Carla Molinaro: Strength Conditioning and Yoga for Runners

Carla Molinaro is a Running Coach, Trainer and Yoga Teacher. And on top of all of that, she’s an ultra runner. With years of running experience under her belt, Carla has created a programme to help runners from all walks of life improve through cross training.

I started running aged 15 at school and went through every distance possible. I began running the 800-1500m on the track and cross country and then did triathlons for about 10 years. After this, I came back and did half marathons, marathons and ultras and then did longer and longer things until it spiralled out of control. Now I do quite a lot of multi-day ultras, that’s my favourite thing to do. Opposite to most ultra runners who usually go from no running to running an ultra, I’ve gone through the stages over a 2 year period building it up and getting a bit longer each time. 

Do you prefer road or mountain ultras?

It’s only been the last year that I’ve focused on road races, I do prefer running the trails. I love them, they’re fun and the views are awesome, but actually my strengths lie in road ultras. I’m better at that and so I’m going to try for the next couple of years to focus on that. For a while I’ve done anything; road, mountain, trail, multi-day, but because of that I don’t think I’ve done as well as I could have if I focused, so I’m going to see how that works out. 

How did SCY (Strength Conditioning Yoga) for Runners start?  

My whole coaching journey started at uni where I did a degree in Sports Science. I then joined the army. Over the years I worked with lots of different coaches personally, both triathlon and running coaches, so it was nice to see how different people worked. Without knowing it you learn about coaching by being coached. Then about 2014 I went and did a Personal Training course because I was more interested in doing the strength and conditioning side of things. I was working 1-1 with runners on their strength and conditioning. It’s such an important part of a training programme, yet it’s the part that no one wants to do. I get it because we’d rather be outside running than in a gym. 

It was in 2020 that I did my yoga course because I had the idea to put this programme together. During the pandemic I saw a lot of people putting courses together for yoga or strength for runners and putting sessions out on Youtube and Zoom, but they weren’t runners and it started to irritate me. Some yoga teachers were asking people to get their legs and put them behind their head and most runners can’t do that. I did my yoga course which was very embarrassing because I was the only one that couldn’t touch my toes. So, I put a programme together that would work for runners and the way they move. For example, a runner’s hamstrings are tight, but we need them tight to run quicker. You don’t want to be super flexible. 

And that’s when SCY for Runners was invented…

I wanted to put a programme together that was relevant to runners and really specific. In terms of strength and conditioning, there is so much out there and it can be overwhelming. Most people don’t know how or where to start. For the programme I film one strength and one yoga session per week. It’s all prerecorded and we do it at the same time, I’m there with you. They’re 30 minutes because I know a runner’s attention span in a gym or doing yoga isn’t that long. There’s no point making a session that lasts an hour because we’re not going to want to do it, but there is a massive benefit to doing it.