Runners

066 RUNNERSWORLD.CO.UK JULY 2018research and sports performancetraining at the Avera SportsInstitute in South Dakota, US.Ferley, who is a runner, alwaysincorporated hills into his ownhalf-marathon and marathontraining, but back in 2010, he wassurprised to find a lack of peer-reviewed proof of the effectivenessof inclines in exercise-scienceliterature. So he fired up hisfacility’s research-grade treadmillsto fill the gap. In his 2013 study,published in the Journal ofStrength and ConditioningResearch, Ferley had one group ofrandomly assigned runners crankup the incline and complete hillworkouts twice a week, while``````HILLS MAY LOOM LARGE in yourpath, both daunting andtaunting. But if you takeon the challenge to climbthem, you’ll find a more powerfuland efficient stride, which can netfaster times on the other side.‘Physically, training on hills buildsmuscle strength, and hill sprintsor repeats can improve runningeconomy, which translates into lessenergy expended over the courseof a long race,’ says running coachLisa Reichmann. Coaches such asReichmann have long touted thebenefits of hill training and nowscience can back the belief, thanksto recent research by Dr DerekFerley, director of sports science``````another group performed fasterrepetitions on level ground (and acontrol group kept up their typicaltraining). The result: six weeks ofincline training boosted runners’top speed and allowed them tosustain it 32 per cent longer thanthey could at the start of the study.What explains the dramaticresult? First, the intensity of uphillintervals improves your lactatethreshold. That means your bodyproduces less muscle-burninglactic acid at the same pace andyou’re better able to buffer the acidsyou do churn out. Flat intervals dothis too, but with hills, you don’thave to move as fast to reap thesame rewards, says Ferley.UP ANDAT ’EMDon’t let hills bring youdown: use them to build yourspeed and endurance