No, not this type of general.
It's no secret that runners aren't the greatest "athletes" in the world. Sure, our hearts could probably power nuclear submarines, but put us on a soccer field or a basketball court and the results won't be pretty.* Am I implying that runners need to have 40" vertical leaps, big biceps and finely tuned fast-twitch muscle fibers? Certainly not. However, runners do benefit from maintaining efficient form/technique, which requires a relatively balanced muscular profile, particularly in the core and hips. Unfortunately for we obsessive-compulsive runners, you don't build the necessary stabilizing muscles by simply running--you need some sort of supplementary training.
A friend of mine recently told me about Coach Jay Johnson, a coach and writer for Running Times who has a great website. After doing it for about two weeks, I've quickly become a fan of Jay's general strengthening routine. I'll leave the explanation to the linked website, but the routine focuses mainly on core strengthening and hip strengthening/mobility and only takes a few minutes. (I also found a handy, printable PDF diagram of the hip-blasting Myrtl routine that's a big part of this program.)
What do you do for strengthening? I'd love to hear your ideas and feedback, especially from the wily veterans out there.
*This certainly isn't true for all runners, but the point that I'm making is that runners typically have very developed "running muscles" and not much else.
