That’s the power of varying where you train. Even if your goals are purely aesthetic, hill sprints and train your muscles in a fashion where you can build strength with just your bodyweight. The force-velocity curve explains how strength training can lead to speed increases, and if you’re interested in learning more, I’d check out Cal Dietz’s Triphasic Training. Which means that sprinting on a hill allows you to increase speed, despite the fact that you’re training at sub-max speeds. In this case, the strengthening work your posterior chain performs will result in increased power, particularly once you reach top speed. This is a huge point: if you can’t recover from your conditioning, your strength work is going to suffer-and so will your results.Īs an added bonus, hill sprints allow for optimization of the force-velocity curve. Strength Coach Charles Staley says, “hill sprints are basically a sweet spot” between resistance training and more traditional running, allowing you to get some of the benefits of both.
Not only does this help prevent injury, but it also allows for easier recovery. Put another way, hill sprints share the load a bit more evenly. Your hamstrings will definitely get a lot of work, but so will your glutes, low back, and calves. In a flat sprint, the average recreational runner is going to be using mostly hamstrings to move in a hill sprint, however, the incline necessitates increased recruitment of the rest of your posterior chain. Hill Sprints Also Allow For More Evenly Distributed Training Stress. This is one of the reasons Super Sprints are done on a hill this workout is something you can do whenever the mood strikes you, even after a leg day. Hill sprints are one of the few explosive exercises that allow for maximum effort without maximum velocity no matter how hard you work, you’ll never reach top speed. Let’s go over them before we move on.įirstly, there’s safety: It’s a Lot Harder to Incur an Overuse Injury Like a Pulled Muscle With Hill Sprints. In fact, although I would never take anything away from a traditional sprint, hill sprints have a few benefits that flat-surface running doesn’t. I love hill sprints for a few reasons, and not just because they’re bad-ass. To accomplish all of that, the Super Sprints workout employs one of the simplest yet most effective conditioning tools on the planet: hill sprints. And that is exactly what the Super Sprint workout is all about-making you faster and more powerful while increasing VO2 max and even shredding some fat. So, if you wanna be fast enough to move at near-light speed and are interested in trying out a little chemistry, there’s that option.įor most of us, though, super speed is only going to come as the result of hard work and some dedicated training. I mean, even the Flash had to get his powers from a freak accident, during which he was splashed with a chemical mixture that had been struck by lightning.
There are other ways to get super speed, though. Most of us aren’t lucky enough to be born with everything handed to us. Guys like Superman have it made-just drink in the delicious rays of Earth’s yellow sun, and you can break Mach 4 without breaking a sweat. Like anything else, it’s highly trainable. What else is going to make you better at scoring touchdowns and chasing down a purse-snatching thief? No matter what type of action you’re into, speed kills. Whether you’re competing in sports, want to be more successful as a weekend warrior, or are training to be an everyday superhero, speed is one of your greatest and most important assets. It will decrease reaction time, allow you to change directions more quickly, and even hit harder. Strength and speed can often help you out-perform someone who may be more technically skilled.Īnd, like strength, speed is one of the few attributes that will have carryover to everything else increasing speed will also factor into, in varying degrees, qualities like agility and dexterity. Along with strength, speed is one of the few characteristics that will allow you to be a bit less developed than others. In sports, the domain of our own brand of superheroes, the faster you are, the more successful you tend to be. If you’ve ever read anything about performance training, you’ve heard the saying speed kills.