Can You Build Muscle While Running? What the Research Says

Can you build muscle while running regularly? Yes, for the most part. The largest systematic review on concurrent training, covering 43 studies and more than 1,000 participants, found that combining aerobic training with strength training doesn't meaningfully blunt muscle growth or maximal strength gains compared to lifting alone. The old idea that cardio automatically "kills your gains" is weaker than the fitness internet usually makes it sound.

Here's what the actual research measured, where concurrent training does show a real cost, and how to structure a week if you're trying to get stronger and fitter at the same time.

Where did the "cardio kills your gains" idea come from?

It traces back to a 1980 study by physiologist Robert Hickson, who found that combining heavy strength training with high-volume endurance training over several weeks blunted strength gains compared to strength training alone. That single, small study became the foundation for decades of "don't mix cardio and lifting" advice, and it got the name "the interference effect."

The problem is that one early study, with its specific protocol, got generalized into a blanket rule that later, larger research hasn't fully supported. Training science has moved a long way since 1980, and the picture it paints now is more specific and less alarming.

What does the current evidence actually say about muscle growth?

The most comprehensive answer comes from a 2022 update to Moritz Schumann and colleagues' systematic review and meta-analysis in Sports Medicine, which pooled 43 randomized studies with more than 1,000 participants comparing concurrent training against strength training alone. It found that concurrent training did not meaningfully reduce muscle hypertrophy or maximal strength, and that result broadly held across subgroups the review tested, including whether the aerobic training was running or cycling, how often people trained each week, their age, and their training status.

That's a meaningfully different conclusion than "pick one." For the two outcomes most lifters care about most, getting bigger and getting stronger, running or cycling alongside a lifting program isn't the gains-killer it's often made out to be.

So what part of concurrent training does actually suffer?

Explosive power. A 2012 meta-analysis by Jacob Wilson and colleagues in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, covering 21 studies and 422 effect sizes, found that strength-only training produced meaningfully better gains in lower-body power, like jump height and sprint-style output, than concurrent training did. Muscle size and maximal strength were only marginally better with strength training alone, but power showed the clearest gap.

That pattern makes physiological sense. Power depends heavily on fast, forceful muscle contractions, and a hard running session leaves your legs fatigued in a way that can dull the quality of a lifting session scheduled too close to it, or vice versa. If you're training for something where explosive output genuinely matters, like increasing your squat for a competition, that's the piece worth protecting.

Does it matter if your cardio is running versus cycling?

Less than you'd expect. The 2022 Schumann review tested training modality as a variable directly and found no significant difference in hypertrophy or strength outcomes between people doing concurrent training with running versus cycling. If you've seen claims that running is categorically worse for your gains than cycling because of the extra muscle damage from impact, that specific claim is weaker than it's usually presented, at least for the two outcomes that review measured.

Running does add more mechanical pounding per session than cycling, which is part of why does cardio kill your gains and rucking are each worth reading if you're trying to pick the lowest-impact way to add aerobic volume. But on muscle and strength specifically, the modality gap isn't as wide as the online narrative suggests.

How should you actually structure a week with both?

A few practical patterns show up across the concurrent training literature:

• Separate hard sessions when you can. Putting your toughest run and your heaviest lift several hours apart, or on different days, reduces the odds that fatigue from one blunts your output in the other, especially for power-sensitive work.
• Don't stack both at max effort on the same day if power matters to you. If you're chasing a strength or power goal specifically, this is where the real interference risk concentrates.
• For general muscle and fitness goals, don't overthink the scheduling. The hypertrophy and strength findings held up across same-session, same-day, and different-day training in the Schumann review, so rigid rules about exactly how many hours to leave between sessions matter less than just getting both kinds of training done consistently.

This is also where a lot of people lose track of what they're actually doing across a week, since running and lifting tend to live in different apps or none at all. OneFit logs both cardio and strength sessions in the same place, so Ori can see your full training load, not just your lifting, when it adjusts your plan.

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FAQ

Can you build muscle while also running regularly? Yes. The largest systematic review on the topic, Schumann and colleagues' 2022 update in Sports Medicine covering 43 studies and over 1,000 participants, found concurrent aerobic and strength training did not meaningfully reduce muscle hypertrophy or maximal strength compared to strength training alone, regardless of whether the cardio was running or cycling.

What is the "interference effect"? It's the idea that doing endurance training and strength training together blunts the adaptations from either one, originally observed in a 1980 study by Robert Hickson. Later, larger reviews have found the effect is much smaller and more specific than that early study suggested, mainly showing up in explosive power rather than muscle size or max strength.

What part of concurrent training actually suffers? Explosive power and jump performance. A 2012 meta-analysis by Wilson and colleagues in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, covering 21 studies, found strength-only training produced meaningfully better gains in lower-body power than concurrent training, while strength and muscle size gains were only marginally better.

How should you schedule running and lifting to minimize interference? Where possible, separate hard running sessions and heavy lifting by several hours, or put them on different days, especially if power or sprint performance matters to you. For general muscle and strength goals, the research suggests the exact scheduling matters less than people assume.

Does the type of cardio matter, running versus cycling? The 2022 Schumann review tested this directly and found no significant difference in hypertrophy or strength outcomes between runners and cyclists doing concurrent training. If you've read that running is worse than cycling for interference, that claim is weaker than it's often presented.