Strength training lowers injury risk
High confidence
A review of 25 trials found that strength training cut injuries to about a third of what untrained groups saw. And the more consistently athletes lifted, the better it worked.
Why it works
Muscles produce more force. Tendons get stiffer, joints hold steadier, and movement gets cleaner. Together that lowers the peak load any single tissue takes at a given workload.
What it means in practice
Treat strength training as a first-line way to prevent injury, not an extra. The dose matters: two sessions a week, with the weight going up over time (progressive loading). Light or sporadic lifting does much less. For running specifically, the supervised-vs-unsupervised claim adds important nuance.
The evidence
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Stretching did nothing to prevent injuries (RR 0.96, 95% CI 0.85-1.10). Proprioception training reduced them (RR 0.55, 95% CI 0.35-0.87), and multiple-exposure programs did as well (RR 0.66, 95% CI 0.52-0.83). Strength training carried the largest effect by far (RR 0.32, 95% CI 0.21-0.48), cutting injuries to under a third of baseline and marking the strongest single-intervention result. Physical activity programs lowered both acute injuries (RR 0.65, 95% CI 0.50-0.84) and overuse injuries (RR 0.53, 95% CI 0.37-0.75), and the authors conclude strength training nearly halves overuse injuries.
n=26610
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This umbrella review pooled 24 systematic reviews of team-sport athletes. Multicomponent exercise programs lowered injury incidence and rate at the lower extremity, knee, ACL, and ankle, but not the groin. Strength and balance turned up in 10 of 11 effective programs, which flags them as the components doing the work, and multicomponent protocols beat single-component ones. The authors recommend building any team-sport prevention program around lower-extremity strength and balance, though the team-sport focus makes the transfer to distance running uncertain.
Why we call confidence high
Lauersen 2013 pooled 25 trials and found strength training cut overall sport-injury risk to about one-third of controls, with overuse injuries dropping roughly by half. Lauersen 2018 (not in the current corpus) adds a dose-response pattern. The direction holds up across different groups.
Where it applies
Adult athletes across sports, including team sports, track and field, and runners. The evidence is strongest for team sports. For running specifically it's more mixed (see the counter-studies).
Does not apply to: acute-injury rehab without progressive loading.
Plans that respect this
Plans that scored well on the rubric measures informed by this claim.
- 10-Week Run Your First 10k (3 days)
- 10-Week Run Your First 10k (4 days)
- 10-Week Run Your First Half Marathon (3 days)
- 10-Week Run Your First Half Marathon (4 days)
- 10-Week Sub-1:45 Half Marathon (4 days)
- 10-Week Sub-1:45 Half Marathon (5 days)
- 10-Week Sub-1:45 Half Marathon (6 days)
- 10-Week Sub-2 Half Marathon (3 days)
- 10-Week Sub-2 Half Marathon (4 days)
- 10-Week Sub-2 Half Marathon (5 days)
- 10-Week Sub-2:30 Half Marathon (3 days)
- 10-Week Sub-2:30 Half Marathon (4 days)
Last reviewed Apr 30, 2026. See how we score.