How to dominate the hills on xc?

Your cadence shouldn't drop when going up or downhill. It should remain constant. Say you run at the usual 180 wpm. It should remain the same on the hills. Shorten your stride. That will help the most with hills. Short, quick stride.

forget the cadence but everything else

The obvious answer would be to run more hills. Right?

If you want to improve your hill running, then the best way to do that would be to run more hills.

Work on all aspects of the hill running by doing short steep hill sprints, longer steep hill sprints, and hilly circuits.

I should add that I had a coach who also had us do fast downhill running. We'd do repeats up a quarter mile hill, jog down half and run a fast downhill 200m, then jog a minute and start back up the hill.

I also remembered just how much I improved every single day on hills when I was in Salt Lake City for a conference and each day ran up the mountain for 45 minutes and turned around. By the fourth day, I reached the top in that 45 minutes, far beyond what I'd done the first day, and when I returned to NYC, the Central Park hills felt like nothing. So, find yourself a mountain to run up in addition to the repeats, circuits, and downhills.

Strangely enough, core work really helps with handling hills. No need to do the fetish amounts that some folks do, but 20-30min of core work per week (maybe spread over 3-4 different days) helps.

When going uphill, don't look at the top of the hill or down at your feet. Keep your head aligned with your torso, as you do on the flat--otherwise your posture will go, and you'll dissipate energy that could be moving you forward.

As with all running (flat or hills), you need to maintain relaxation in the elbow. As it swings behind the torso, the arm should open a little bit at the elbow; then it will close by the same amount as it moves in front. This is a perfectly natural movement that should occur at any speed (though the opening/closing will be very slight at slow speeds). It's not anything you have to *make* happen; just keep your elbows relaxed and *let* it happen.

In line with this: everything that moves you forward happens under and (mostly) behind you. If you're "using the arms" to move up a hill, focus on the *backward* swing of the elbow, which should move well behind your torso. If you're pumping your arms hard, but they're basically in front of your torso the whole time ('cause we like to see what our hands are doing!), they're actually making the hill *harder*. Who needs that?

[In any case, your arms themselves shouldn't get tired, because it's the muscles of your torso that actually move them! If your arms themselves are getting fatigued, it's likely because you're tensing them unnecessarily. Maintaining relaxation in the elbows helps prevent that. Funny: tell runners to relax the arms, and often they let the hands flap at the wrist, which locks the elbow up more! Your wrists can be fairly firm, but the elbow has to have a bit of play.]

Anyway, some guys (often littler guys) are just better at hills. I wasn't great on uphills, but still beat a lot of guys on hilly courses--because I noticed that a ton of them would really work when they went up the hill, then take a bit of a breather at the top, where I'd go by them. Charging up hills may be good in training, but it's dumb racing. You want to just keep your rhythm up the hill and be ready to *speed up* when you crest it. After all, when you hit the top it's flat there and you *should* run faster, right?

I know, that sounds like a joke because at the top of a tough hill you feel terrible for a few seconds. But at the top of that hill you're going to feel crappy no matter what you do: run, jog, walk, or stand, you're going to feel bad. So why not race when you're at the top? If you're going to feel bad regardless, why not get something accomplished?

Remember that you're trying to beat the other guys over the course of the whole race, not just the uphills. Just try to "maintain" on uphills--it can almost feel like the other guys are towing you up the slope--but when you hit the top, *shift gears* and go by them. An easy way to shift gears: as you're cresting the hill, switch your brain from your legs to your arms. Pick one arm (doesn't matter which) and just count ten backward beats of its elbow. That corresponds to twenty actual strides--by the time you've done those, you should be back to running normally.

Sorry this is so long-winded--don't have time to make it shorter! Good luck. Keep us posted on your progress, please.

i use all of these thankyou for your help.

Honestly - and don't take this the wrong way - but don't be a p*ssy, mentally. If you've done the work, prepped the best you can, then you HAVE TO believe you have what it takes. I see guys back off on hills or run too hard up them (then baby the downs) usually because they lack confidence and self-belief that they have what it takes/enough to hold pace up, crest, and push downhill. And, of course, pumping the arms, relaxed breathing, stride, cadence, core strength, and all that come into play as well.

famousone1234 wrote:

i use all of these thankyou for your help.

Good luck! Plenty of time before the really big races at the end of the season...

Remember a vigorous arm swing is essential. You need to use your upper body to generate counter forces to that of your legs, and let these transition through your medsection to your hips.

Try and run 'with' your glutes as much as possible - I always try and think of glute max's origin and insertion and concentrate on using it for vigorous hip extension.

Mental cues help me a lot, with hills I try and imagine a huge bungee cord attached by a harness to my chest hauling me to the top of the hill. This encourages me to run up right and keep my weight forward, and it's also a nice one for persevering through the difficult transition period where you crest the hill and it's easy to slack off.

Good tip, htrf. Thanks!

Become faster on the flats

Run equal effort up hill but be able to free fall the downhills.