Canova Hill Workout

Hill reps are great, but going 5 weeks and 10 sessions straight where the only max or near max effort you are doing in running is on a hill is going to lessen those benefits transferring to the flat than if you had every other, or maybe more ideally every third one of these style sessions on a flat.

Progressing up from relatively short distances is also a good idea, but a 30s effort on an uphill is a drastically different workout than 5-10s one. Picking every odd number workout to progress the volume of the session working up to 140m, while keeping the even numbered one ranging from 30-60m would allow you to keep working the max speed and acceleration aspects of the initial workouts, and incorporate the speed endurance type work of the later ones.

Re: the fast twitch vs slow twitch aspect of doing these after a long run or tempo... The point of a workout like this is to recruit ALL of your running muscles and using them in increasingly efficient coordination, which is largely impossible if a major portion of your muscle composition is exhausted. Energy stores in your body and all muscles are also likely depleted, further reducing your capacity to work these muscle groups to the extent required to get what you want out of the workout.

If Canova read these boards more often he could be training guys to be the best in the world... Wait...

That is exactly why he reads the boards. He is not training Farah or Bekele or Kipruto or Centro or Dibbaba(s) or any of the top people afaik..

Canova would agree with everything that Meh has said above.

Modulation is key. Canova says that all the time.

Mixing in a few hill sprint reps at 90%, 80%, 70% speed during the workout is useful.

Mixing in a few flat land sprint reps during the workout is also useful. Or just some totally relaxed flat land strides in between reps.

Mixing in some bounding for height and distance during the workout is also useful.

Doing a workout before the hill sprints is far from being useful, and only increases chance of injury.

to be but not currently wrote:

hshxb wrote:

If Canova read these boards more often he could be training guys to be the best in the world... Wait...

That is exactly why he reads the boards. He is not training Farah or Bekele or Kipruto or Centro or Dibbaba(s) or any of the top people afaik..

Uhm, Are we speaking of the Renato Canova that coached Florence Kipligat, beating T. Dibaba while setting new WRs for 15k, 20k, and HM in 2015?

jksparky wrote:

to be but not currently wrote:

That is exactly why he reads the boards. He is not training Farah or Bekele or Kipruto or Centro or Dibbaba(s) or any of the top people afaik..

Uhm, Are we speaking of the Renato Canova that coached Florence Kipligat, beating T. Dibaba while setting new WRs for 15k, 20k, and HM in 2015?

Yes, It's almost 2017 now though.

Yes, I realize that November 2016 is pretty close to 2017. But setting the way back machine to October 9, 2016 we would see Abel Kirui and F. Kipligat winning the M & W's Chicago marathon making Coach Canova extra proud.

Check out Andy's web pages:

and

. Goodness, I hope posting this doesn't make me a stalker.

Doing sprints after workouts or long runs, twice per week sounds very demanding, mentally and physically. The CNS recovers much slower than the muscular system. Workouts/long runs creates some breakdown of muscle tissue and doing a sprint workout right after an endurance workout is very demanding for the CNS and the muscular system. If you combine both, I would sprint before the workout/long run. Combining sprints and intensity up to the LT/tempo works well in my experience, you feel sharp after the sprints and the following intensity isn´t too demanding. But when doing a combo workout, you can´t put 100% in both workouts in my opinion, another one or both will work better for maintenance.

Talking and Listening to Canova just yesterday. Most interesting observation....

"I give the athletes maybe 12 workouts, distance, times, reps and break. I leave it up to them to decide when to do them." So simple and yet so novel.

Back in the day wrote:

Yes, I realize that November 2016 is pretty close to 2017. But setting the way back machine to October 9, 2016 we would see Abel Kirui and F. Kipligat winning the M & W's Chicago marathon making Coach Canova extra proud.

Slow times. With the talent he gets they should be setting records.

Ray wrote:

Talking and Listening to Canova just yesterday. Most interesting observation....

"I give the athletes maybe 12 workouts, distance, times, reps and break. I leave it up to them to decide when to do them." So simple and yet so novel.

And to even get this further: I know Canova personally and have spoken to him about training and usually the hill sprints are the day BEFORE a workout. The OP has stated this pretty open for misunderstandings. A classic Canova marathon week might look like this:

M- 70 - 80' moderate / 40' easy + 10 x 80 hill sprints

T - 4 x 5k MP with the rest being 1k moderate (MP + 20-30''/K)

W - 45' easy / 45' easy

T - 60' moderate / 60' easy

F - 70 - 80' moderate / 40' easy + 10 x 80 hill sprints

S - 30k fast (sometimes close to 1:30 for sub 2:06 guys)

S - 45' very easy / 45' easy

Reader of the books wrote:

Find a hill that is not too steep, but challenging

This - the most subject part. Like a 8-15% grade?

Any more thoughts on this? What's a good grade?

There is a steeper hill near me that averages 12% for the first 65 meters and 9% over 160 meters (i.e. starts steep then gets less steep). I find its hard to go all out on this hill for more than 80 meters.

There's a second hill near me that less steep and has close to a constant 5% grade.

In the spirit of modulating my training I could alternate which hill I do my repeats on but am curious which grade would be better for the repeats described in this. Especially if the goal is to work up to 2000m worth of reps.

heyyo wrote:

Reader of the books wrote:

This - the most subject part. Like a 8-15% grade?

Any more thoughts on this? What's a good grade?

There is a steeper hill near me that averages 12% for the first 65 meters and 9% over 160 meters (i.e. starts steep then gets less steep). I find its hard to go all out on this hill for more than 80 meters.

There's a second hill near me that less steep and has close to a constant 5% grade.

In the spirit of modulating my training I could alternate which hill I do my repeats on but am curious which grade would be better for the repeats described in this. Especially if the goal is to work up to 2000m worth of reps.

Both of them.

I would err on the side of the more moderate hill angles. I've heard from different successful sprint coaches that they aim for ~4-7% gradients, as steeper angles means the athlete doesn't carry enough speed and form gets too differentiated from even sprinting acceleration technique (time spent with a foot on the ground is much longer in acceleration and hill running than on the flat at high speed, staying tall but leaning into a hill quite closely resembles what a sprinter does in their drive phase).

Personally I've never actually measured the angle of a hill when choosing a site. Obviously you don't want something so shallow that you don't notice a meaningful change in effort or approach to the rep. In terms of how steep is too steep, any of these are signs you need to pick a more modest hill:

when a runner is getting to the point where they have very little time off the ground with both feet

turnover rate significantly decreases (or turnover is high but they go through less than full range of motion)

posture breaks down to maintain balance (most often bending from the waist),

Provided you don't go too far in either direction, varying which hill you use for steeper and more shallow days is certainly a good idea to keep the body from getting too comfortable in a specific setup. I would also suggest thinking about hills with variable angles if you have specific things you'd like to work on in a given workout. For example you could choose a hill that gradually becomes more shallow to better emphasize speed and turnover on longer distance reps, where a more challenging angle the whole way might lead to breakdowns in either pace or form.

Hi,

yes that can be one option, but I think that Renato Canova can give differents

hill workout for each of his athletes.

For example if we look to the 2011 Florence Kiplagat training log before

Berlin Marathon 1st in 2h19'44 . We can see that starting from month of may

(Marathon was 25 september) Florence made once a week for about 7 weeks

a sprint uphill workout like 40' easy running + 10 or 12 x 80 m. Thats all !

Usually she did this workout ( like most of her hard quality session) in the morning followed by 40' or 50' easy running in the evening (4'30"/4'40" /km)

But two times she did the hill workout in the evening and then the following

day in the morning she did a quality session like 1000/2000/3000/3000/2000/

1000. Or 30' easy + 10 km at Marathon pace something like 33' ( 3'18"/km).

But if we look at 2008 Moses Mosop training log for Boston Marathon 2nd in 2h

3'06" .4 months before the Marathon he did for about 6 weeks a weekly workout of short ( 80 m) or, most of time, medium lenght Hills (200-400m)

but also 35 km of hilly climbing or long fartlek on hilly course like 8x5' rec 3' easy. I guess this is in the FUNDAMENTAL period that create the support (building strength with short hill sprint and create the aerobic base with long continuous run and long fartlek

for higher intensity workout of the SPECIAL and later the SPECIFIC period.

This is exactly what Brad Hudson was a big proponent of, and I remember listening to a very technical and scientific explanation from him as to why, in a radio podcast several years ago. Hudson liked his athletes to do them on Mondays, in between the long run on Sunday and a speed/interval session on Tuesday.

From my own experience, I find it best to do hill sprints when fresh, not tired, so that I can get the maximum explosiveness up the hill and, as a result, recruit more fast-twitch fibers and improve my form and economy. I also find that within 24 hours I can already feel a pop in my stride, so doing them the day before a workout makes the most sense, because you will ideally have that "pop" for your workout, and be able to train the body to run more economically in the harder sessions.

sayer of meh wrote:

Back in the day wrote:

Yes, I realize that November 2016 is pretty close to 2017. But setting the way back machine to October 9, 2016 we would see Abel Kirui and F. Kipligat winning the M & W's Chicago marathon making Coach Canova extra proud.

Slow times. With the talent he gets they should be setting records.

Like all of Farah's and Centro's WR's???

Correct me if I'm wrong, but has AlSal ever coached anyone to a WR performance?

Or a major marathon win (besides his own)?

Maybe come back later and try again after you take Trolling 101 again.

Thank you for the thoughtful advice!