Hill workouts are excellent for improving running efficiency and leg strength. By incorporating hills into training, runners can boost power, endurance, and overall performance. These workouts typically involve running uphill for a set distance or time, with the downhill serving as recovery.
However, there is a type of hill workout that, commonly called Kenyan Hills, is less known. This concept is believed to have been around since the 1970s and consists of a continuous session of uphill running followed by downhill running without rest.
What Is The Kenyan Hills Workout?
The East African athletes have always understood the importance of hills, and it is often commented that their consistent hill training is one of the factors behind their continued success on the world stage.
Steve Vernon, U.K. Athletics endurance coach points to the use of hills as a reason for the unrivaled success of the Kenyans and Ethiopians in distance events stating: “The East Africans have proven that it works. They do all their training on rolling dirt roads that are uneven and usually steep. This makes them extremely strong from the feet upwards and teaches them to be very efficient off the ground.”
The main difference between Kenyan Hills and a normal hill session is that on the downhill you’ll be looking to maintain the same effort—akin to running a tempo-paced session—and should not use this section as a traditional recovery.
In this type of hill workout, the runner will run continuously for a set duration, say 30 minutes, or they could break down the session into intervals, say 5 x 5 mins, with a 2-minute recovery.
In terms of why they are called Kenyan Hills, there is no specific evidence of where the name came from or who indeed was the first to coin the term. However, it is generally believed it derived from a Western athlete returning from a training period in Kenya.
The workout is great for getting used to continual change of pace as you go from running uphill to downhill. This helps you get used to races where surges and changes in pace are commonplace—cross-country races for instance.
You get used to running at a tempo pace—around 80 per cent of your max heart rate—coupled with periods where your heart rate drops, but not to levels where they are considered recovery pace. With the HR kept relatively high in the “recovery” phases, the length of the session will depend on your current fitness.
Kenyan Hills are a terrific way of getting the downhill running benefits: not only improving your coordination, but it will strengthen your quadriceps and glutes. Moreover, it is a way of increasing your cadence or stride frequency and hence your speed.
This type of session will also help you prepare for downhill sections in any of your upcoming races. Downhill running at speed places considerable demands on the quadriceps so getting your body familiar with this feeling in training will lead to no surprising sensations come race day.
How To Run Kenyan Hills
For a Kenyan hills training session, you’ll be aiming to run continuously over a long duration, so you’ll typically need a longer stretch of time than you would use for the traditional short hill sprint session.
Ideally, you should be aiming for a hill that is between 400 and 800 metres long, which would take somewhere in the range of one to three and a half minutes to ascend.
Don’t worry too much about how fast you climb but focus on feeling relaxed and maintaining a steady pace. Remember that you’ll not only get an endurance boost from the run, but you’re also developing specific leg strength.
Workout Examples
- Start at a solid steady pace as you run uphill. Then turn immediately at the top and run down the hill with a long-relaxed stride, then repeat without resting. Continue for five minutes and then take two minutes of recovery before repeating three more times.
- As above, this time increase the duration to eight minutes with a two-minute recovery. Repeat two more times. As you gradually become more comfortable with this type of session and you have been able to maintain the required pace, move on to trying the following sessions in the same hilly terrain:
- Run steady for 10 minutes, take a three-minute recovery. Repeat two more times.
- Try 2 x 15 minutes with a four-minute recovery
- Once you have built up sufficient endurance and strength, you could have a go at a continuous 30-minute block with no recovery.
Remember, for each effort try and keep as consistent a pace as possible for the uphill and downhill sections. Your heart rate will be around 80-90 per cent of its max and it shouldn’t drop into recovery zones on the downhill sections.
There are several factors that have resulted in Kenyans dominating endurance events. Diet, running as a part of life from a young age, and living and training at altitude are some of the reasons most attributed to their success. However, one thing that is consistent amongst Kenyan athletes is their hill running.
The Kenyan Hills sessions are great if you have a hilly race coming up or have been a bit bored of the normal hill session or tempo runs in your schedule.
After all, more and more of the popular marathons include some very arduous climbs—Boston has Heartbreak Hill—so having more experience running hills and building the specific leg strength that comes with it can give you the edge on race day.
Edited and reprinted with permission of www.marathonhandbook.com.
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