Well some of you may not like hills! As I noticed last night 🙂 ! Others found it easy and could chat all the way up! But they are so good for you. Why?
The muscles you use to run up hills are the same muscles you use for sprinting. The strength you build running inclines will help to improve your overall running speed. Hill repeats are an excellent workout for speed, strength, confidence, and mental endurance.
Running up hills outdoors is a form of resistance training that builds the muscles in your calves, quads, hamstrings, and glutes. Hill running strengthens those areas more than running on flat surfaces. You’ll also strengthen your hip flexors and Achilles’ tendons.
Hill repeats are an excellent workout for speed, strength, confidence, and mental endurance. While no two hills are identical for distance and incline, the workouts are simple. You run up the hill as fast as you can and then recover by jogging or walking down.
As you strengthen your leg muscles through hill running, you may reduce the risk of suffering from running-related injuries. You will also have trained your muscles to perform at different levels of incline.
Uphill running forces you to drive your arms harder than you do when running on flat ground, so you’ll improve your ability to engage the core and boost your upper body strength. also running uphill forces you to engage the glute and hamstring muscles on the back of your legs. Running downhill requires stability through the knee joint which engages the lateral and medial quadriceps muscles.
Then, when those muscles are challenged in future runs/races they are more ready to meet the new physical barrier. The more you run hills, the less intimidating they’ll seem when you encounter them on a race course. Your improved strength and technique on the hills will give you a confidence boost. You’ll feel a lot more mentally prepared for hills knowing that you’ve practiced them during training.
One persons view – another’s disbelief!
