The STACK Exercise of the Week will help you improve your overall sports performance—including strength, speed, conditioning and flexibility. This week, we highlight Hill Repeats, a drill that improves endurance and running speed.
Who’s Doing It
Chris Legh, professional triathlete
Muscular Benefits
Increases speed and endurance
Sports Performance Benefits
Hill Repeats improve race endurance by challenging your quads, hamstrings, glutes and calves when running uphill. Repeatedly performing this drill trains these muscles to delay lactic acid build up, which will help you run faster for a longer time. Also, sprinting uphill teaches you to land on your midfoot and maintain your posture to find an efficient running form. This eliminates wasted stride energy, making it easier to power up challenging hills during a race.
Hill Repeats How To
Sprint uphill for specified time
Walk downhill for 20 seconds, then jog the rest of the way
Recover briefly at bottom of hill before next run
Sets/Duration: 4x30 seconds; as you progress, increase to 6-8x2 minutes
