The order question
Should you run before or after lifting?
If you are doing both on the same day: run first, and keep that run easy. If the run is meant to be a hard one: it should not be sharing a day with heavy lifting at all, and if it must, put at least six hours between them.
Part of our guide to Strength training for female runners .
Run first, and keep it easy. Lifting first leaves you running on fatigued legs with degraded form, which is where injuries come from.
Why running first
Running technique degrades when your legs are already fatigued, and running is the activity where degraded technique costs you, thousands of loaded landings, each slightly worse than it should be.
A barbell is more forgiving in this specific sense: a squat done tired is a squat you fail or reduce, not one you repeat two thousand times.
When the order does not matter
If the strength session is upper body, put it wherever you like. It barely interferes with running in either direction, which is exactly why it is the session to place next to your hard days, see strength training for female runners for which sessions matter most.
If the run is genuinely easy and short, the order is a preference rather than a rule.
The case for not stacking them at all
The ideal is that your hard run and your heavy lift are on different days with a day between them. Stacking is a compromise for a week with too few days in it, not the target.
If your week only has three or four training days, you will stack, and then the order above is what makes it work.
Questions
How long should I wait between running and lifting?+
Six hours or more if you can split them across the day. Back to back is fine when the run is easy.
Can I lift on the same day as my long run?+
Prefer not to. If you must, make it upper body, and do it after the run.
Does lifting before a run ruin the run?+
It compromises it. You will run slower with worse form for the same effort, which is a poor trade on the session where form matters most.
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How FitBoost builds these schedules
The placement rules on this page are the ones the app applies: hard sessions spaced apart, heavy lower body kept away from the key run, upper body used as the session that interferes least, and rest planned rather than left over. In the app they run against your own history, what you completed, what you skipped and what you reported as too hard, rather than against a template.
We do not claim a clinical review of this page. It is training guidance, not medical advice, and anything involving pain, injury, pregnancy or the postpartum period belongs with a professional who can assess you. FitBoost has no postpartum programme today.
Last reviewed: August 2026