Uphill Running: The Untapped Super Power of Training

When it comes to training for running improvements, there are many tried and tested methods to increase your performance. However, uphill running often finds itself at the bottom of the pile, or avoided completely. This article will explore the benefits of uphill running, and why avoiding them might be the biggest mistake of all.

My Own History of Hills

Before I started running I enjoyed hiking. I have loved the mountains for the last 8-9 years. Anyone who has climbed a mountain will know the persistent determination it can require to trudge painfully to the top, lungs bursting with each agonising step.

Ever since my first outing in the mountains, hills have been part and parcel of the game; they will quite literally make or break your day.

I have spent enough days in the mountains with people to know that climbing steep hills will most certainly make you honest.

What people say on flat ground about their levels of fitness will be hugely exposed within moments of a hard incline.

From my own journey, one of the main reasons I started running was so that days hiking in the mountains would be slightly less painful. My logic: If I can learn to be comfortable running up hills, walking them will be easy.

However, as my love for running evolved, I discovered the freedom and speed by which you can experience the mountains, ultimately swapping my boots and warm hiking gear for trail shoes and lightweight clothing (obvs checking the Mountain Weather Forecast to ensure packing for suitable conditions).

'If one could run without getting tired I don't think one would often want to do anything else'. - CS Lewis

The Trail/Ultra Runner's Relationship With Hills

I have noticed an interesting trend in the running community regarding hills. As someone who started my running on the trails, mostly alone, it wasn't until I started becoming familiar with the sport that I discovered a large portion of the trail running community didn't seem to like hills either.

There is a common understanding in the trail/ultra community, that if you can't see the top of the hill you should walk it. This makes a lot of sense for long ultra distance races, because pacing and saving energy are critical if you hope to finish the race.

Some hills are simply too steep to run and hiking is most efficient. But the steepness of the hill and speed by which you hit it, is relative to the individual. See the growing popularity with the Vertical KM.

Yet, for many this perspective becomes the norm, not just in races, but for all running in the trails. The result: you get a lot of mountain runners who spend most of their time walking.

Notably, anyone you see in the top competitive positions of a race, whether it be ultra, trail or fell, they will almost always spend the majority of their race running, including the up-hills.

The Road Runner's Relationship With Hills

Unlike many who find a love for running, I didn't start running on the roads. I always opted for trail or mountainous terrain. It wasn't until recently (as of ~September, 2023), getting annoyed at forever cleaning muddy trainers in wet, muddy British conditions, as well as befriending some faster roadies, that I discovered a passion for the roads.

Now, if there was a community most opposed to hills, the road running community are them. It is not without reason. Road runners are obsessed with speed. They are 100% committed to the arduous task of pushing themselves to shave seconds off their personal best times. Of which I have been recently converted.

The process of unlocking new faster paces and pushing your body to achieve greater levels of performance is addictive.

Road runners travel far and wide to compete in the flattest courses available - routes removed of as many potential jeopardising variables as possible: closed, fully marked courses + bouncy carbon plated shoes + very little gradient incline = the recipe for fast PB's.

Moreover, training for the road runner often includes rigorous training plans, focusing almost entirely on hitting and maintaining certain paces, with the heart rate in mind. Easy recovery sessions usually consist of low zone heart rate monitoring to ensure they aren't working too hard. The result: you find a lot of road runners who almost always avoid the hills

The Benefits of Uphill Running

With a growing interest in this topic, and from a recognition that uphill running was a weak area of my own performance, I decided to undergo my own research into the art of uphill running. I quickly discovered the internet was full with relevant content about why uphill running should become part of your training.

Running Form

Andy Baddeley, ex British middle-distance athlete and previous record holder of the Parkrun, discusses the physiological impact of running uphill on your body. He explains how uphill running forces you to run with good running economy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVtI8LZWoUs).

The gradience of the hill forces your knees to drive upward, firing and strengthening your glute muscles, your feet drive into the ground to propel you upward.

It is also widely understood that lower core and glute muscular discrepancies are the primary reason for most running-related injuries in your knees, hamstrings, calves.

Hills operate as the perfect platform to mitigate such weaknesses by increasing your overall strength. Another pre-requisite for speed.

Aerobic Endurance

Scott Johnston, famed mountain endurance coach, explained in his book (Training for the Uphill Athlete, 2019), and frequently on his podcast (EvokeCast), how uphill running 'increases your aerobic capacity, while decreasing the muscular load'.

When running on flat surfaces, with each repetitive stride your body produces impact forces of up to X3 that of your body weight. He explains how for an experienced athlete, a 90 minute easy aerobic session could still be maintaining incredibly fast paces. For example, an elite athletes' lower heart rate easy aerobic running pace could still range around 5.30 minute per mile on flat terrain.

By simply maintaining their aerobic capacity, there is an increased muscular load; and each repetitive stride increases the potential of an overuse injury developing (see Evokecast #36).

While many of us may not fall in to the 'elite' category, the load effects are still relevant, albeit relative. Our easy running may seem easy aerobically, but with higher volume training weeks, the impact to your body accumulates over time.

Conversely, running on steeper terrain opens up your lungs, elevates your heart rate, and helps to develop your body's capacity to better utilise the oxygen as a fuel source. This increases your aerobic capacity and develops your endurance, as well as increasing your VO2 max (note: I am not a physiologist. there are plenty of resources from people more experienced than myself to explain these details).

This is important for faster race efforts because it conditions your body to maintain higher intensity efforts for longer. Moreover, the increased aerobic benefit enables your body to quickly and efficiently use the accumulated lactate as a fuel source, helping you to move further, much faster.

With the steeper terrain, and with the increased aerobic work to push your body against gravity, it is also a decreased velocity output, and thus a lower impact on your body than if you were running on flatter terrain.

It increases your aerobic capacity, while decreasing the muscular load.

The steeper the gradience, the shorter the stride length + an increased cadence to propel you up the hill. This also helps to develop the neural connection that improves your ability to run fast.

Training Volume

When it comes to training volume, the metrics for uphill running and flatter efforts are not the same. Strava is a great tool, but can be a deadly platform if you follow it too closely.

A quick glance at Strava and you will see weekly volume training loads around a certain rounded mileage. 50 mile. 60 mile. 80 mile. 100 mile. There is a tendency to believe that higher mileage weeks = success.

However, although there is an element of truth to this, if you are also factoring elevation gain it is difficult to draw a comparison.

To use the example above, a 90 minute easy aerobic run on flat terrain for an elite athlete, running at ~5.30 min per mile pace, would range between 16-17 miles.

Whereas a 90 minute easy aerobic run with high elevation, thus moving at a slower pace uphill, would range between 10-11 miles.

According to Johnston, the lower volume session with higher elevation, will produce as much, or even greater the aerobic/muscular endurance benefits, than the flat session, while reducing the impact on your body.

*Note: as an athlete becomes better conditioned on steeper terrain and they develop their skill to descend, the downhills are a much lower intensity, providing opportunity to rest and lower their heart rate.

The question comes down to quality!

If Johnston is correct, you could run less miles in a week, but still produce significant improvements in your overall strength and fitness. The accumulating benefits over the longer-term (months as opposed to weeks) could help reduce the chances of overuse injuries, develop strength, while also provide the aerobic base to become a faster, stronger athlete.

Concluding Thoughts

Whether you are a trail runner looking to finish higher in the overall pack, or a road runner aiming to run a fast marathon, the benefits of uphill running are without question.

I am not saying everyone should ditch their arduous training schedules and suddenly head to the hills. But from my research I have learned that uphill running has incredible benefits as an additional method to your regular training.

It is logical, but yet so many ignore it! If you can become comfortable running uphill, running the flats will seem so much easier.

Finn in his famed book, Running with the Kenyans (2013), describes how Kenyan runners always approach hills at tempo. They don't avoid them. They lean in to them and embrace the discomfort because of the benefits they have to their performance.

There is a common training maxim of how the best athletes learn to get the best results by doing the least amount of work to get there.

Many times simply logging more miles is not the answer. If you aim to be running and improving your performance over the long term, as opposed to hitting arbitrary total figures on Strava, it becomes a question of working smarter.

If running hills increases the aerobic effect, while decreasing the muscular load, you can effectively run less, but still develop the performance benefits. Your strength increases. Your work capacity increases. Your lactate threshold increases. And your risk of injury decreases.

The impact: over time you will become fitter, fresher, faster, stronger, and less fatigued, for the harder sessions, where hitting and maintaining fast paces is the aim of the game.

Incorporating hill work into your schedule to compliment your current training goals could certainly be hugely beneficial. Running uphill is not easy, at first it is a hard, uncomfortable task. But, with consistent persistent effort, and a decision not to avoid them, running up hills could become the key that unlocks new levels to your running.

Much love, Rossi

Instagram: @r_coulbeck