This comes from fellow letsrun poster Writing while Running & I thought it was oh-so worth it's on post.
"I was in Kenya with Renato this past summer, studying and training with his team. This was one of the simplest and most beneficial workouts I observed. Speed is just like endurance, if you don't use it, you lose it.
My suggestion follows Renato Canova's training philosophy:
Hill sprints twice per week, preferably after workout days (keep your easy days easy, recovery is important especially while building base). Find a hill that is not too steep, but challenging. For the first week do 6-8 @ 60 meters, progressively getting faster. Take as much recovery as you need in between reps, this is not an endurance test, it's about form and top end speed.
For each following week, add about 1-2 reps and also 10-20 meters. Once you get to 14-16 reps @ 150-180 meters, stop increasing the volume. It should take about 6-8 weeks to reach this level. At that point, you should be well through your base phase and into a more structured workout phase, but you will be shocked at your increased speed. Renato does this with both his 800 meter group and marathoners, and I have done it personally. It works."
I wrote up what I think it's supposed to look like:
WEEK 1 6-8 X 60 meters (approx..:10 seconds). Twice a week.
WEEK 2 8-10 X 80 meters (approx..:15 seconds). Twice a week.
WEEK 3 10-12 X 100 meters (approx..:20 seconds). Twice a week.
WEEK 4 12-14 X 120 meters (approx..:25 seconds). Twice a week.
WEEK 5 14-16 X 140 meters (approx..:30 seconds). Twice a week.
Canova Hill Workout
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So on work out days after the workout or on easy days?
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hiller wrote:
So on work out days after the workout or on easy days?
Hill sprints twice per week, preferably after workout days (keep your easy days easy, recovery is important especially while building base). -
So, by week three you are adding a possible 1200 m of extra hard running on top of an already hard day. wouldn't that be too much? (depending on your workout distances)
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H.S. Coach #6487 wrote:
hiller wrote:
So on work out days after the workout or on easy days?
Hill sprints twice per week, preferably after workout days (keep your easy days easy, recovery is important especially while building base).
The problem isn't that he didn't read it, it's that you contradicted yourself.
You say after workout days, which sounds like the next day, which would for most people be an easy day and then you say to keep easy days easy.
Or is it after workouts. Like hey I ran my 6x1000 threshold workout, now I'm jogging over and doing 8 hill sprints. -
Question6 & A pretty good HS coach,
I see what you're saying, but I took this Canova Hill Workout to be done during BASE PHASE to strengthen the legs.
"At that point, you should be well through your base phase and into a more structured workout phase, but you will be shocked at your increased speed. Renato does this with both his 800 meter group and marathoners, and I have done it personally. It works." -
so what do you consider to be a workout day in the base phase?
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question6 wrote:
so what do you consider to be a workout day in the base phase?
Miles. Tempo run. Fartlek. -
Find a hill that is not too steep, but challenging
This - the most subject part. Like a 8-15% grade? -
H.S. Coach #6487 wrote:
question6 wrote:
so what do you consider to be a workout day in the base phase?
Miles. Tempo run. Fartlek.
got it. thanks coach! -
Personally I would do it before the workout.
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Hello guys, thanks for giving this workout its own thread. I thought I'd jump back in and clarify some things from my original post:
I wasn't clear about which day to do these hill sprints. You should always try to do this on a WORKOUT day. The only purpose for easy days is recovery, so keep those days easy. In college, it was very common for my team to lift only after workout days, the same principal applied with the hill sprints.
I noticed that someone asked if this type of workout would be too much following a workout day. I guess that depends on the training phase and workout preceding the hill sprints. The conversation I originally posted to was about building speed during a base phase. So the workouts I'd expect to proceed this speed work could include long runs, fartlek work, progression runs, steady states/tempos, and even longer or high volume intervals (mile repeats or 20x400m for example). You should absolutely do hill sprints after these types of workouts, for a couple reasons:
1) Endurance work has a tendency to cause athletes' form to breakdown towards the end of the training session (picture a runner progressing his pace over an 18 mile run, those last 2 miles, especially during a base phase, can look ugly). Hill sprints force an athlete to maintain form (sprinting in general causes your biomechanics to tighten up, but adding the hill helps force athletes up on their toes, mandates knee drive and arm swing). It's good to "remind" the body, especially when tired, the way it should be moving.
2) From a physiological perspective, sprinting after running "slow" (respectively) makes a great deal of sense. Aerobic intensive work, such as long runs, progressions and tempos, usually recruits slow twitch muscle fibers. By the end of a 10 mile tempo, for example, these slow twitch fibers are totally exhausted. Now if that same runner who just completed a 10 mile tempo, and is exhausted, now tries 10-12 100 meter hill sprints, that runner's body will now recruit everything that isn't exhausted. For distance runners, this usually means that their fast twitch fibers are heavily recruited, for these fibers are rarely utilized during these "base phase" workouts (by their very nature, distance runners are slow twitch athletes). By doing hill sprints after these workouts, you effectively isolate fast twitch fibers and can build them up more effectively. Imagine trying to build up your bicep muscle, wouldn't it make sense to do a lift that isolates the muscle? That is why hill sprints following a workout is the messy effective way to build up a distance runners top-end speed.
Last point, regarding recovery. I know it may sound crazy to do roughly 2000 meters of sprints AFTER a 20 mile long run, or 20 x 400 meters. But keep in mind that these hill sprints must be approached the same way you do mileage, gradually. If you allow an athlete to build up this workout the same way you build up his weekly mileage, they won't even notice the effort required to do 2000 meters of speed work after an aerobic intense training session. That's all mental, and it takes a good coach to motivate athletes beyond the mental barriers. As for recovery, this workout will not break you down (although early on you can expect soreness). The aerobic work is more likely to cause cumulative fatigue, but that is why you need to be diligent about recovery days.
Hope that helps! (FULL Disclosure: I am Andy Arnold, the guy who was in Kenya this past summer, working for Nat Geo and writing occasionally for letsrun.com.) -
Canota Runova wrote:
Personally I would do it before the workout.
Mmhm...hopefully Canova takes this into account immediately! -
Armchair wannabes wrote:
Canota Runova wrote:
Personally I would do it before the workout.
Mmhm...hopefully Canova takes this into account immediately!
Personally means for myself. Canova is not a runner. -
Armchair wannabes wrote:
Canota Runova wrote:
Personally I would do it before the workout.
Mmhm...hopefully Canova takes this into account immediately!
Pretty sure Canova has mentioned hills before or midway through some workouts for his athletes.
Here's a quote from Nate Jenkins as well:
"A second option, that is particularly effective for those of you speed merchants out there, is to reverse the order of this session. Doing 4×30-60 second hill repeats right before a 2-4 mile tempo run at 10K to half marathon pace will recruit a higher percentage of your muscle fibers than you normally would during a tempo run. These fibers stay active during the tempo. This, in turn, can lead to huge breakthroughs in your ability to hold a fast pace for a much longer period of time.
This odd twist may actually make the tempo feel easier than normal. It will also almost certainly result in more soreness than usual. It can also quickly result in you running your mile pace for a two mile race or your 3k pace for a 5K race" -
you may be a moran wrote:
Armchair wannabes wrote:
Canota Runova wrote:
Personally I would do it before the workout.
Mmhm...hopefully Canova takes this into account immediately!
Pretty sure Canova has mentioned hills before or midway through some workouts for his athletes.
Here's a quote from Nate Jenkins as well:
"A second option, that is particularly effective for those of you speed merchants out there, is to reverse the order of this session. Doing 4×30-60 second hill repeats right before a 2-4 mile tempo run at 10K to half marathon pace will recruit a higher percentage of your muscle fibers than you normally would during a tempo run. These fibers stay active during the tempo. This, in turn, can lead to huge breakthroughs in your ability to hold a fast pace for a much longer period of time.
This odd twist may actually make the tempo feel easier than normal. It will also almost certainly result in more soreness than usual. It can also quickly result in you running your mile pace for a two mile race or your 3k pace for a 5K race"
Yeah running the hill sprints before the workout is probably much better than doing so afterward.
These sprints are max effort, max speed, and only a few seconds long with sufficient recovery. It's about teaching your body to generate 100% of the force it is capable of with each stride. You're not going to do that after a long run or tempo workout since you'll be tired, so it defeats the purpose. You should be as fresh as possible before hill sprints and you stop doing them once you feel the slightest bit tired.
I've done hill sprints either before or after workouts countless times. Doing them before a workout takes a lot longer, since you will want to warmup for at least 20 minutes before the hill sprints. But, it is noticeable how different you feel during the subsequent aerobic workout, it makes a tempo pace feel much easier. -
Henry Rono did hills the morning of his duel with Salazar. What does he know though
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disgraceful_admin wrote:
you may be a moran wrote:
Armchair wannabes wrote:
Canota Runova wrote:
Personally I would do it before the workout.
Mmhm...hopefully Canova takes this into account immediately!
Pretty sure Canova has mentioned hills before or midway through some workouts for his athletes.
Here's a quote from Nate Jenkins as well:
"A second option, that is particularly effective for those of you speed merchants out there, is to reverse the order of this session. Doing 4×30-60 second hill repeats right before a 2-4 mile tempo run at 10K to half marathon pace will recruit a higher percentage of your muscle fibers than you normally would during a tempo run. These fibers stay active during the tempo. This, in turn, can lead to huge breakthroughs in your ability to hold a fast pace for a much longer period of time.
This odd twist may actually make the tempo feel easier than normal. It will also almost certainly result in more soreness than usual. It can also quickly result in you running your mile pace for a two mile race or your 3k pace for a 5K race"
Yeah running the hill sprints before the workout is probably much better than doing so afterward.
These sprints are max effort, max speed, and only a few seconds long with sufficient recovery. It's about teaching your body to generate 100% of the force it is capable of with each stride. You're not going to do that after a long run or tempo workout since you'll be tired, so it defeats the purpose. You should be as fresh as possible before hill sprints and you stop doing them once you feel the slightest bit tired.
I've done hill sprints either before or after workouts countless times. Doing them before a workout takes a lot longer, since you will want to warmup for at least 20 minutes before the hill sprints. But, it is noticeable how different you feel during the subsequent aerobic workout, it makes a tempo pace feel much easier.
It can easily take an hour to do a hill sprint workout properly.
3-5 minutes recovery after each rep. Some 20-30m strides and light jogging but mostly just standing around in between.
Sometimes it's helpful to mix in a few at 80% max instead of max speed.
If you feel your legs lactic burning then you're either sprinting too far, or not taking enough recovery, and you're not doing the workout properly.
It's not always necessary to go 80-150m. Even 30m will do a lot, and could be better than the longer reps since you can't really hold max speed over 150m or even 100m. If you do that building phase over the course of 6-8 weeks while gradually extending the length of the reps you could have great improvement, but when you're not in that build phase a few 30m hills a couple times a week will maintain your progress. -
Da Heel! wrote:
Henry Rono did hills the morning of his duel with Salazar. What does he know though
You realize my post was to support doing hills before a workout, right? And to say that doing hill sprints afterward probably isn't as beneficial. -
disgraceful_admin wrote:
Da Heel! wrote:
Henry Rono did hills the morning of his duel with Salazar. What does he know though
You realize my post was to support doing hills before a workout, right? And to say that doing hill sprints afterward probably isn't as beneficial.
Yes I do realize that. I was just adding another example. Do you realize I also wrote the posts by "you might be a moran" AND the one by Canota Runova?
Well between you and me, I did.
