hill sprints

Hill sprints question wrote:

Lately I have started to add hill sprints 2x a week into my training.

I've been doing 8 sprints per session and i plan on increasing it to 10-15 in the next few weeks.

The hill i've been using is 50 meters long with a 6.3% Gradient

I was just wondering if that's a good hill to be using for my hill sprints, or if i should try using something longer or steeper.

thankyou!

The perfect is the enemy of the good. What you're doing now is good. Keep at it. After some time, you'll have some experience with this workout and you can tinker with the variables. In general, steeper is better, but only to the extent that you're strong enough to get up it with good form.

Steeper and about the same distance. Also nothing wrong with longer (150-200 meters) and less steep. Easy back down. Great low impact, cardio driven workouts. 12-16 reps. 20 if you want to dig deep.

+1

50 meters is a good minimum

150meters is a good maximum

Longer sprints are great but for different reasons, anything over 150m starts to become a metabolic workout, and you want it to be a nervous system workout.

6 reps is a good minimum

16 reps is a good maximum

If you can do over 16, you weren't going close enough to 100%. . You may think you are, but you aren't. 100% effort does not equal 100% quality. Between 8 and 12 is best. When the quality starts to drop, making a "gut check" and squeezing out a few more is counterproductive. Keep them sharp, crisp and within 5% of your best, then go home. This is not a volume workout and quality>>>quantity.

Recovery

Walk back+as long as you need

You get nothing from a shorter recovery except decreased performance during the sprint. This is not an aerobic workout and if you are running 50+ miles a week with other hard interval sessions your aerobic system does not need work. This is not a lactic tolerance workout. Think about the goal of the workout and what you want to develop from it.

Gradient.

I prefer 3-5% but up to 15% is fine. Between 10 and 15% will build the quads and calves up, but keep in mind the running action is very different than flat running and it won't have as much carryover. Don't worry too much about the gradient. 6% is just fine.

2 days a week is OK but if recovery is an issues 3 times in 2 weeks is preferable. It's a quick workout to recover from but you probably have other things on your plate as well.

When you're a hammer everything looks like a nail.

Distance runners want to turn every work out into endurance work. Do your workout for it's intended purpose.

You're doing fine now. Hill sprints are overlooked by many recreational runners.

My 0.02

What you are doing now is great. I think 50-75m is great and certainly don't go longer than 100m. A max of 12 hill sprints is probably good. This isn't like most of distance training where more is better. These need to be max or near max efforts and you need to recover enough between repeats that you don't feel like you are getting out of breath.

If you train for 800-1500 (or championship style longer races) I would transition the hill sprints into flat sprints 50-75m long with 300-400m of total work. Also after you have maxed your hill sprints I would do 150-250m repeats every 2-3 weeks to work on speed endurance. ~600m of total work and again transition from hills to flat.

If you train for longer races I would just maintain hill sprints and after you have maxed them drop the frequency or decrease the intensity.

I do think it is important to remind the legs about sub maximal fast running. The purpose of these "workouts" certainly isn't it CNS but I couldn't tell you why. Lots of coaches do it.

These workouts should feel good, not taxing and be honest with yourself about what your current pace is for the shorter races

For a 5k every 2-3 weeks something like

4-6x150@ 800 pace

For 10k

Above workout or

6-8x 200@ mile pace

For a marathoner

Above workouts or maybe even something like

4x400@ 5k pace.