Hill Sprints 101

halfmoon_

Blue Belt
Joined
Oct 29, 2007
Messages
733
Reaction score
0
How do you sprint hills? This morning I took on a decent hill and was doing sprints up it after a 2 mile run. It felt like a good workout but wasn't out of breathe, my legs weren't really tired, but I felt like puking. What the hell is going on here? Should I do 20 second sprint and 10 second rest and keep going like this? I could really use some extra advice on this topic right about now. Lets talk hill sprints.
 
How steep are the hills you're running? The hills I use for sprinting are pretty damn steep and I'm just about always gasping for air at the top.
 
How do you sprint hills? This morning I took on a decent hill and was doing sprints up it after a 2 mile run. It felt like a good workout but wasn't out of breathe, my legs weren't really tired, but I felt like puking. What the hell is going on here? Should I do 20 second sprint and 10 second rest and keep going like this? I could really use some extra advice on this topic right about now. Lets talk hill sprints.

How are you not out of breath after doing sprints, let alone hill sprints? That part confuses me. I find hill sprints to be some of the most painful training sessions. I can't tell you what specific time intervals to use, but I just run up to the top as fast as I can, jog back down and repeat 6 times. It shouldn't be that hard to do...
 
How long are your hill sprints? How much rest were you getting in between sprints?

Also they seem fairly steep, if they're too steep it slows you down to much, that might be part of the problem. Hill sprints should be able to make just about anyone feel tired.
 
Hill sprints tend to be more of a plyometric style workout IME - hugely taxing on the leg muscles and CNS, but not so much the CV system (unless you stick to brief rest periods). Remember you're supposed to be working on improving your raw speed and short-term power output, not your lactic threshold, which is what stuff like 200- 400m sprints and middle distance runs are for.

Think of hill sprints as dynamic-style lifting moreso than cardio. Ideally you should be left feeling stronger and fresher at the end of the sprint session than you did at the beginning.
 
Hill sprints tend to be more of a plyometric style workout IME - hugely taxing on the leg muscles and CNS, but not so much the CV system (unless you stick to brief rest periods). Remember you're supposed to be working on improving your raw speed and short-term power output, not your lactic threshold, which is what stuff like 200- 400m sprints and middle distance runs are for.

Think of hill sprints as dynamic-style lifting moreso than cardio. Ideally you should be left feeling stronger and fresher at the end of the sprint session than you did at the beginning.
Do you mean a slower stride, but more of a leg drive?
 
There's a very big difference/distinction between sprinting for speed training and sprinting for conditioning. Just like there is a very big difference between plyometric training (for improving power) and simply jumping till you get tired.

I'm not sure why you weren't out of breath. Hill sprints tend to be more anerobically (muscularly) challenging than regular sprints or medium distance running. Anerobic exhaustion is what gives you the dizzy puking feeling as blood flow to the brain is reduced. Still, you should probably be feeling short of breath and some lactic acid build up. It could be some combination of intensity, distance, incline, and your time intervals. Or maybe you are in fantastic shape.
 
There's a very big difference/distinction between sprinting for speed training and sprinting for conditioning. Just like there is a very big difference between plyometric training (for improving power) and simply jumping till you get tired.

I'm not sure why you weren't out of breath. Hill sprints tend to be more anerobically (muscularly) challenging than regular sprints or medium distance running. Anerobic exhaustion is what gives you the dizzy puking feeling as blood flow to the brain is reduced. Still, you should probably be feeling short of breath and some lactic acid build up. It could be some combination of intensity, distance, incline, and your time intervals. Or maybe you are in fantastic shape.

This sounds like a pretty good explanation. I'm still surprised you weren't out of breath though, even people in great shape sould be left breathless by intense hill sprints.
 
I went mountain sprinting the other day because i have no hills. Felt dizzy, wanted to puke, out of breath and my legs were burning and the frost didnt help at all. Funny story.
 
I usually towards the end of my hill sprints can't even jog because my legs are so drained.

I do get short of breath, but the legs are my personal limiting factor
 
We're lucky that we have an awesome beach with dunes to run 10 minutes away.

About twice a week we jog about .7 miles through deep sand to our death lap.

The death lap is a maximum intensity sprint up a 40 degree sand hill about 35 yards in length, there is a 5 yard plateau at the top followed by a straight drop off of 4-7 feet (depends how far out you jump off the cliff into deep sand) into a 35 degree downward slope 25 yards (the down sprint where sand is up to your mid calf burns like a mofo) followed by a 30 yard recovery jog on hard flat sand before repeating. Jumping off the cliff and landing on your feet when extremely fatigued is great for your mental toughness and balance.

We do sets of four with one minute rest between sets for 4-6 sets for moving on to the next part of beach training.

While I'm no scientist, my legs never tire in training and intense sparring is the only thing that gives me that good puke feeling like the death lap.
 
We're lucky that we have an awesome beach with dunes to run 10 minutes away.

About twice a week we jog about .7 miles through deep sand to our death lap.

The death lap is a maximum intensity sprint up a 40 degree sand hill about 35 yards in length, there is a 5 yard plateau at the top followed by a straight drop off of 4-7 feet (depends how far out you jump off the cliff into deep sand) into a 35 degree downward slope 25 yards (the down sprint where sand is up to your mid calf burns like a mofo) followed by a 30 yard recovery jog on hard flat sand before repeating. Jumping off the cliff and landing on your feet when extremely fatigued is great for your mental toughness and balance.

We do sets of four with one minute rest between sets for 4-6 sets for moving on to the next part of beach training.

While I'm no scientist, my legs never tire in training and intense sparring is the only thing that gives me that good puke feeling like the death lap.

damn I need to move out of the mid west farm lands. i have to drive 15 min. to go run this hill down by the river to get any type of hill sprints in at all and its normaly a wet muddy pain in the ass because it gets slipery
 
tonight i did hill sprints, i like much more than jogging, the first wasn't so intense, second third and forth was great, but in the fifth i miss my legs, very tired legs, every sprint was about 200 meters i think so
 
luckily for me my house is smack bang in the middle of a hilly area, two hills about 40m and 40 degrees, and a good 150m hill on about 40 degrees too so get to go for a good run daily. always good to go for a 15min run around the area then head off to my muay thai gym just down the road. live in a good area for conditioning :D
 
45lb rucksack sprinting up a 45-55yrd hill 4 times. That's a workout. My raider team has done it a few times. But we rarely sprint up hills with out rucksacks on. Mostly just long distance running 2-5miles.
 
I fight 3x3min rounds (amateur boxing) so that's how I do my hill sprints.

I do one trip up and down the hill every 30 seconds or 6 times up and down per 3 minute round. Takes 22-25 seconds to sprint up and then jog back down, so you get to rest for 5 seconds after each sprint.

As I keep doing them and my conditioning improves, I'll add more rounds. Right now I'm dead after 3 rounds and have to lie down for a couple minutes before I can head home. I'd like to be able to do 6x3minute rounds by the end of october when I have the provincial championships.
 
45lb rucksack sprinting up a 45-55yrd hill 4 times. That's a workout. My raider team has done it a few times. But we rarely sprint up hills with out rucksacks on. Mostly just long distance running 2-5miles.

I'm going after to do some hill runs, I wouldn't call them sprints.

Me and a mate, a bergen with 30kg in it. Steep hill that takes me 45s to sprint uploaded up.
One guy sprints up, the other guy runs as fast as possible with it over his shoulders (not wearing it), then he brings it back down, swap over and repeat.
We did 6 last time (6 unloaded, 6 loaded, so 12 uphill runs total).
 
I fight 3x3min rounds (amateur boxing) so that's how I do my hill sprints.

I do one trip up and down the hill every 30 seconds or 6 times up and down per 3 minute round. Takes 22-25 seconds to sprint up and then jog back down, so you get to rest for 5 seconds after each sprint.

As I keep doing them and my conditioning improves, I'll add more rounds. Right now I'm dead after 3 rounds and have to lie down for a couple minutes before I can head home. I'd like to be able to do 6x3minute rounds by the end of october when I have the provincial championships.

What province?
 
Back
Top