I’ve heard mumblings that hill repeats are a good recovery workout or a nice chilled maintenance session. Word on the street is that hill repeats aren’t a key workout. I understand the thought behind these mumblings. Hill repeats are hard to quantify: the grade and surface are variable, the intensity is difficult to measure, and the distance is hardly standardized. Hills are not tangible in the way that a track session is. Running a hard 30 second hill sprint may be metabolically and muscularly similar to running a hard 200m on the track, but the data derived from the effort on the hill is much less.
This lack of quantitative data that is derived from hill workouts means that they are not indicator workouts. An indicator workout, well, indicates, the type of fitness that an athlete has. Is their max speed improving? Are they able to maintain mile pace with short rest? Is the pace at VO2Max working its way down? A workout on the track can provide data that indicates whether key performance metrics are being met or not. A hill workout cannot do this. While it can provide a strong session that has the ability to improve those metrics, the inconsistency of the grade, surface, and pace make it difficult to draw conclusions about fitness.
Hill repeats are not an indicator workout, but that does not automatically remove them from being a key workout. I believe that the fitness gains from hard uphill efforts are just as big, if not bigger, than efforts on flat. The grade of the hill increases the muscular and aerobic demands of running, making it easier to hit high-intensity efforts. Hill repeats are also a great way to practice gauging effort, since the athlete cannot rely on pace or splits to be the guide. The idea that hills are an easy workout simply because there aren’t concrete numbers to prove that the effort was high is ridiculous. Running a track session without a watch does not nullify its effectiveness. Running hills as a workout is as hard as you make it, just like it would be on the track, road, or trail. Watch the video below to see me make hill repeats verrrrry hard.
