Benefits of Downhill Speedwork

I would not recommend doing workouts on downhills - the pounding increases the chance of injury. What I would recommend is doing 6 X 80-100 meter strides on a gradual and low grade downhill. These will act as "over speed work" and will really get your legs rolling. The most important part is to concentrate on form!

No

Seb Coe.

Weaver wrote:

No

Don't knock it until you try it.

i agree with the strides. anything longer and you need to make sure that it is a gradual decline over the entire distance you plan on running. dirt roads are ok but i would try to find a park

Lydiard's hill circuit has downhill fast running/striding. You should be able to find a description of it at the Lydiard Foundation website.

From memory, it is supposed to serve as a transition between base/marathon training and the speedwork phase. I think the benefits were faster neuromuscular turnover, increased stride length, and over time actually develop better efficiency in running downhills in races (by learning to brake less).

Be careful on these, and start easy and speed up over the course of a few weeks. It's an injury waiting to happen if you're too aggressive. Start with very gradual slopes too.

Finally, you may want to use a grass surface (golf course) for the downhill fast stuff. Dirt road is definitely better than pavement, but grass would probably be even better.

Pete Magill offers some "counterintuitive" advice for using hard downhills to address quad issues: http://runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=22635 I tried it and it seems to have helped, with no issues arising.

If you do it properly, downhill speed work will strengthen your hamstrings. Do it wrong and you risk hamstring problems.

3-5% grade

Better work uphill as you can't alter your natural speed much but a distance runner often lacks leg strength with if improved can build speed

But if you combine the hill with a downhill bit in the same rep, that can do a bit of both and improve your descending for hilly races

Thanks for the feedback. I am on up and downhills so often it is an idea I thought I should at least look into.

ukathleticscoach wrote:

you can't alter your natural speed much

Then why do sprinters bother training, and why do HS sprinters generally run much faster at the end of their season than at the beginning?

It's called speed endurance.

Downhills are awesome.

I feel they are the very best part of training.

Tell us more about you and your training.