Canova's hill sprints: working into a workout and into a week

There's a good explanation of some of the purposes of hills of various distances, including the short sprints, here:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?board=1&thread=2819825&id=2820278#2820278

So like Renato is explaining, you use top speed and full recovery for maximum fiber recruitment.

so is doing this after your weekly long run a bad idea? i still don't take much from canova's technical posts...i understand his schedules but almost everything he writes out makes little to no sense to me

I like to use these with runners at any time in the season, but am progressive just in the number of reps. We always use `40 meter sprints, because even the girls only take ~8 seconds or so on these.

Here's an example of how I have used them with runners. They almost never, ever feel tired from these and love doing them compared to typical strides, which we actually never do, right or wrong. The kids have fun and it's the only time they get to "race" in practice.

S; Race

S: Off or easy recovery run

M: Easy 40 min- 4-8x40m hill sprints- 10 min jog back to school

T: Week's Main workout session

They are a good "primer" for our primary workout of the week.

bump

Marke, you should try it before a long run one week, then after the other week, and see which goes better.

I find that if you have already done a run - even a moderate one, say 5-6 miles at comfortable areobic pace - it's hard to wake the legs up again. They are a little tired, and in a 'slow rhythm' with reduced tone. It's much better to do a gentle warmup; stop; do a few drills to wake up the nervous system; then really go for it, forcing yourself to take a full 2-3min rest. This is very unusual for a distance runner but you will find you can go faster.

I'm lucky. I run to and from work, and there are hills partway. So I can do an hour steady in the morning; then run 2km to a hill on the way home, do some hill sprints, then jog another 2km home. But I have also used them early in a session, and I find the endurance work after only goes better because my whole nervous system is 'tuned up'.

J.R. wrote:

Whoops, the book says it was 180 meters, which is 197 yards.

Which book? I am looking at "Winning Running" (Peter Coe, 1996/2009) right now; it says 100m. So did every other article I saw in the UK about his hills since the 1980s.

The 100m isn't some secret physiological optimum, it was the length of the hill behind his house in Sheffield (which Peter explained elsewhere); and there is a similar one (Nightingale Lane in Richmond) where they later moved, and where a big UK distance squad under Alan Storey did their hill reps. It's about a hundred metres from the footpath where they took a well-known photo of him on a hill with the Thames in the background

I can confirm from a winter of experience that it's a very nice session, although I only got up to 30 reps. At this length you can run fast and hard with a good stride, yet recover enough in the 40sec jog back to keep doing rep after rep, so you get the stride benefits but also get something like a 30-40min tempo for your heart and lungs. If you make the hills any longer, you both have to run slower and you start to hit lactate, and you can't do that many reps. Personally, I think this kind of fast sustained running (at something like 1500m effort) is as valuable as the 100% hill sprints of Canova; I'd alternate the two myself.

We do them currently in this structure:

Mon: Steady am / Hill Sprints pm

Tues: Easy am / Track

Wed: Easy am / Easy pm

Thurs: Hard am / Easy pm

Fri: Easy am / Easy pm

Sat: Hard or long am / Easy pm

Sun: Easy am only

I find that this allows sufficient recovery and fresh legs from Saturday's workout and because track is in the evening on a Tuesday it is not affected by the sprints.

We have built up from just a few sprints and now do 3 x 10sec sprints, 3 x 10 secs bounding, 2 x 15 sec sprint. About to add further reps. All done on approx. 20% gradient.

Also done as a group (of varying abilities with varying start lines), pushing each other on and laughing at each others attempts at bounding, this is one of the most fun sessions of the week. It is the one session where you really can race a workout!

As a slow plodder that has struggled with injury when increasing pace, this has been a real godsend for me. I wish I'd taken them more seriously years ago.

so if my normal week is....

sunday - long run

monday - easy plus strides

tuesday - tempo

wednesday - easy plus strides

thursday - easy moderate

friday- 200s or intervals

saturday -easy

can i just do them monday in place of strides?

Why do i always get injured with short hill sprints?

I am a coach and I use to do 6-10 x 10'' hill sprints at the end of aerobic intervals and aerobic endurance distance days. After taking the USTFCCCA strength and conditioning course, I switched to making these days my neural days. We will do a 20' warm up run, dynamic drills, 8-10 x 60-80m Hill sprints, plyometric jump drills, 10' cool down jog. We then have 3-4 hour break and come back to lift heavy weights and do med ball throws. While the running volume for the day is very low, you are taxing the central nervous system and developing speed and power, which is still very important for a distance runner. We do this maybe 2-4 times a month, depending on the athlete and training cycle.

I have seen less injuries, better speed, and endurance.

Matt' wrote:

Why do i always get injured with short hill sprints?

Because you sprint down a steep hill instead of up?