Struggling on the uphills.....

I am/was one of those folks. Probably he´s a so called fast twitcher. And his VO2max ml/kg/min isn´t that great. I remember when raced with a bit slower guy (at 3-10k track times) in road and cross country races, when the uphill came I always struggled more and my breathing sounded that I would drop in any second, but when the downhill came I catched my breath and in the final km of race I could launch a burst that he couldn´t respond at all. But we were both hobbyjoggers.

But you can train on the hilly routes and do VO2max workouts on hills, I´ve found that if you don´t have near the long enough hills/treadmill, biking is very effective and quite spesific to hill running. You can do the 3min or so repetitions on a bike also. When I biked this summer more than ever I felt like the hills that are in my training routes had declined. But to be able to bike fast AND long enough it demands some strength on your quads and biking spesific power and strength endurance. At first you can focus on just biking and sometimes going HARD the uphills (power), and once you feel you have the biking spesific power you are ready to some longer duration intense bursts (strength endurance). Both running hard the uphills and biking hard even on a flat ground/on a stationary bike will create a high heart rate (lower on a bike though) and high systolic pressure, stimulating the heart´s left ventricular hypertrophy effectively. There are examples of runners who was recovering from an injury and used a lot of biking, and surprised themselves and the others in the summer, even achieved pb´s. Finland´s Samuli Vasala dropped from 3.41 to 3.38/1500m after low running, high biking volume in the winter, he obviously had some more power and strength endurance that was useful also on track running. His VO2max was as high as 91ml/kg/min by the way (13.28 5k runner, 6th at the euro champs 5k -98).

Been there as well. Tell him to start hill repeats - 8 x 90 seconds, 6 x 2 minutes. I think it's probably mental. I had an 800m runner team mate in college - same thing. Great shape all in over 5 miles - but stayed away from cross country guys on the hills.

Is he taller and heavier than the rest of your group?

Bepatient wrote:

Is he taller and heavier than the rest of your group?

Nope. Same height - probably a bit lighter.

Try to see how his form/cadence changes along with the angle of an incline. Perhaps he has poor uphill running mechanics and just needs to focus on improving his posture.

You shouldn't even consider hills until you have running isometrics

You cannot just attack a hill you need form,

this is good video. Try this for a week then come back here and report.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAiAvupFT6g

Make sure you do proper stretching and warming up.

I though about correcting the grammatical/spelling errors, but I got tired after the first few hills.

Small steps....fast cadence will help significantly.

Above poster has some good points. I was always a speed based mid-d guy (Solid 400h-1mile but 5k lousy, falingl off hard after that) and have always struggled up hills but can crush the downhills. I've never had much muscle mass in the legs and my cadence varies widely based on pace. Normal jogs ~160 but will race over 200 in the mile and down. This year I made the mistake of signing for an Ironman so I have spent some time on the bike which I am awful at. Fast forward a few months with just one shitty 30 mile ride a week and I see a huge difference when attacking uphills, as well as definition in the quad and ham. I did a lot of hill work when younger but never got as good as I am right now basically just from biking.

Perhaps he has a smaller engine (lung/ heart power). I have this too, big engine runners can really power uphill, little engine (less lung capacity) runners feel the hill and can fear the breathing deficiency they experience on the hill effort.

I will often close in on all the other runners in the last 1/2 mile after lagging behind on the uphill.

El Guerrouj was not very good at cross county(HILLS) but was phenomenal on the track setting multiple world records

El Guerrouj had no leg strength really whatsoever. I don't thing he ever did much road racing. He just stuck to the track.

He was weak minded that way

Some people are built for hills and others like El guerrouj are just naturally weak when it comes to that type of thing.

You can't change mother nature. Remember just let nature take its course.

the way it is wrote:

El Guerrouj was not very good at cross county(HILLS) but was phenomenal on the track setting multiple world records

El Guerrouj had no leg strength really whatsoever. I don't thing he ever did much road racing. He just stuck to the track.

He was weak minded that way

Some people are built for hills and others like El guerrouj are just naturally weak when it comes to that type of thing.

You can't change mother nature. Remember just let nature take its course.

It takes some leg strength to run 3:26 flat.

"weak minded" LOL

Hicham El Guerrouj's training for the 1997 season

http://run-down.com/guests/mv_el_guerrouj.php

Strength work.

He works on the main muscle groups, but the coach believes in working the small ones as well, those that have major influence in the posture, in varied ways, through the utilization of free weights and special gym apparatus. During this stage he has done the following exercises:

Half-squat 6 x 20 reps with 25 kg bar

Half-squat 4 x 16 reps with 30 kg bar

Squat 4 x 16 reps with 20 kg bar

In machines/apparatus:

Hamstrings 4 x 16 reps

Quadriceps 4 x 16 reps

Abductors 4 x 16 reps

Lunges 4 x 20 reps with 25 kg bar

Step-up 1 x 20 reps with 30 kg bar with each leg

Abdominal 300-400 reps

Back 300-400 reps

Power.

Once a week he does up-hills 10 x 300m

Also, horizontal jumps and vertical jumps over hurdles.

Physical preparation.

This type of work includes general exercises, drills, stretching and back and abdominal exercises. The stretching exercises are always present in all training sessions during the warm-up and the end of session.

Aerobic endurance.

30-45 min of continuous running at 2:50-3:00 or 3:10/km

30 min of continuous running as recovery.

gloria wrote:

You shouldn't even consider hills until you have running isometrics

You cannot just attack a hill you need form,

this is good video. Try this for a week then come back here and report.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAiAvupFT6g

Make sure you do proper stretching and warming up.

I've been running hilly trail and road races for years and I don't even know what running isometrics are or whether I have form. I know I don't do the proper stretching since I don't stretch at all.

I do warm up. (By jogging)

name wrote:

Half-squat 6 x 20 reps with 25 kg bar

Half-squat 4 x 16 reps with 30 kg bar

Squat 4 x 16 reps with 20 kg bar

20 to 30 kg bars?

Now if that's not weak then I don't know what is.

El guerrouj was a weakling. Anything above 1% incline he would not have been able to handle. He was a track runner, That's all he was good at.

And....

He almost always had at least one pace maker for at least half his races because he was too fragile to handle running into any air resistance for very long. Only with 600 meters to go in his 1500 meter races was he able to handle the air resistance from his 100lbs body propelling forward at 56 second laps

He was weak minded. He was not a real racer like Prefontaine was in the 70's

You was saying originally that he didn´t have enough of strenght for hill running. The high rep weights and weekly 10x300 hill session build exactly his strength endurance that is needed on the mile, and on hills too! Maximal strength is a different issue. But of course he was able to lift much heavier weights than 20-30kg, but it wouldn´t have suited to the goal of his weight training.

"He almost always had at least one pace maker for at least half his races because he was too fragile to handle running into any air resistance for very long. Only with 600 meters to go in his 1500 meter races was he able to handle the air resistance from his 100lbs body propelling forward at 56 second laps"

You must be trolling... Otherwise you don´t have a clue what you´re talking about. To run the best possible time (WR) he needed the rabbits, he would have needed them no matter how strong he would´ve been! His coach said he has run 48 for 400m and 1:44 high for 800m in training. He could do 4X800m at 1:48 each with 3min rest in training. So El Guerrouj had a great power output and strength endurance for 1500m-mile. "Too fragile" LOL