Resilience for the Long Run - What it is & How to Train it
- Daniela Radoman
- Apr 7
- 6 min read
With the nicer weather blooming, a lot of you are probably lacing up to hit the pavement and get back to jogging outside again.
If you’re an endurance athlete - or just someone who partakes in cardio activities - then this one’s for you.
A new physiological determinant just dropped.
It’s called resilience.
If you take two athletes who are basically the same, from their stature, age, training, history, VO2max, and just about everything else you can think of (even down to them wearing the same Nike shoes), you would think they’d finish a race at the same time.
But they don’t, and it may be because of resilience.
Let’s break this new concept down.
What is Resilience?
In a March 2025 paper by Jones & Kirby1, resiliency is described as, “the ability to resist functional decline following acute and/or chronic stressors.”
Basically, how well one is able to maintain performance after challenging demands.
Let’s rewind.
If you’re involved in some endurance sport, or if you think back to the days when you ran cross country back in highschool, you’ve probably heard the terms “pace,”“cadence,” or “efficiency,” thrown around.
For decades, the endurance sport world has looked at countless metrics in an attempt to improve race times and break records. Both coaches and researchers have collected data to help improve training regimens, protocols, equipment, and even nutrition to help push the boundaries of what is possible.
Scientists have narrowed down endurance training into an equation called the Joyner’s Model that takes into account the 3 big pillars of endurance training:
VO2max - the maximum amount of oxygen your body can use during intense exercise
Economy - how efficiently you can use energy to perform at a given speed
The sustainable fraction of VO2max for a given race distance - which is heavily tied to the lactate threshold, which is the intensity where lactate starts to accumulate.
This model has been shown to be useful in understanding how these variables help in determining performance in endurance events.
However, it doesn’t paint the whole picture.
Especially when looking in the late stages of a long race, this is where there seems to be something missing.
That “something” has been called resilience.
As mentioned earlier, resilience has been defined as being able to maintain performance following challenging demands.
People with higher resilience are able to maintain the quality of their movement longer than others and are more durable throughout a long-distance event.
Basically, they show enhanced metabolic efficiency, show less loss in efficiency, are better able to maintain their power and speed especially in the end stages of a long distance event, and have less breakdown in technique or form by the end.
There are many factors that go into resiliency, from oxidative capacity, mitochondrial volume, capillary density, neuromuscular coordination, muscle fibre type composition, musculotendinous stiffness, etc.
Since resiliency has so many factors that can affect it, on top of it being a fairly newer concept, there isn’t one singular protocol that evaluates it. One way researchers have been studying resiliency is by making athletes perform some sort of test to get a baseline measure, then completing a long duration of work, and then repeating the original test again. The test might look at a performance metric, like critical speed in running, or a physiological metric, like heart rate.
You’d expect the results of the second assessment to be worse than the first, but by how much?
Those with the least amount of change are more resilient.
For example, Gallo et al2 took a group of young up-and-coming professional cyclists, and a group of older, more experienced professional cyclists. When they performed the initial assessments, there was no difference between the younger and the older groups. Things changed when they re-tested after longer bouts of energy-consuming rides. The younger group saw a dramatic decrease in power output, meanwhile the older group went unchanged when compared to the baseline tests.
Are Women More Resilient Than Men?
There are a few studies that hint that women may be more resilient than men.
Glace et al3 found that women saw less neuromuscular fatigue in the quad muscles, and thus better running economy, after a 2 hour bout of exercise at 68% of VO2max compared to men.
Also, men tend to slow down more during the second half of a marathon than women (15.6% vs 11.7%), as well as have a greater decoupling between heart rate and running speed.4, 5
With all that being said, these observations could be due to other factors rather than just physiological differences between the sexes. Many pacing strategies in long duration events exist, and with men tending to overestimate their capabilities, this could affect some physiological markers like the ones mentioned above.
More research needs to be done on this topic, but it seems like biological sex is a factor to be taken into consideration when implementing and designing training protocols for endurance performance.
How to Train for Resilience
So now you’re probably thinking, “ok great, I want to be more resilient, but how do I do that?”
Great question.
While we’re still in the early phases of understanding this concept, here is what the research currently suggests.
Training Volume: Those who train more times per week tend to have higher resilience levels.
Training Intensity: Athletes who regularly train at high- and middle-intensity levels have higher resilience than those who consistently train at lower-intensity levels.
Training Duration: Training for longer bouts, such as 90 minutes or more once per week, improves resilience.
Training History: The more experienced you are and the longer training history you have, the better resilience.
Heavy Strength Training: A few (2-3) heavy strength training days added into the week seems to amplifies resilience.
Plyometrics: Some evidence points that adding explosive work helps develop resilience.
Whether these tips sound obvious or unfamiliar to you, this should affirm that you should include these things in your training if you want to be the best endurance-based athlete that you can be.
The Take Home
Having better resilience is something every athlete (yes, even around-the-block joggers) should strive for if they want to improve their performance. And being resilient doesn’t just mean being “tough,” it’s something you can train.
If you look at the above points on how to train this trait, don’t just go from 0 to 100. If you’ve never ran more than 30 minutes straight before, don’t go trying to run for 90 minutes just because a paper or this blog post said that that’s what builds resilience.
Slowly increase one or two variables in your training regimen at a time. If you normally run for 20 minutes, try for 22. Or if you normally run at a 8.0 km/h pace, try running at a 8.2 km/h pace. If you don’t do any strength training at all, try adding one workout a week that works the full body.
Ease things in and don’t decimate your body by overdoing it. You also have to let your body adapt and recover from the new and/or added training as well.
Remember that resilience doesn’t supersede everything else. This is something that should be considered and taken note of, but don’t disregard other aspects of training and recovery that are just as important for your performance and health as well.
Final Thoughts
Our goal at Delta Kinesiology is to help women reach their health and fitness goals regardless of age, ability, or experience level. We tailor each session using evidence-based principles and methods to help you reach your goals. Whether that be going about your day pain-free, building muscle, improving stamina, or feeling better about yourself, we are here to help.
Get in touch with us today to schedule a free consult by clicking the link below.
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References
Jones, A. M., & Kirby, B. S. (2025). Physiological Resilience: What Is It and How Might It Be Trained?. Scandinavian journal of medicine & science in sports, 35(3), e70032. https://doi.org/10.1111/sms.70032
Gallo, G., Mateo-March, M., Leo, P., Campos-Donaire, A., Gandia-Soriano, A., Giorgi, A., Faelli, E., Ruggeri, P., Codella, R., Mujika, I., & Filipas, L. (2022). Power Road-Derived Physical Performance Parameters in Junior, Under-23, and Professional Road Cycling Climbers. International journal of sports physiology and performance, 17(7), 1094–1102. https://doi.org/10.1123/ijspp.2021-0554
Glace, B. W., McHugh, M. P., & Gleim, G. W. (1998). Effects of a 2-hour run on metabolic economy and lower extremity strength in men and women. The Journal of orthopaedic and sports physical therapy, 27(3), 189–196. https://doi.org/10.2519/jospt.1998.27.3.189
Deaner, R. O., Carter, R. E., Joyner, M. J., & Hunter, S. K. (2015). Men are more likely than women to slow in the marathon. Medicine and science in sports and exercise, 47(3), 607–616. https://doi.org/10.1249/MSS.0000000000000432
Smyth, B., Maunder, E., Meyler, S., Hunter, B., & Muniz-Pumares, D. (2022). Decoupling of Internal and External Workload During a Marathon: An Analysis of Durability in 82,303 Recreational Runners. Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.), 52(9), 2283–2295. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-022-01680-5
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