How to Run Faster With Less Effort
You log the miles. You follow the training plan. You push through the long, grueling runs. Yet, you’ve hit a wall.
You feel like you’re working harder than ever, but the stopwatch tells a different story. Your race times have flatlined, and that next personal best feels impossibly far away.
If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. We've seen this countless times with runners we've worked with who feel frustrated and resigned, believing they’ve reached their limit. They’ve been told to keep stacking miles and that running performance is all about one thing: the size of your aerobic “engine,” or your V̇O₂max.
How Running Economy Affects Your Performance
That’s not the entire story, though. The key to your next breakthrough most likely isn’t just building a bigger aerobic base, but about making your current one dramatically more efficient. It’s what we know in the performance world as Running Economy (RE).
Think of it like your car’s fuel efficiency. Two cars might have the same size gas tank (your V̇O₂max), but the one with better miles-per-gallon will go much further, much faster. In the same way, a runner with good economy uses less oxygen and expends less energy to hold a certain pace.
This isn’t just a theory; it’s a physiological reality. When researchers look at groups of runners with very similar V̇O₂max levels, running economy often becomes the single best predictor of who actually wins the race.
What Is Running Economy?
So, what is running economy, really? Think of it as the sum total of how your body's different systems work together to turn fuel into forward motion. It's not just one thing; it's a host of physiological "levers" that can be individually tuned. The main levers we can pull on to become more economical runners include:
Metabolic Efficiency: How effectively your muscle cells produce and use energy (ATP) with minimal waste.
Cardiopulmonary Function: How efficiently your heart and lungs deliver oxygen to the working muscles. While V̇O₂max is about your maximum capacity, RE is about the efficiency of that delivery system at sub-maximal efforts.
Tendon Elasticity & Energy Return: How well passive structures, like your Achilles tendon, store and return elastic energy with every stride. This is the "free" energy return we will discuss.
Biomechanical Efficiency: How well your movement patterns, like your stride and vertical motion, minimize braking forces and wasted energy.
Neuromuscular Control: How precisely your brain and nervous system activate only the necessary muscles at the right time, with the right amount of force.
Fatigue Resistance: Your ability to maintain all of the above efficiencies deep into a run as fatigue sets in. A great RE isn't useful if it falls apart after a few miles.
For our purposes today, we're going to focus on a powerful combination of Tendon Elasticity, Biomechanical Efficiency, and Neuromuscular Control that we can train: the stretch-shortening cycle.
A Dive Into the Stretch-Shortening Cycle
One aspect of running economy is the stretch-shortening cycle (SSC). Scientifically, the SSC is the rapid sequence of an eccentric (lengthening) muscle contraction followed immediately by a concentric (shortening) contraction, which allows your muscle-tendon units to function like powerful biological springs.
Here’s how it works:
The Stretch (Loading Energy): When your foot strikes the ground, your tendons and muscles stretch slightly, just like a rubber band being pulled back. In this phase, they are storing immense amounts of elastic energy.
The Shorten (Releasing Energy): A split second later, as you push off the ground, those same tendons and muscles recoil, releasing that stored energy and helping to propel you forward.
This recoil is essentially “free” energy. It’s propulsion you don’t have to pay for with active, calorie-burning muscle contraction. A runner with a highly effective stretch-shortening cycle gets more “free” energy return with every single stride. Their muscles have to do less work to maintain speed, they use less oxygen, and running simply feels easier. They have better running economy. This isn’t about trying harder; it’s about having a more efficient and capable body that has learned to work smarter by maximizing its own natural springs.
How to Build a Springier, More Economical Body
This is where the narrative we’ve been fed about running often gets it wrong. We’ve been led to believe that the only way to get better at running is to run more. But to improve your body’s spring system, you have to give it the right stimulus—and that stimulus is strength and explosiveness.
This brings us to a critical myth in endurance training: the fear that lifting heavy will make you bulky and slow. Let's be clear: that is simply untrue when training for performance. The goal of strength training isn’t just about building muscle; it’s about making your entire system more robust and efficient.
So, how do we best improve our running economy? Let's think of it in terms of Good, Better, and Best.
Good: Continuing to only run. You'll get better, but you're leaving a massive amount of "free speed" on the table by ignoring your body's springs.
Better: Adding the simple, 5-minute hopping protocol we're about to show you. This is a fantastic, low-barrier way to start directly training your stretch-shortening cycle. It's effective, quick, and a massive step up from doing nothing.
Best: A comprehensive program that combines Heavy Resistance Training (HRT) with Plyometrics (like hopping). Research consistently shows that HRT provides the most significant improvements in running economy—up to 8%. It builds the foundational strength and tendon stiffness that makes your plyometrics even more effective.
For today, we are focusing on the "Better" option, because the perfect plan you don't do is useless. The 5-minute hopping protocol is a powerful tool that you can start using today to become a more economical runner.
Your Action Plan: The 5-Minute Daily Hopping Protocol
An incredible study looked at how amateur runners could make significant improvements with a simple hopping protocol that takes just five minutes a day. It’s simple, effective, and something you can start today. I like to think of it as an "exercise snack"—a small, manageable dose of high-quality movement.
The Hopping Protocol:
Exercise: Double-legged hops.
Frequency: Daily.
Total Time: 5 minutes.
Instructions: Stand with your feet hip-width apart. Hop as high as possible with both legs, aiming to spend as little time on the ground as possible while keeping the knees relatively straight. Simply think of yourself as a pogo stick.
The 6-Week Progression:
Week 1: 5 sets of 10-second hops, 50s rest between each set
Week 2: 6 sets of 10-second hops, 40s rest between each set
Week 3: 8 sets of 10-second hops, 30s rest between each set
Week 4: 10 sets of 10-second hops, 20s rest between each set
Week 5: 15 sets of 10-second hops, 10s rest between each set
Week 6: 15 sets of 10-second hops, 10s rest between each set
The Bottom Line
Improving your running economy is not about pounding out more junk miles. It's about targeted, intelligent training that improves how you move and function. By incorporating simple but powerful exercises like heavy lifting and plyometric hopping, you are not just training your muscles; you are tuning your entire system for efficiency.
References
Balsalobre-Fernández C, Santos-Concejero J, Grivas GV. Effects of Strength Training on Running Economy in Highly Trained Runners: A Systematic Review With Meta-Analysis of Controlled Trials. J Strength Cond Res. 2016;30(8):2361-2368. doi:10.1519/JSC.0000000000001316
Blagrove RC, Howatson G, Hayes PR. Effects of Strength Training on the Physiological Determinants of Middle- and Long-Distance Running Performance: A Systematic Review. Sports Med. 2018;48(5):1117-1149. doi:10.1007/s40279-017-0835-7
Engeroff, T., Kalo, K., Merrifield, R. et al. Progressive daily hopping exercise improves running economy in amateur runners: a randomized and controlled trial. Sci Rep 13, 4167 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-30798-3
Komi PV. Stretch-shortening cycle: a powerful model to study normal and fatigued muscle. J Biomech. 2000;33(10):1197-1206. doi:10.1016/s0021-9290(00)00064-6
Saunders PU, Pyne DB, Telford RD, Hawley JA. Factors affecting running economy in trained distance runners. Sports Med. 2004;34(7):465-485. doi:10.2165/00007256-200434070-00005