Take Your Drills to the Hills

We believe a great way to get runners to incorporate knee drive into their running form is to run hill repeats.

During base training, when your runners are running a lot of slower miles

Finish their runs at a steeper hill. At the end of the run, direct them to do a 50 meter hill repeat x 4-6 reps with a full recovery in between. Coach your runners to really focus on driving their knees straight forward, as if they were doing the wall drill. Cue them to lean into the hill from their ankles, not their hips.

For runners who come up to a hill during a training run or a race

Coach them to stay relaxed and focus on the knee drive, which will help them save energy while running up the hill more efficiently.

During hill repeat workouts

Tell runners to maintain the effort for about 20 meters into the flat at the top of the hill. This will help give them confidence during a race that they can finish out the hill and take off at the top!

This blog written in conjunction with Dr. Brianne Scott PT, DPT, Level 2 CRGA OCS, CSCS, RunDNA Resident Certified Running Gait Analyst, & Omega Project Physical Therapy Co-Founder