Hill Sprints

Hill sprints are my favorite thing to do to improve my conditioning and cardio. I've done them for the past 20 years and haven't outgrown them. When I was younger I used to do hill sprints regularly and despite not very rarely doing any long distance running I was still able to run good times over long distance.

Benefits of Hill Sprints

• Improve your cardiovascular fitness.
• Develops lower body power.
• Great calorie burner
• Less chance of injury compared to normal sprinting. Hill sprints prevent you from reaching end-range hip and knee extension with your landing leg, which is when most hamstring pulls occur.  The hill also prevents you from reaching a great speed which helps reduces the chances of injury when compared to sprinting on the flat. 
• It improves mental toughness. Hill sprints are tough. Most people will struggle to push through when the going gets tough but you'll develop great mental strength if you do it consistently. 
• You get to train outside. I love the gym, but it is nice to be able to train outside.
• It doesn't take long to do. I can do hill sprints in 20 minutes including the warm up.
• It's good for all-round fitness.  When I'm doing hill sprints regularly, I could play a sport I hadn't played for years and be fitter than most of the other players who had been playing regularly.
• You'll never be too advanced for hill sprints. Even elite athletes will find running hills tough. It never gets easier, you just get fitter and faster.
• It will help you recover quicker in between sets when strength training.

With all these benefits you might be wondering why hill sprints don't get recommended very often. The reason is there isn't any money to be made from it. Why would a equipment manufacturer or gym owner recommend it? They want you to use their equipment. Fitness professionals can't make money from it either. People aren't flashy and people often like to complicated training

This is a video of Walter Payton who famously used to do hill sprints to get in great condition.

​​How to Hill Sprint

• Keep your chest up and stay fairly upright. It's hard to use bad form with hill sprints but the most common mistake is to lean forward.
• Chin up and look forward. Don't look down at the ground.
• Push off the balls of your feet. Don't let your heels touch the ground. Sprinting on your toes will help generate more speed and lessen the impact on your joints.
• Lift your knees up high.
• Bring your arms back and forward. Avoid bringing them across your chest as this slows momentum.

If you're new to running I would recommend either

• Spending some time  building up by doing slow longer distance running.
• Jog up instead of sprinting and then walk down. You can then over time run up the hill until you're able to sprint up.

There isn't a set routine I can give you as it will depend on what hills you have near you, and your fitness level.  Start slow and then gradually increase how many sprints you do, how fast you sprint, or decrease the rest between sprints (jog down instead of walking down). 

When I lived in Ipswich, I used to have loads of different hills to use ranging daily steep and taking 45+seconds to run, and extremely steep but it only takes 10 seconds to sprint. How many sprints I did in a workout would depend on how steep, and how long the hill was. Now I live in Nottingham I do them at Colwick Woods which is over the road from the gym. There loads of hills to choose from there. You can use Google maps to find hills in your area.