Downhill intervals to develop speed?

quite difficult to incorporate easily- roads hurt and are dangerous on the way down, might as well stick with uphill reps unless you have a nice gradual grassy downhill to use....

No need for hills. Just run 50m dashes.

It's hard to know what you mean by "speed" on a message board that is traditionally dominated by distance folk. Running up hill (5-7% grade) is a great way to develop the power necessary to run fast. Running down hill short sprints (~1% grade) can be effective at training the neuro-muscular system without introducing the extreme stress of running at max speed on level ground.

However, unless you're a middle distance runner, I wouldn't spend a lot of time on max speed training. If you are running primarily 5k and up, you can do intervals at mile pace over longer distances than you would want to run down hill.

In my experience, high speed downhill training should be done in very limited amounts for true middle distance runners and probably not at all for true distance runners. There are other better training modalities to get at the kind of efficiency of motion without the increased risk of injury related to high volumes of downhill running.

I agree with the poster above in terms of the neuromuscular component. Beware that running downhill hard can lead to muscle soreness that might peak over 18-36 hrs. It does not have to be extreme downhill to work IMHO, 1-2% should be enough to give you the turnover.

Also, if you run a lot of hilly courses, then doing some downhill speed work (or at least part of speed work that way) would make sense from a specificity standpoint.

isn't this what seb coe used to do?

This can be very hard on the knees (among other possible injuries).

great for developing turnover as you are forced to "pick em up and put em down" faster than usual. stick to a soft surface (gravel/dirt trail) and a very slight grade (1-3%) to avoid too much pounding. doing them once a week is enough to develop some muscle memory + improved neuromuscular coordination IMO.

if you can't find the right stretch of trail, just go hop on the treadmill, drop the incline & really crank up the speed for 15-25s bouts.

forget the poster who said "just do uphills". that's stupid, they work totally different skills. too many people think "training hard" (hills, heavy lifts, etc.) will make them faster....they'll help, but in reality, training FAST will make you faster - downhills are a great way to train fast.

PS i would so "intervals"...keep em short like strides (60-100m) with full recovery. do 4-5x of them after a good 10+ minute warmup but before your primary workout, or after an easy run. as with any max speed training, they key is to be fairly fresh, don't do them on tired legs. won't get the benefit + you could get hurt.

Here is the PERFECT workout for downhills.

I don't know if it will actually help your speed as much as it will strengthen the particular muscles that are involved in running downhill like the quads.

Find a nice rolling course of 8 to 10 miles. Do a downhill fartlek picking up the pace substantially on every downhill. Some will be long, some will be short, some steep, and others gradual. Recover on the ups and flats. Next week, run the course backwards and you have different downhills.

You can then switch off and do an uphill fartlek some weeks. Do these and you won't even have to worry about going to the track.