What running economy means
Running economy is how much oxygen, and so how much energy, you use to hold a steady pace. Runners with good economy use less oxygen than runners with poor economy at the same speed, and trained runners with the same VO2max can still differ in what an identical pace costs them. VO2max says how big your engine is, but economy says what every metre costs, so two players with the same engine do not empty the tank at the same rate. Part of the difference sits in the tendons: a stiffer muscle-tendon unit returns more free elastic energy at each footstrike, and when twenty-eight distance runners were grouped by economy, the most economical group had the stiffest tendons.
Why a rugby player should care
- Engine size sets your ceiling, but economy sets the running cost, so improving either one leaves you with more left in the final quarter of a match.
- Nearly all the measured evidence comes from distance runners, so treat the numbers as runner findings and the idea as the transferable part.
- The gym work you already do for contact is the same work that improved economy in runner trials, so the weights room serves your engine as well as your collisions.
- Economy is trainable: the review of its determinants concluded that many of the qualities behind it adapt to training, from tendon stiffness to neuromuscular timing.
What actually improved economy in measured trials
| Method | What the pooled runner trials found |
|---|---|
| Heavy lifting, loads you can move about seven times or fewer | A small but statistically reliable improvement in economy |
| Heavy lifting combined with jump or moderate-load work | The largest economy improvement of any method tested |
| Plyometrics alone | No reliable change in economy in the pooled result |
| Moderate-load lifting alone | Improved on average, but the pooled result was not statistically reliable |
Those findings pool thirty-eight strength-training trials covering eight hundred and ninety-four middle- and long-distance runners aged seventeen to forty, with programmes lasting six to forty weeks at one to four sessions a week. That is runner data, not rugby data, but the training itself is ordinary club gym work: heavy squats and their relatives, plus jumps. If you lift heavy through the season and keep some jump work in, you are already doing the two things that moved economy in measured cohorts.