8 Workouts That Runners Can Do Indoors When It’s Raining

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You’ve laced up your shoes and are about to go for a run when suddenly the wind started gushing and downpours the heavy rain. Suddenly, all your excitement for a good hour of workout is ruined. But don’t remove your shoes just yet, we have a whole list of indoor workouts that you can do instead of running.

As a general rule, you should work on other aspects of fitness like strength, balance, agility, and power when you are not able to run. That way, you’re allowing yourself to improve on certain aspects of fitness that are hard to accomplish when you’re just running.

Ahead, we will look at all these ideas one by one and look at how they may help you as a runner. I’ve also linked several youtube videos that you can follow.

1. Box or Chair Step Ups

If you want to run fast you need strength. If you want to climb fast (for trail runners), you need strength. One of the best and most effective ways to build strength specific for uphill running is step-ups.

To make it more beneficial to running, do most of your step-ups on a box just slightly lower than your knees. This will give you a similar feeling to climbing/running uphill.

Occasionally, do step-ups on a standard 24″ box. This will help build a different group of muscles that are not used in lower height step-ups.

If you want to increase the intensity, wear a weighted vest or carry dumbells.

I found this weighted vest on Amazon. Unlike most weighted vests, this is soft and has a built-in bottle holder. Plus it fits really well and doesn’t bounce around when you use it for running.

2. Whole Body Workout With Stairs

Stairs workouts are another good alternative to running outdoors when it’s raining.

I usually do intervals of different exercises much like the video shown above. Sometimes I wear weighted vests, carry dumbells, or any type of weight like luggage or water gallon (improvise on this one).

There’s a lot of workout combinations you can do on the stairs. Mix them up with strength exercises and build circuit exercises with stairs exercises incorporated in them.

Here’s a whole-body workout example of what I would do if I only have a flight of stairs to work with.

3. 20-30 Mins of Spinning/Cycling

If you have access to an indoor bike, spinning is a great cross-training to running. You can do a low to moderate intensity bike much like what you’d do if you’re running long distances, or you can try a high-intensity burn session like this one above.

If you want to invest in an indoor bike, I found this bike on Amazon. It’s got a near-perfect review and it’s Amazon’s bestseller on indoor bikes.

4. Wobble Board Exercises

Balance is often an overlooked aspect of fitness, but it is an important skill to develop.

A great way to do that is by combining it with strength using a wobble board or similar equipment. And don’t just focus on your lower body. Do upper body strength and balance exercises as well.

The video above is a good example of how you can use a wobble board for your workout.

5. Plyometrics

Want to build power and explosiveness? Try doing plyometrics.

A lot of elite athletes of every sport incorporate plyometrics in their program simply because of its effectiveness. It could help you run faster, jump higher, improve agility and overall make you more athletic.

The video above shows you a basic plyometric routine you can do at home.

6. Core Exercises (Focus on holds like planks)

A good running posture is vital for every runner. Having a good posture could help you run longer and faster. But a lot of runners simply don’t have enough core strength and endurance to maintain a proper posture through hours of running.

So, if you can’t run outside, might as well work your core at home.

Planking alone may not be enough to get a good workout to replace a running session. Instead, add planks as a supplement to a strengthening or a high-intensity session.

Workout sample:

You can increase the difficulty by increasing the plank time or by doing more advanced plank variations.

7. 20-30 Mins of Kettlebell Circuit

Kettlebells are one of the useful tools you can have at home.

Unlike dumbells and barbells, kettlebells offer a different kind of challenge. It’s unstable and is very similar to what you carry every day making them more functional.

There are a plethora of things that you can do with a kettlebell, but it requires skill to master. For beginners though, you could begin with the basic kettlebell swings and goblet squats.

Kettlebell swings are also great for runners because they help develop a lot of the posterior core muscles and your glutes.

The video above is a great whole-body exercise that you can do with a kettlebell.

8. 10-20 Mins Crossfit Workout

There are a lot of reasons why I love Crossfit, and two of those are that I get to compete with myself and that I learned about my own limits really fast.

One way to increase your training intensity while having a lot of fun is by doing whole body Crossfit workouts set a goal to accomplish (like how many rounds or reps you think you can do), and chase that number like you’re in 2nd place chasing someone in the 1st place.

The great thing is, not only that it will increase your training intensity, but it will also teach you a thing or two about pacing which is a very helpful tool in running.

I assure you, after a few Crossfit workouts, you’re going to learn about your own limits and be smart about how you attack certain workouts. This will usually translate into your running pace.