HIT THE HILLS, REAP THE BENEFITS By Jeff Gaudette, Published Nov. 22, 2013, Updated Mar. 27, 2015 at 9:59 AM UTC 1.) Benefits of hill trening One of the hardest parts about constructing a great training plan is trying to figure out how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together. For each week or training cycle, you have a myriad of possible workouts to choose from — threshold runs, VO2 max, speed work, hill repeats and slight variations of all of these training elements. It can seem daunting to understand how each type of workout fits into a plan and how it helps you take a step toward your goal of running faster on race day. In particular, many runners struggle with how to incorporate hill work into their training if their goal race is on a hilly course. It stands to reason that if you’re racing on a hilly course you need to work hill repeats into your training, right? Not as much as you may think. While hill repeats aren’t exactly race specific workouts, I do believe there is a beneficial way to incorporate hill sessions into your training. In this article, we’ll outline the different types of hill workouts and highlight the benefits of each so you can better understand the physiological components and better incorporate the right type of hill workouts into your training. 2.) Short, Explosive Sprints Short, explosive hill sprints have become popular in today’s training programs thanks to the work of coaches such as Renato Canova and Brad Hudson, but they are something elite athletes have been performing for decades. They are NOT a primary fitness-building workout, but rather a great ancillary training component. 3.) Long Hill Repeats Long hill repeats are the traditional type of hill workouts many runners want to do when they feel they need to improve their hill running skills. A good example of this type of workout is 10 x 90 second hill repeats at a hard effort with a walk or jog back down the hill for recovery. These types of hill workouts are fantastic for improving VO2max and increasing muscle strength. In fact, long hill repeats are almost a form of strength training. As a runner, you can do squats, lunges, and hamstring curls until your muscles burn, but nothing compares exactly to running. The forceful contractions caused by the lifting of the hips, glutes and quads when you’re running up the hill utilizes the same principle mechanics as many plyometrics exercises. Also, because these long hill repeats are often very intense and last anywhere from 30-90 seconds, they are a great VO2 max workout. Unfortunately, doing lots of hill repeats will not help you run faster over a hilly course. During a race, many of the hills you encounter will be long and gradual, not steep and short. Furthermore, the pace at which you ascend the hill will be conservative, not an all out sprint. Therefore, the specific muscles you are working and the demands you are placing on your body will be drastically different between a hill repeat workout and race. 4.)Rolling Hills If you’re looking to improve your ability to tackle hills on race day, then incorporating rolling hills into your threshold and long runs is the best solution. This is how most elite training groups handle races contested over difficult courses. Case in point, in 2008, the Hansons-Brooks marathon training group did all of their workouts on a hilly out-an-back loop to simulate the rolling hills they would face at the Olympic Marathon Trials in New York City. That plan worked out great for eventual Olympian Brian Sell, who finished third that day and punched his ticket to Beijing. Incorporating rolling hills into your runs provides your muscles and physiological systems the specific stimulus that it will face on race day — improving form over longer and more gradual hills and maintaining pace up and over the hill. Furthermore, throwing some hills into your road runs teaches you how to pace yourself up and over hills so you can keep the effort within your target pace range during the race. Many runners attack hills too hard during a race, and as a consequence they go anaerobic and have to slow down considerably once the hill is over. The appropriate way to approach hills during a race is to maintain the same effort up and down, which will even out the pace over the long run. By practicing this tactic in training, you can become an expert at it on race day and save yourself from exerting too much energy. Finally, rolling hills are a great way to prepare for a hilly race because they don’t require a change to your normal training routine. You can still execute all the threshold and long runs you need, but by changing your route to include a few hills, you’ll be specifically preparing yourself to handle the hills on race day. When you’re putting together your training plan to prepare for a hilly race course, consider adding rolling hills to your long runs and threshold workouts to prepare for the specific demands you’ll face on race day.
3-2-1 Hill Repeats Written by: Mario Fraioli Do you shy away from speed workouts because you’re afraid of impending injury? Or perhaps you’re just tired of going to the track and turning out lap after lap, week after week. Whatever the reasons, whether you’re looking for a workout that will give you the most bang for your buck with the least likelihood of incurring an injury, or if your speed sessions have simply gone stale, a few sets of 3-2-1 hill repeats will keep you on your toes — quite literally. All you’ll need is a long enough hill (or reliable treadmill), a fresh set of legs and an hour or so of your time. Here’s how to do it: BEGINNER (SHORTER) VERSION •WARMUP: RUN EASILY FOR 10-15 MINUTES, 4 X 20-SECOND STRIDES. •WORKOUT: RUN TWO MINUTES UP A GRADUAL GRADE (4-6% GRADE) AT 5K EFFORT; JOG 2/3 OF THE WAY BACK DOWN THE HILL FOR RECOVERY. RUN ONE MINUTE UP THE HILL AT FASTER THAN 5K EFFORT; JOG HALFWAY BACK DOWN TO YOUR LAST STARTING POINT FOR RECOVERY. RUN 30 SECONDS HARD (NOT ALL OUT!) UP THE HILL; WALK/JOG ALL THE WAY BACK DOWN TO THE START OF THE HILL FOR RECOVERY. REPEAT THE ENTIRE SET 2-4 TIMES. •COOLDOWN: RUN EASILY FOR 10-15 MINUTES, STRETCH. ADVANCED (LONGER) VERSION •WARMUP: RUN EASILY FOR 15-20 MINUTES, FOLLOW WITH 6 X 20-SECOND STRIDES. •WORKOUT: RUN THREE MINUTES UP A GRADUAL GRADE (4-6% GRADE) AT 8K/10K EFFORT; JOG 2/3 OF THE WAY BACK DOWN THE HILL FOR RECOVERY. RUN TWO MINUTES UP THE HILL AT 5K EFFORT; JOG HALFWAY BACK DOWN TO YOUR LAST STARTING POINT FOR RECOVERY. RUN ONE MINUTE UP THE HILL AT 5K EFFORT OR SLIGHTLY FASTER; WALK/JOG ALL THE WAY BACK DOWN TO THE START OF THE HILL FOR RECOVERY. REPEAT THE ENTIRE SET 3-4 TIMES. •COOLDOWN: RUN EASILY FOR 15-20 MINUTES, STRETCH. Fitting 3-2-1 hill repeats into your training. This workout was a favorite of mine back in my collegiate cross country days, and some variation of it continues to be a standard session at the beginning of any training cycle for myself or any of the athletes I coach. Why? First of all, it’s just a great workout. Period. No one workout that I know of will get your heartrate up faster than a series of hill repeats. Also, in addition to the aerobic/anaerobic benefits of attacking an incline, you get an awesome muscular workout to boot. It’s the perfect combination of speed and strength. Number two, regardless of your training focus, a hill session of this sort is the perfect segue at the start of any training cycle before it’s time to transition into more specific speed work further down the road. There’s no pressure to hit specific splits–this workout is all about effort. Also, the session itself can easily be adapted by shortening the length of the repeats (see Beginner/Shorter Version above) depending on where you are with your training and what you’re trying to accomplish. Lastly, you’re less likely to get injured running hard uphill than you are clicking off fast laps around a track. Be careful going back down the hill, however, as that’s when gravity is the enemy and your shins, knees, quads and lower back will take a beating. Focus on running with good form throughout the workout. On the way up, get up on your toes, lift your knees, drive the arms and attack the climb with short strides. On the descent, control is the key. Don’t slam on the brakes and keep the pounding to a minimum by jogging back down gently.
THE SISYPHUS SESSION By Mario Fraioli, Published Nov. 12, 2014, Updated Nov. 14, 2014 at 12:30 AM UTC Don’t stop till you get to the top! As an athlete and a coach, I love hill workouts. For my money, running up and down a hill gives you the most bang for your running buck—power, strength, endurance and speed all wrapped into one workout. So, you might be wondering, what does the mythical Greek king in the title have to do with attacking an incline? Well, I’m glad you asked. Before we get to the Xs and Os of the workout, first a quick lesson in mythology. Sisyphus was a greedy and deceitful king who was punished for his crimes by being sentenced to roll a large boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll all the way back down to the bottom before he ever reached the top. Despite his best efforts, he was forced to proceed in this manner for the rest of eternity. This hill workout proceeds in much the same way but unlike our poor friend Sisyphus, you’ll have the good fortune of getting to stop. Eventually. The Sisyphus Session is one of the bread-and-butter strength-building sessions I like to have my athletes do in the weeks before beginning more pace-specific workouts. I’ll assign some variation of this workout to 5K racers, marathoners and everyone in between toward the end of the the base-building phase of their respective training programs. It’s one hill session that doesn’t discriminate. As the nature of the name of the workout implies, you’ll be running up and down the hill a number of times. To get started, you will need to find a moderately steep incline that’s roughly 400 to 800 meters long. Before beginning the workout, warm up with 15 to 20 minutes of easy jogging. Follow that up with some dynamic warmup drills and a set of four to six 20-second strides on flat ground before setting off up the hill. After warming up, run up the hill for 30 seconds at roughly 5K race effort and jog back down to the start for recovery. If you typically wear a GPS watch when you train, don’t pay attention to the pace on the screen. It will be slower than your actual race pace because you’re fighting against gravity, and since you’re not covering much ground at any one time it likely won’t register accurately on the watch, anyway. This workout is all about effort. So without the aid of technology how do you know if the effort level is where it’s supposed to be as you’re running up the hill? It’s as easy as asking yourself, “Can I maintain this level of intensity for a 5K race?” If the answer is “no”, then back it off a bit. Once you get back to the bottom of the hill, turn around and head right back up again at the same hard effort for 60 seconds. Pay close attention to your form as the workout progresses and you start to fatigue. Shorten your stride, get up on your forefoot, lift your knees and drive your arms. You should have the sensation of being pulled up the hill. When you hit the 60-second mark, turn around, jog back down to the start, and do it all over again, this time going up the hill for 90 seconds. Congratulations, you’re almost there. After jogging back down the hill upon completion of the 90-second repeat, head back up the hill for 2 minutes at the same effort and pat yourself on the back when you reach the top. You’ve finished the first set. A completed set gives you 5 minutes worth of running uphill at an effort you should be able to maintain for a 5K race. For a beginning runner or someone just getting back into harder workouts after a lengthy layoff, this might be plenty of work the first time out. For more advanced runners looking to build some early-season strength, 2 to 3 sets (10-15 minutes of uphill running) is more like it. If you’re feeling overly ambitious, try a fourth set, but for most three will be more than enough. This is a tough session! One variation of this workout is to shorten the length of each uphill rep (e.g. start with 15 seconds, work your way up to a minute) or find a hill with multiple twists and turns and forget about running up and down for set amounts of time. Simply run hard to the first turn and jog back down. Do the same to the next turn and continue proceeding in this manner until you reach the top of the hill. Adjust your effort level for the uphill runs based on the length of the hill and the number of sets you’re hoping to complete. In general, I suggest aiming for 10-15 minutes of uphill running at a strong effort. In my college cross-country days, we did this workout on a stretch of dirt called Mountain Road, which was exactly one mile from bottom to top. We’d run up to various landmarks along the road, turn around and do it again…and again…and again. We finished the workout with an all-out ascent to the top, at which point we were finally allowed to stop. It was only then that our “punishment” was over for the day.
STEEP HILL SPRINTS By Brad Hudson, Published Nov. 13, 2013, Updated Nov. 13, 2013 at 1:16 PM UTC Why lift weights when you can run against gravity? One of the signature training methods I use with my runners are steep hill sprints. These short, maximum-intensity efforts against gravity provide two key benefits. First, they strengthen all of the running muscles, making the runner much less injury-prone. They also increase the power and efficiency of the stride, enabling the runner to cover more ground with each stride with less energy in race circumstances. These are significant benefits from a training method that takes very little time and is fun to do. My runners don’t lift any weights. Except for a little core conditioning work, steep hill sprints are the only strength training they do, and they do them year-round, because you need strength at all times in the training process. If you have never done a steep hill sprint before, you should not leap into a set of 10 of steep hill sprints the very first time you try them. These efforts place a tremendous stress on the muscles and connective tissues. Thus, the careless beginner is at some risk of suffering a muscle or tendon strain or another such acute injury when performing steep hill sprints. Once your legs have adapted to the stress they impose, steep hill sprints actually protect against injury. But you must proceed with caution until you get over the hump of those early adaptations Your very first session, performed after completion of an easy run, should consist of just one or two 8-second sprints on a steep incline of approximately six percent. If you don’t know what a six-percent gradient looks or feels like, get on a treadmill and adjust the incline to six percent. Then find a hill that matches it. Your first session will stimulate physiological adaptations that serve to better protect your muscles and connective tissues from damage in your next session. Known to exercise scientists as the “repeated bout effect,” these adaptations occur very quickly. If you do your first steep hill sprints on a Monday, you will be ready to do another session by Thursday—and you will almost certainly experience less muscle soreness after this second session. Thanks to the repeated bout effect, you can increase your steep hill sprint training fairly rapidly and thereby develop strength and stride power quickly. First, increase the number of eight-second sprints you perform by two per session per week. Once you’re doing eight to 10 sprints, move to 10-second sprints and a steeper, eight-percent hill. After a few more weeks, advance to 12second sprints on a 10-percent hill. Always allow yourself the opportunity to recovery fully between individual sprints within a session. In other words, rest long enough so that you are able to cover just as much distance in the next sprint as you did in the previous one. Simply walking back down the hill you just ran up should do the trick, but if you need more time, take it. Most runners will achieve as much strength and power improvement as they can get by doing 10 to 12 hill sprints of 12 seconds each, twice a week. Once you have reached this level and have stopped gaining strength and power, you can cut back to one set of 10 to 12 hill sprints per week. This level of maximum power training will suffice to maintain your gains through the remainder of the training cycle. Very few distance runners perform any truly maximum-effort running in their training. That’s a shame, because it is very beneficial and quite exhilarating. Try my steep hill sprints and see for yourself!
