Everyone at some poiint has complained about going up a hill.

The reason for this is that they are tough. Used correctly and they will leave you walking like John Wayne for a few days.

This is why I love them. They hurt, they bring fast results and they don’t need much time to finish you off.

But why are they so great and how should they be used for maximum effect?

Why Hill Intervals Should Be A Part Of Any Program

1) The angle of the hill forces a biiiig push off from your glutes to propel you up the hill (assuming your glutes are firing properly). Combined with the stress on your quads, this will turn you into a powerful, more efficient runner whether it is for running itself or for other sports.

The hill angle also takes your ankles through a greater range of dorsiflexion, improving the function of both your ankles and your calf muscles.

2) Time-efficiency. 20 minutes intense conditioning work on a hill will bring better results than a 60 minute plod if you are looking to develop anaerobic endurance and power, and to shed body fat!

3) The intense use of your quadriceps and glutes will results in a large release of HGH which aids in lean muscle growth.

4) A massive oxygen debt will be created due to the lactic acid build up. Your metabolic rate will therefore be elevated for a long time afterwards resulting in lower body fat levels (assuming you have control of your nutrition!)

5) Hills are superior to steps in my opinion because most steps are quite close together meaning you train yourself to take small steps rather than opening out your hips over a greater ROM. Of course if you find some ‘deep’ steps (from front to back) that takes care of this!

6) If you are moving into a period of training when you don’t want to be detracting from running / sport specific conditioning time, hill intervals are great because they will enable you to maintain or even build sport specific strength levels. Performing heavy weights in a seperate session may leave you flat when it comes to sport specific training which isn’t much use!

7) Hill running will do wonders for your lactate threshold or less scientific terms ‘the burn’!

Words Of Warning

1) If you have poor ankle mobility and or tight calves, running up steep hills may cause issues with your knees and hips. If your shins are unable to travel forward over your toes due to poor mobility in the ankle, your knee is likely to be forced to roll inwards causing the hip muscle to lock up. I used to suffer with this and always felt my lower back afterwards. This is a problem running on the flat but compounded by the angle of a hill.

2) Hill running places less emphasis on the hamstrings than flat running so ensure you take steps to counter this. Add in single leg deadlifts and some intervals on the flat to your weekly program.

3) Hill intervals of short bursts with rest inbetween are awesome for many reasons. However, if you are looking to build endurance you are best advised to do longer hills runs with recovery pace in between so you get used to maintaining your running pace as you would have to in a race.

How To Do Hill Intervals

As mentioned above, certain hill intervals are not the best option for everyone. Here are some examples of manipulating rest and work time for your goals….

Explosive sports

If you are looking to improve your explosive power over short distances, you should look to keep the length of your hill interval to around 50m. Perform 10-15 repetitions with the rest being the time to walk back to the bottom.

As you get closer to a competition you may like to increase the distance and jog back down. This may reduce the speed but it will improve your conditioning levels and develop mental strength enabling you to keep going without rest.

This is also a great way to use intervals if you are just in it for fat loss!

If you are involved in MMA for instance, you might do a 100m sprint taking 20-30 seconds and jog back down until 5 minutes is up. Rest 1 minute then start again.

Runners

If you are a 1500-5000m runner who needs high levels of anaerobic endurancem 10-15 x 200-400m at 3-5k pace with 45-60 seconds rest will do the job. The longer your race, the higher up the distance and slower the pace you should use. As you get closer to race day, reduce the rest intervals to around 30 seconds or use active recovery between runs.

If you are looking to improve 10k pace, you are best advised to use a pace which enables you to keep running between – your recovery time should be about the same as the time it takes you to run up the hill. This means the pace is technically the same on the way down as on the way up but obviously it is much harder to keep this pace on the way up the hill!

Run a distance that takes about 45 seconds at about 5-10% over your 10k pace. Repeat 12-16 times.

Hill intervals feature in Intense Conditioning because they are so effective!

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I’ve always said I believe fighters and soldiers are the best example of all-round athleticism and unstoppable conditioning.

Why? They have to be.

Any chink in the armourwill eventually be exposed and manifest itself in the form of head on mat, a broken nose or more cutting for them, defeat.

So how do they train?

I checked out Chuck Liddell, one of the greatest UFC fighters ever.

Here’s some samples from his training regime and how you can replicate this as much as possible in the gym if you can’t replicate it fully (strongly advised for maximum impact!)

Row-wrestle combo

Row on the Concept 2 as hard as possible for 2.5 minutes (Chuck notches up about 800m)

As soon as that’s done, wrestle with partner for 2.5 minutes under exhaustion to replicate fight night..

Rest 1 mnute then repeat for a total of 5 rounds.

Sledgehammer

Smash sledgehammer from overhead into tyre 100 times to replicate overhand punch.

Wheelbarrow

At training camp, Chuck sprints with a wheelbarrow up and down a 100m hill, 3 times with 1 minute rest between each.

Pretty simple huh? Well, Chuck puts 275lbs (about 130kg) of free weights in the wheelbarrow!

This is great for punishing the legs and shoulders as well as core muscles for stability. It also really workds the posterior chain of muscles on the back of your body on the way down – very useful for pulling opponents off you in the ring!

Pit wall ball

Chuck takes a 50kg medicine ball to his chest form the floor then powers it as hard as possible against a wall. If it doesn’t rebound 3 feet or more the rep doesn’t count.

5 x 5 reps with 1 minute rest between sets

Your workout

It is virtually impossible to truly replicate the intensity of this training in the gym but here’s some ideas.

Row-wrestle

Row for 2.5 minutes as hard as possible then perform 2.5 minutes of kettlebell floor press work (2 hand press, alternate press, rolling press).

5 rounds, rest 1 minute between each

Check out this video to see how Frank Shamrock performs the rolling press

Sledgehammer

Perform 50 single hand medicine ball slams on each side.

Do 2 rounds on each arm with no rest at all.

Wheelbarrow

Probabaly the hardest to replicate with any accuracy in a gym.

Try doing farmer walk shuttle runs with two heavy kettlebells or dumbbells for 100m at a time. Even this may not be allowed by the puffs who run your chrome-plated Cross Trainer fest of a gym.

Do  rounds with 1 minute rest between each to make up for lack of hill and wheelbarrow.

Wall ball

Again very hard to replicate in your average gym!

I use small tyres with my bootcampers – get it overhead then throw it as far as possible.

This can be done by using a medicine ball as Chuck does, by performing shot putt with a kettlebell then sprinting after it, or by shouldering a sandbag, getting it overhead then throwing it as far as possible!

5 sets of 5 with 1 minute between sets.

Like I said do what you can to properly replicate Chuck Liddell’s MMA training outdoors for full and fast impact on all round strength and conditioning!

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