With the Gate River Run just around the corner many of us need to think about the Green Monster at the end of the race. Yep, the Hart Bridge. Many of us, my self included, often neglect hills as a regular part of our running regime. In this post we are going to discuss some of the benefits of hill running, some of the different types of hill workouts we can incorporate into our running programs and the correct hill running form.

The British version of runners world recently did an expose on the benefits of hill running. They suggest that hill running strengthens tendons and ligaments, reduces the risk of injury and improves overall running form. Most of us these days will incorporate some kind of strength training when we go to the gym and lift weights. The problem is that while these exercises do increase strength and muscular power, they do it in isolation of your running, focusing on individual joints and small sets of muscles.

Hill sessions, in contrast, force the muscles in your hips, legs, ankles and feet to contract in a coordinated fashion while supporting your full body weight, just as they have to during normal running. In addition, on uphill sections your muscles contract more powerfully than usual because they are forced to overcome gravity to move you up the hill. The result is more power, which in turn leads to longer, faster running strides.

Are you still not sold on running hills? The Karolinska Institute in Sweden carried out a study to see what the benefits of hill running were. One major study carried out on marathon runners discovered that after 12 weeks of twice-weekly hill sessions, the athletes’ running economy had improved by three per cent. Although the subjects were trained runners, that improvement would still have helped them clip as much as two minutes off a 10-mile time or six minutes off a marathon.

Other research, carried out by Dr Bengt Saltin, discovered that runners who trained on hills have much higher concentrations of aerobic enzymes – the chemicals which allow your muscles to function at high intensity for long periods without fatigue – in their quadriceps muscles than those who did all their running on flat terrain. Heightened aerobic power in your quads gives you improved knee lift while running and also accelerates each leg forward more quickly as you run, which improves your speed.

Those who run on hills have also been shown to be less likely to lose fitness when they take time off from training. And many scientists believe that hill training can improve the elasticity of muscles, tendons and ligaments, allowing these tissues to carry out more work with less effort and fatigue.

The following are three types of hill exercises that can be added to any running workout.

1.    The Basic Hill Interval. Add a set of hill running intervals (anywhere from 3-7 repetitions, ranging from 50 to 800 meters in distance), at a slow to moderate pace. This can be done as part of any run. During your run, you simply run up some hills. The pace is not a sprint or hard effort at all, and the point of doing such a set of intervals is to develop specific upper leg strength that develops the muscle used to lift the knees. Additionally, keep your hips forward and drive off of the back of your leg as your opposite knee is lifted high. There is sometimes a tendency to slouch or hunch forward the shoulders. This happens particularly if you are feeling fatigue, either in general or from the workout itself. Be sure to keep this from happening by maintaining a ‘proud’ form throughout the intervals.

2.    Hill Sprints. These are short but intense efforts on steep hills. Start with a few intervals of 8 to 10 seconds each, then very gradually increase repetitions and durations. When executing hill sprints, each stride should be strong. Focus on a powerful movement that brings your knees up as you drive hard off of the back of your opposite leg. The key here is to straighten the leg that is doing the driving. This movement translates into one thing: Power. If you find yourself slowing considerably or feeling quite fatigued, you have done enough repetitions.

3.    Hill Bounding. On a gentle hill, using your body as resistance by bounding as high as possible. There is little forward momentum needed here, as the point is to gain vertically more than horizontally. By landing on the ball of one’s foot, this action in turn forces the runner’s ankle to increase in flexibility and power, both up and down. It also strengthens leg muscles similarly to plyometric exercises. The number of repetitions, like the hill sprints, can be determined by performance during the intervals: If you begin to feel tired or your execution of the action begins to wain, it is most likely time to move on to a cool down in your workout.

All I can say is I hope to see some of you out on the hills in the coming weeks before the USA’s biggest 15km, the Gate River Run.

Happy Running! 

http://www.runnersworld.co.uk/general/everything-you-need-to-know-about-hill-training/159.html