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Hill Training
Hill training has many benefits for the endurance runner. Firstly, integrating regular hill training into your training routine will lead to improvements in muscular strength, particularly in the quadriceps (top of thigh), glutes (bottom), and soleus (calves). However, less emphasis is placed on the hamstrings (back of thigh), compared with the quadriceps, during uphill running than during flat running. Hill training is a particularly good type of strength training for endurance runners since it is sport specific – sport specific refers to when you are working muscles in a way that is similar to their use during a particular sport (therefore hill training is a very running specific type of strength training). By increasing muscular strength, hill training also improves: running economy - this reduces the energy cost of running at any sub-maximal speed; leads to improvements in the lactate threshold, and; increases the fatigue resistance of muscles. Secondly, hill training increases both aerobic and anaerobic power. However, hill training places a much greater emphasis on anaerobic energy metabolism than is the case when running across flat terrain. There are four main types of hill training:
Continuous running across hilly terrain By incorporating hill running into your usual running sessions you will help to increase muscular strength, running economy, and aerobic and anaerobic power. Although it is beneficial to include some hill running in to your usual easy/steady continuous running, be careful not to include too much. Bare in mind that hill running depletes muscle glycogen levels more rapidly, raise your heart rate, and increase the general intensity of the session, compared with running on flat terrain. Unless you are a fell runner, or targeting the cross country races, then you should only include one continuous run, across hilly terrain, per week. It appears to be particularly beneficial to incorporate a hilly route as part of your weekly long run, particularly if you include several long hills in the first 20mins of the run. This improves muscle fatigue resistance, and helps to speed the depletion of muscle glycogen during the long run, as muscle glycogen levels drop there is an increased emphasis on fat metabolism and this will help to train your muscles to be more efficient at utilising fat as an energy source.
A typical short hill interval training session would involve running approximately 10-16 repetitions of about 200-400m, up a moderate gradient, with a slow jog down recovery. Typically the uphill, or effort section, would be run at around 3-5k race pace, and the downhill, or recovery section, would be run at an easy jog pace that takes about twice the time to run down as to run up the hill. This type of hill training will improve muscular strength, running economy, muscular endurance, aerobic and anaerobic metabolism. But, because of the speed of these intervals you place a strong emphasis on anaerobic energy sources. These sessions are more beneficial to 1500m – 5k runners, who use a much greater proportion of anaerobic energy, compared with distances of 10k or greater. The primary energy source for distance runners is the aerobic metabolism of fatty acids and carbohydrate. The main problem with this session is that the efforts are run too quickly and the recoveries are too long – to the point where the runner’s heart rate is normally down to around 120 beats/min by the bottom of the hill. Because of this you are not really training the body to cope with the demands of distance racing. For a start you are running the hill reps at a pace that far exceeds long distance running race pace. Secondly, when do you ever get a nice long recovery in a race, after running up a hill? Under normal race situations you run up the hill and then continue at the same pace as you continue over the brow of the hill. Therefore, you are just training yourself to run quickly up a hill and not preparing yourself for the situation in a race, where you will have to continue to work hard as you go over the brow of the hill. Although this type of session should not be ignored by distance runners, greater benefits will be gained through the use of hill tempos and long hill repetitions. In terms of muscular strength, much better gains will be gained through the use of resistance training than hill training.
Long hill interval training involves the use of 4-8 repetitions of around 600-1600m (sometimes longer), up a moderate slope, with a jog down recovery. The uphill section is run at between 10k and half marathon pace, whilst the down hill section is run at an easy pace that takes about 50% longer than the uphill section. Like the previous types of hill training, long hill intervals improve muscular strength, running economy, muscular endurance, and both aerobic and anaerobic metabolism. Because the speed is lightly slower, than short hill repetitions, there is a greater emphasis placed on aerobic metabolism. Therefore, this type of hill training is more suited to distance runners than the short hill repetitions. However, there is still the problem that the recoveries are very long so if you were running a long hill repetition lasting around 4 minutes you would take around 6 minutes to run the recovery. Because of this the average intensity of the session is relatively low. Although, long hill repetitions are more beneficial to distance runners than the short hill repetitions, they are less beneficial than tempo intervals.
Tempo intervals are variation of short hill repetitions that get around the problem of the long recoveries. You will get all the same benefits of improved muscular strength, running economy, muscular endurance, and both aerobic and anaerobic metabolism. But, you will be placing more emphasis on aerobic metabolism and the lactate threshold and it should lead to greater improvements in distance racing performance. The basic idea of tempo intervals is to maintain a high work rate, throughout the workout. This is done by running the recoveries at a steady pace rather than the usual easy paced jog. To be able to run the recoveries at a faster rate you must also slow the effort down slightly. Ideally pick a hill that would take you around 50 seconds to run up at 10k pace. You then run 12-18 efforts at slightly quicker than 10k pace – so just under 50 seconds to run up the hill – but you must complete the recovery in no slower than 55 seconds. So there is only around a 5 second differential between the uphill and downhill sections.
Your heart rate should reach around 80-85% HR max after the first repetition and should be as high as 90-95% HR max by the last repetition. You will find that your heart rate will not recover as much, as during traditional hill repetitions, and should only drop to around 75-80% HR max at the bottom of the hill – it may only recover to around 80-85% HR max over the last few repetitions. This makes the session much more of a challenge and means that the average intensity is around lactate threshold speed so you are combining hill training with lactate threshold training. This session is therefore more beneficial to distance runners than the other types of hill training. A good session to begin with is 12 x tempo hills. During this session there would be approximately 10 minutes of uphill running and 10:30 minutes of downhill running, so you will be running for around 20 minutes at the lactate threshold. Aim to gradually increase this to around 16 tempo intervals – around 28 minutes of hill training at an intensity that is around the lactate threshold.
If you are prone to injuries following hill training, particularly if you suffer with knee problems, then you should consider performing hill training either off-road, or on a treadmill. It can be beneficial to perform hill training on a treadmill because you can control the speed of the efforts and recoveries and you can eliminate the downhill section of hill running, and therefore remove the problem of recoveries. If you are performing hill training on the treadmill then run 4-6 long hill reps (800-1000m repetitions) up a moderate gradient (4 - 5%), run at 10k pace, with short recoveries (around 60 seconds) run at about 70% of 10k pace. So if you are a 30 minute 10k runner you would run the 1000m hill reps at a speed of 20km/h with a 4-5% gradient (start off with a 4% gradient then after a month increase it to 5%). For the recovery you would drop the gradient back down to 0% and decrease the speed to 10.5 (15 x 0.7 = 10.5) for 60 seconds. Even if you don’t suffer with any injury it is worth considering using treadmills to perform the occasional hill session, just for the change and to give your legs a break from the continual pounding that occurs with hill training – particularly when running hill repetitions on the road.
Treadmill hill intervals training chart
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