Strength training lowers injury risk
High confidence
Reviews of controlled trials found that strength training cut injuries to about a third of what groups without it saw. In one, every 10% more strength training lowered injury risk by more than 4 percentage points.
Why it works
Stronger muscles, stiffer tendons and steadier joints are thought to lower the peak load any single tissue takes at a given workload. The trials measured injuries, not this mechanism.
What it means in practice
Treat strength training as a first-line way to prevent injury, not an extra. The dose matters: in pooled trials, more strength-training volume meant lower injury risk, so light or sporadic lifting likely 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 overall 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), so overuse injuries could be almost halved; this overuse estimate pools all exercise programs, not strength training alone.
n=26610
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Across six RCTs and 7738 participants, strength-training programmes cut sports-injury risk to about a third of controls (RR 0.338, interval 0.238-0.480), a result that held across robustness tests with high strength of evidence and no detected publication bias. A 10% increase in strength-training volume reduced injury risk by more than four percentage points. The programmes were safe and had high compliance, and benefit was consistent across acute and overuse injury outcomes.
n=7738
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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 components were included in 10 of 11 effective programs. The review included only programs combining two or more exercise components, so it does not itself compare multicomponent with single-component programs. The authors recommend prioritizing lower-extremity strength and balance in team-sport prevention programs, 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 sport-injury risk to about a third of controls (RR 0.32), while stretching had no effect (RR 0.96) and proprioceptive training a smaller one (RR 0.55); that comparison is across trials, not head to head. Lauersen 2018 pooled 6 strength-training RCTs (7,738 athletes aged 12-40) and found the same size of effect (RR 0.34) with high strength of evidence, and risk fell further as training volume rose. Brunner 2018 adds that strength and balance are the key parts of multicomponent programmes in team sports. In runners specifically the evidence is mixed (see the counter-studies).
Where it applies
Athletes aged roughly 12-40 across sports, including adolescents in some trials. 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 a Faster 10k (3 days)
- 10-Week Run a Faster 10k (4 days)
- 10-Week Run a Faster 10k (5 days)
- 10-Week Run a Faster 10k (6 days)
- 10-Week Run a Faster Half Marathon (3 days)
- 10-Week Run a Faster Half Marathon (4 days)
- 10-Week Run a Faster Half Marathon (5 days)
- 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-2 Half Marathon (3 days)
Last reviewed Oct 14, 2026. See how we score.