different zone two training and things like that too, but um, but I can very easily adjust my heart rate based on my effort, you know? But on those days that I'm really, really tired, I can tell my heart is not reacting typically. So to me, on those days, I have learned now, as I've gotten older, to not push it because I do think it causes major stress for my body. Oftentimes, too, the next day, I will feel physically swollen. It's almost like I've caused some inflammation in my body. So this all is a hormone cortisol issue. So if you are, if you're somebody who hasn't really ran very much, maybe, and you're trying to add running in, you need to do it very strategically so that you don't affect your hormones too drastically because then that will affect your gains and it will affect weight gain and and fat stores. So, um, and that's not a running problem. It's a stress problem, right? So here's the flip side. What happens when you only lift and you ignore all that cardiovascular work? You guys probably know a lot of people like this. I know I do. And I've done this, I've done this before, you know, where I wasn't running and I was just lifting, and you get strong. You do. You get to see physical gains in your body. It's cool, it's fun, but it's not metabolically efficient. So, what that means is you might have poor endurance. You might be really strong, but you can't run up the side of a mesa, which that might sound crazy for you guys. That's pretty, that's kind of normal out here. But um, it you might have a higher resting heart rate. I absolutely see that. When I am running a lot, my heart rate is is very low. When I am not running as much, my heart rate will creep up little bits at a time until you know my resting heart rate is much higher because I'm not running. Um, you see slower recovery in your workouts, you see increased long-term cardiovascular risk, and you also are looking fit, but you might not actually be fit. So that's an interesting thing to think about, right? So, what's the sweet spot? Is there a sweet spot? Are we all created the same? No, we're all different. We know that based on genetics, right? And I think it's very personal and it's up to you. However, I do think it's important to lift heavy to build muscle. And I do think it's important to have some really good cardiovascular work in there too. For me, that's running. For you, it might be walking or hiking or whatever. You know, who knows? But I do think it's important to keep your body dynamic and ready to do anything that you throw at it. I do think that that's gonna be for longevity purposes. Personally, I feel like everybody should have that balance in there. And I'm saying this is, you know, two to four one runs a week or, you know, long walks in the morning or in the evening with your family. That's always, that's always so important for your metabolic health. But pushing it, you know, not just little moseies, like push to get some movement in there. Mostly an easy pace, breathing, make sure you're not, you know, really killing yourself, dying, some short sprints or some interval work if you enjoy it. That's always really good for you too. But at the same time, make sure if you're having those, those run days and you are concerned about your gains and your muscle, make sure you're fueling properly. You need to make sure you have enough protein. You need to make sure you're sleeping well, you need to make sure you're recovering well, that you're eating a balanced diet, that you're getting all those awesome nutrients. Because if you're not fueling well, then you're gonna have reverse effects for sure. So when you combine both, when you combine heavy lifting and good cardiovascular work, like running, you become a different type of athlete. It makes you strong, but it can also, you can also move your body with ease. You have muscle, but you also have endurance and heart health and resilience. And that should be the goal, right? So I love running. I don't think it think of it as a punishment. I don't think of it as a way to burn off food, but because it clears my mind and it strengthens my body, it reminds me what I'm capable of. I also lift. I want to build and protect my metabolism and stay strong long term, but I don't think you have to pick a side. So if you've been afraid to run because you think it's gonna ruin your progress, let's zoom out. I hope you look at this a little differently. Hope you maybe find a different routine in here and ask yourself am I training to be an athlete or am I stuck in more of a fitness trend? What works best for me? So I do think that it's important to figure out your own body and what works for you. But personally, I'll tell you what I'm doing right now is that I'm currently lifting three times a week and running two to three times a week. And I try on my lift days to make them heavy lifts. And then the running days help get all that lactic acid out of my legs, help me to move and be more agile and help clear my brain, help my brain, you know. I also do some mobility on those days too, maybe some core workouts, things like that. So, anyways, that's my that's my take on this situation. And unless you're like, you know, running 50 miles a day and then you're trying to also lift and max out like a crazy person, I don't think most of us are doing that, right? Like that's a top, those, those elite endurance runners and those super power lifters, they're kind of on opposite ends of the spectrum. And for the most part, most of us are not in those categories. So I know I'm not for sure. So I I think a combination of the two is gonna help me longevity-wise to to stay strong and to stay agile and to stay mobile and um and to feel my best mentally and physically. So um, all right, guys, that's my little, that's my take of the day. I hope you guys go lift something heavy and then maybe go for a little run to help you help your brain a little bit. So thanks guys. See you later. Thanks for hanging out with me today on the Fit Nerd Podcast. I hope that you leave a little encouraged, a little smarter, and ready to honor the amazing body that God designed for you. If you love this episode, would you do me a quick favor? Hit subscribe so that you never miss an episode. And share this podcast with a friend who's on their own health journey. And remember, you are fearfully and wonderfully made, so stay curious, stay consistent, and keep nerding out on your fitness. Until next time, this is the Fit Nerd.