GOING UP

If you want to get stronger and faster there is nothing quite like HILL TRAINING to give you the biggest return on your training investment. Hill training offers great gains for relatively low injury risk. Furthermore, most races have hills in them and athletes who have not prepared for a hilly course will be at a significant disadvantage over those who’ve used the benefits of hill training to the full. Working in the hills allows you to include a variety of training stimuli in the same session and this allows you to develop not only your metabolic fitness but also your strength, technique and speed all at the same time. We like to think of hill work as “aerobic strength training” and it is a key part of every athlete’s development.

Here is a list of the physiological gains you can expect from hill training:

1) Increases your aerobic capacity enabling you to use less oxygen at longer distances.

2) Improves your economy enabling you to use less oxygen at a faster pace.

3) Increases your stamina enabling you to go farther at a given pace.

4) Builds specific strength in your hip flexors, gluteus, quadriceps, calves and soleus muscles.

5) Develops core stability as you maintain a strong correct posture under greater workloads

Here is a list of the biomechanical gains from hill work:

1) Improves run stride length (from uphill running) and your stride frequency/ leg speed (from downhill running).

2) Increases ankle flexion strength allowing you to leave the ground more quickly. Less time on the ground = faster running

3) Improves run posture, co-ordination and general technique mostly due to the exaggerated use of hips flexors

4) Maximizes full pedal stroke for cyclists. Under constant tension the weaknesses in your pedal stroke are shown and low cadence climbing allows you to focus and correct these “empty spots” by kicking across the top & scraping across the bottom of the stroke

5) Educates riders to best saddle positions and seating (forward/ further back) to suit them personally

There are several key techniques used to gain most benefit from hill work:

Running:

When working uphill, keep the hips forward, drive the knees high, keep the head upwards and looking forwards. Stride should stay long with a brisk turnover. On the downhill, lean in to slope, relax and allow a fast leg turnover. Raise the knees and allow a longer stride but do not over stride or “Brake”. Note, this are the techniques for getting the most gain from hill training and not the same as the techniques you would use in general when running hills. In a race for example, you would shorten your up hill stride somewhat to maintain a high turnover and keep the effort level lower.

Cycling:

If strength development is your purpose, stay seated and slide back on saddle. Maintain a smooth cadence with the upper body relaxed. Focus on your target. Use deep breaths and keep the core activated. To fully develop your aerobic capacity, stand and maintain higher cadence. Work as one with bike by allowing the bike to move beneath you from side to side as you gently pull up with opposite hand on the down stroke.

Sample Sessions

Bike.
Seated Hills: 3-4 x (10 mins @ Z3/Z4 power output at 50-60 rpm) off 5 mins easy spin recovery. Stay seated through and focus on smooth pedaling in perfect circles, pulling across the bottom on the pedal stroke and driving over the top of the stroke. Do this workout once a week for 4-6 weeks for optimal strength gains. Note that this session is best done using a power meter as the intensity gauge. This is because such a low cadence will place most of the stress on your musculature rather than the cardiovascular system and therefore give lower heart rate readings than normal. Using a power meter will keep you at the correct lactate levels whereas using heart rate will usually result in higher lactate levels being produced as you push to try to raise your heart rate up to normal SST levels.

Run.

2 x (5 x 2 mins Hills up to Z4 heart rate off a jog down & partial recovery). Take 2 minutes between sets. This set is about developing Aerobic Strength. Keep this set at or just below threshold intensity and only allow yourself to partially recover between reps and sets. Focus on High knee lift & extending the ankle to get maximum power. Maintain a high cadence of 180 strides per minute. Best done on a trail/ dirt for injury prevention.