No Hills In Training?!

i agree with this coach.

i never go out of my way to add hills...if there are some minor hills on my tempos i do them...but i improved most when i was just steady stating. and when i raced on hilly courses guess what? i had no trouble running them and would even say i competed well on them because it is about staying aerobic when racing as well as training. You have to know how to hold back on hills and this can be learned on relatively flat courses.

Beware of Crackpots wrote:

Well..... wrote:

I've got injured more on hills than anywhere else.

How?

Calves & hamstring going, when too steep/fast and had time out from doing them. I'm always fine when doing hills not as a workout though.

OT: Downhill requires motion that may be difficult for those who lack good range of motion -- a lack that may have been caused by too much sitting. Conversely I think careful down hill running can help to regain that range of motion.

Hills R Good, require careful approach.

cvcv wrote:

i agree with this coach.

i never go out of my way to add hills...if there are some minor hills on my tempos i do them...but i improved most when i was just steady stating. and when i raced on hilly courses guess what? i had no trouble running them and would even say i competed well on them because it is about staying aerobic when racing as well as training. You have to know how to hold back on hills and this can be learned on relatively flat courses.

same here. i did a lot of gut-busting hill sessions in high school and college, and that was enough for me. never got injured doing it because i was much more durable then. but they would leave me absolutely drained for weeks on end, taking a lot of joy out of the sport. yes, we did them too hard and yes, if i readopted hills here in my 30s i wouldn't go so overboard, but it's not worth the injury risk. getting over some hills in a race isn't a big deal where you're doomed if you haven't done your hill work. you're already going hard - just get over the hill and race.

My group does hills year round. Last Saturday it was 2x600m hill + 6x200m hill. Hills provide great non specific lactate work which delays the peaking process. For my athletes to run at the heart rate and lactate levels they achieved last Saturday they would have had to run on the track 2x600 in 1:30 and their 200's in 26-27 which when Nationals is 5 months away would be too fast.

We run short hills, long hills and a hilly circuit. I have a 17 year old who last ran a track race at 13 years of age and will run 800m this weekend. Threshold + hills with a bit of 3k pace work on the track and he will run pretty fast.

Even as an old guy i still like doing a few hills for power.

Good luck.

who d'unbanned wrote:

OT: Downhill requires motion that may be difficult for those who lack good range of motion -- a lack that may have been caused by too much sitting. Conversely I think careful down hill running can help to regain that range of motion.

Hills R Good, require careful approach.

When I spoke to Sean Brosnan / coach at Newbury Park he said they actually don't train many hills except in Big Bear over the summer. He did say they do downhill workouts during their cross country season though.

Not sure what to make of it. it's an interesting concept to say the least.

oldburgrunner wrote:

I went to college in a very hilly area. If his runners show up at a hill XC course or road race, they will get their butts kicked.

Actually, his runners just showed up big on a very hilly, championship course.

My best periods of fitness in my life came after heavy dosages of hills. Not planned hill intervals, just being stuck running my daily runs over some serious hills due to where I was living. 2-3 weeks of a focus on easy elevation gain still gives me a serious aerobic boost and really puts spring in my legs after a week or two. I'm more of a fast twitch runner though

Gjert would be proud

CoachB wrote:

I recently had a conversation with a very successful coach who is 100% against having his athletes run hills in training. His rationale is this:

Hill workouts are highly anaerobic and if his athletes are going to do something anaerobic, they shouldn’t do it running slowly (as I’m going slowly uphill)

Uphill running puts a lot of stress on the calves, Achilles, plantar fascia

I see the logic in #1, but #2 makes no sense. In my experience, hill training carries less risk of injury rather than more.

You can still be very successful while leaving something out like hills.

My high school coach had a bunch of success, we never did tempo runs during xc season. Our training consisted of 1/1 fartlek and 5x1k week in week out. We won multiple state titles, multiple individual state champs, all state runners, something like 9 guys sub 16 over 3 seasons. We didn't do hills often at all come to think about it.

I've talked about this before. I definitely think they are overrated and overdone. I am big on the 8 to 10 second hill sprints, but other than that, any hills we encounter are only because they are almost impossible to avoid where I live. Between our normal runs, and races on hilly courses, we get more than enough. Very often, I will look for the flattest routes possible for my kids to run. Most especially on EASY and RECOVERY days.

During summer base, I don't avoid hills as much as in-season. I think there is something to working different muscles in the body over different periods of time. Especially for kids who are not involved in other sports.

It's not exactly flat in the Rift Valley and they do OK.

Complete garbage.

As to avoiding injury. Stop running that's the only sure fire way unless talking bs on the Internet counts.

ukathleticscoach wrote:

It's not exactly flat in the Rift Valley and they do OK.

Complete garbage.

As to avoiding injury. Stop running that's the only sure fire way unless talking bs on the Internet counts.

What kind of advice is this? Dion Marquise Hayes isn’t afraid of hills.

Hills helped transform our program from average in our state to national level. Of course there were other factors as well (a lot outside of training specifics) but I attribute a large part of the jump in our cross country (top 4 in state or so to NXN) and 4x800 (8:0x consistently to sub 7:45) performances to hills.

CoachB wrote:

I recently had a conversation with a very successful coach who is 100% against having his athletes run hills in training. His rationale is this:

Hill workouts are highly anaerobic and if his athletes are going to do something anaerobic, they shouldn’t do it running slowly (as I’m going slowly uphill)

Uphill running puts a lot of stress on the calves, Achilles, plantar fascia

I see the logic in #1, but #2 makes no sense. In my experience, hill training carries less risk of injury rather than more.

The first thing he said just confuses me. I'm assuming he means short hills considering he said they're anaerobic, but you still run up them fast. Yeah it's different than running on flats but just running hard and explosively is gonna make you faster.

Based on my own personal experience, I ran a LOT of hills through high school and junior college. I was often in PR shape, or near PR shape during the off season. I’d usually run out of juice about midway through the competition season though.

Perhaps, once the more intense workouts and races start, the easy days need to be on the flat land.

Or, maybe it was just me, I had plenty of teammates who peaked very well

Like everything in running, ever runner responds differently. One thing that is often overlooked is that hills provide variation. For me they helped keep my mind in the run.

Avoiding hills will just make you mentally week

oldburgrunner wrote:

Like everything in running, ever runner responds differently. One thing that is often overlooked is that hills provide variation. For me they helped keep my mind in the run.

I really like running hills. I always feel like I can push myself a little harder on a solid uphill than I could on a flat interval or tempo of the same duration.