Running News Daily

Two treadmill hill workouts to boost power, strength and confidence

Sure, runners love to hate the treadmill. It can be an invaluable tool, though, especially when icy conditions prevent you from fitting in a hard workout.

Even if your goal race is on the road or relatively flat, hill workouts build power, running efficiency, and will have you running faster on flat ground–being able to run smoothly up a hill that used to leave you gasping for air can be a pretty big confidence booster, too.

Bonus–you can fit either of these workouts in your lunch hour, with both coming in under 45 minutes including warmup and cooldown. Tweak either workout if you need to according to your experience level by adjusting the pace and incline settings on the treadmill to make the sessions challenging for you.

Hilly tempo (effort-based) workout

This workout, a combo between a tempo session and a hilly run, helps you learn how to run hills by feel, something many runners, both beginners and seasoned athletes, struggle to do. Don’t worry about your pace–focus entirely on the effort of each interval.

The workout

Warm up with 10 minutes of very easy running.

Run 5 minutes at a 1 percent incline and at a pace that elevates your effort level to what feels like a medium-hard effort (you have to stay focused and can only speed in short sentences); recover with 2 minutes easy running.

Run 5 minutes at a 2 per cent incline and at a pace that brings your effort level back to where it was on the previous rep; recover with 2 minutes easy running.

Run 5 minutes at a 3 per cent incline and at a pace that elevates your effort level to where it was on the previous rep; recover with 2 minutes easy running.

Run 5 minutes at a 4 per cent incline and at a pace that brings your effort level back to where it was on the previous rep; recover with 2 minutes easy running.

Cool down with 5 minutes easy running.

Powerful hill workout

This workout doubles as a high-intensity interval session and builds power, strengthening different muscles than you would while running hard on flat ground. The end result of workouts like this one–you’ll be faster on the flats, and you’ll ramp up injury resistance.

The workout

Warm up with 5 minutes of easy running.

Repeat 8x: run for 90 seconds at a 4 to 5 per cent incline at a pace that you can only maintain for a short time (hard effort, breathing vigorously, can’t talk); recover between each hard interval with 3 minutes of very easy running.

Cool down with 5 minutes easy running.

Make sure to take the day following a speed, hill or long session as a recovery or easy running day.