Hill workouts

Whenever a race has hills or a bridge, I tend to struggle. Every once in a while I'll do a hill workout but they don't seem to be that effective. What works for you guys?

Doing lots of hillwork. I usually do hills once a week, and living in north NJ I get big hills on every run.


It's probably harder for you where you live, but I guess just try to route your runs so they hit hills and bridges. The only way you get used to them is by running them a lot.

I'm glad you asked. Squats.

I do about 8 hill repeats on a really steep hill once a week, that usually helps me

We do both really short hill sprints 8-10s, ALL OUT, full recovery and longer hill repeats (1200-1400m total, ~100ft elevation gain over the hill) We do 6-7 with a short jog down (it's weird, but the way we run it the recovery is only about 2 minutes down because we take a shortcut).

Squats are good, but actually running hills is better: Specificity is king.

we have a huge hill by us called The Beast. Its a 10 mile run- 5 miles up and 5 down. the climb up is pretty unrelenting and its tough. The varsity team runs it a few times a month and it really helps. Quick hill repeats are good too but if you can find a nice long one by you and train on it consistanly then everything else will begin to seem easier. At least its worked for me. good luck

xorunxo wrote:we have a huge hill by us called The Beast. Its a 10 mile run- 5 miles up and 5 down. the climb up is pretty unrelenting and its tough. The varsity team runs it a few times a month and it really helps. Quick hill repeats are good too but if you can find a nice long one by you and train on it consistanly then everything else will begin to seem easier. At least its worked for me. good luck

It is a very tough run. To give everyone an idea of how tough it is, the girl's "course record" on this run (the 5 miles up) is 43-44 minutes. This was run by a girl who had a 1600 PR under 4:45 and a mid 10s 3200 PR (obviously one of the top runners in the whole nation) while in high school.

Hey Corrector,
do you live by Valencia?

Treat hills like you're running up stairs.


...and don't do serious squats more than once every other week. Even that's pushing it.

I agree with runner_dude and Lingren Runner.

I run trails all the time and there is a lot of tough, hilly terrain. The more hills you run the better you get. It's never "easy" though. I went to school in Colorado close to the mountains and having hills on every run really helped out.

Having more strength to power yourself uphill would also really help. Movements like squats and deadlifts would give you a lot more general strength to draw upon when you need it whether for running or just daily life. You can do those lifts without getting bulky and slow if you focus on the proper reps/sets. Using heavier weights within a range of about 1-6 reps per set focuses on strength without gaining too much weight. Rep ranges from 6-12 are more for hypertrophy (getting big) and sets over 12 are generally for endurance. This was just a rough breakdown, but you can read more into this on the internet/books to design a cross training workout to suit your needs. Just don't go to a bodybuilding website that focuses on just getting "swoll" and looking good in the mirror because that isn't something you need (or should ever want in my opininon). Go to a strength or powerlifting site because you want to lean, strong, functional muscles.

I disagree with CT Track about squats. It's a great functional movement that should be trained and trained more often than once every other week. Training once every 2 weeks wouldn't be beneficial at all. If you did that, all you would do is place an unfamiliar stress (the squats) on your body and never allow it to adapt to that stress and get stronger. Just think about running once every two weeks and how fast you wouldn't get. The human body is incredibilty tough if you allow it to adapt to the stresses and strains you put on it.

I usually do lower body lifts a couple/several times a week with no problem because I'm used to lifting as well as running. I think that it will take a bit of adjusting and soreness at first, but you will get used to it if you keep it up.

Yosh wrote: Just don't go to a bodybuilding website that focuses on just getting "swoll" and looking good in the mirror because that isn't something you need (or should ever want in my opininon).

Don't worry, I don't think you need to ever worry about that.

xorunxo wrote:Hey Corrector,
do you live by Valencia?

No, but I am friends with Shannon and I know other people like Kaylin, Brianna, Amber, Courtney, Stephanie, Anne, etc.

Why?

Yosh wrote:I agree with runner_dude and Lingren Runner.

I run trails all the time and there is a lot of tough, hilly terrain. The more hills you run the better you get. It's never "easy" though. I went to school in Colorado close to the mountains and having hills on every run really helped out.

Having more strength to power yourself uphill would also really help. Movements like squats and deadlifts would give you a lot more general strength to draw upon when you need it whether for running or just daily life. You can do those lifts without getting bulky and slow if you focus on the proper reps/sets. Using heavier weights within a range of about 1-6 reps per set focuses on strength without gaining too much weight. Rep ranges from 6-12 are more for hypertrophy (getting big) and sets over 12 are generally for endurance. This was just a rough breakdown, but you can read more into this on the internet/books to design a cross training workout to suit your needs. Just don't go to a bodybuilding website that focuses on just getting "swoll" and looking good in the mirror because that isn't something you need (or should ever want in my opininon). Go to a strength or powerlifting site because you want to lean, strong, functional muscles.

I disagree with CT Track about squats. It's a great functional movement that should be trained and trained more often than once every other week. Training once every 2 weeks wouldn't be beneficial at all. If you did that, all you would do is place an unfamiliar stress (the squats) on your body and never allow it to adapt to that stress and get stronger. Just think about running once every two weeks and how fast you wouldn't get. The human body is incredibilty tough if you allow it to adapt to the stresses and strains you put on it.

I usually do lower body lifts a couple/several times a week with no problem because I'm used to lifting as well as running. I think that it will take a bit of adjusting and soreness at first, but you will get used to it if you keep it up.

Thanks Yosh for agreeing with me. Sometimes I feel that whenever I post I'm usually ignored or treated as if I were from another planet.

Hills and squats. Someone seems to want to destroy their knees before they can actually use them to go to the bar.

I am 22 and go to a bar quite often.

I don't understand your hatred towards squats. They are a good lift that will make you strong. You probably do them everyday (even if the resistance isn't high). Everytime you get up from taking a shit, there's a squat right there!

CT Track wrote:Hills and squats. Someone seems to want to destroy their knees before they can actually use them to go to the bar.

Did you know Ryan Hall lifts in the gym? Did you know he squats? You think Ryan Hall is destroying his knees? you obviously don't know much about running.

Name any successful athlete who hasn't done squats. Squats aren't the cureall for great running. I myself do squats. However your inpubescent brain seems to overlook the fact that I said doing them too much will do damage to the cartilage in the knees. My senior year we had a freshman who was on the football team and did a 2:14 800 in high school. During spring track he did squats too often and with way too much weight and it burned him out. Are you so naive to believe that Ryan Hall does intense strength workouts more than once a week? Even once every two weeks? A lot more goes into Ryan Hall than squating. I'm sorry I don't know as much about running than teenager who probably couldn't compete against his own conference/district or whatever you do.

ct track, how many squats a day will hurt me? i do like 10 squats with weights, and like 20 lunges with weights, but thats it. it really only takes like 2 minutes, so im guessing it does nothing (i just throw it in at the end of my core routines), but i wanna make sure its not gonna hurt me.

You said he was a freshmen? Maybe someone didn't show him proper form and then he got injured or something. When you deal with a heavy lift, it is really, really important to have good form. There are guys in their 60s who still compete in powerlifting without injuries- which is the dead lift, squat, and bench press.

Squats are not a cureall for running, but it would be a good supplement for the leg strength needed to get better at the original topic of running uphill. I wouldn't just do squats because someone mentioned earlier that "specificity if king." If I had the choice to do only one thing to get better at hill running, it would be running hills. If I had the oppurtunity to do both things, I would do squats and run hills.

No he was fine with his lifting. He did most of his lifting with the football team before track. It wasn't just the squats that burnt him out but I was using it as an example. Like I said, I'm not advocating that squats are bad. I'm trying to say that overdoing them will mess your knees up. Especially if done improperly. And Alex I can't tell you what your doing is wrong or right. It's up to someone more trained and with the ability to evaluate it first hand.