Fast and short runs up hills are of course particularly suitable for preparing for a mountain run, but are also valuable for running on flat terrain. This is because hill sprints strengthen the running-specific muscles and also make you faster, as a sprint activates the rapidly contracting muscle fibres and improves the capacity of the neuromuscular system. It also increases stride length and trains good body tension and arm work. Stronger leg muscles take the strain off the knee, hip and ankle joints, which helps to prevent injuries.
Logically, the difficulty of hill/mountain runs lies primarily in the incline, as an incline of just a few per cent is enough to make even an experienced runner's legs burn within a few seconds and push the cardiopulmonary system to its maximum level. Sprints of 10-20 seconds are generally ideal and ensure rapid exhaustion.
Exercise duration: run up a hill (mountain) for 10-20 seconds
Break: 1-2 minutes
Repeats: 4-10 times
Intensity level: 4 (hard)
Hmax: 90-95% (intensive interval method)
Rule of speech: brief exchange of words
For the exercise, the participants/groups run up the hill/mountain (possibly in a staggered start from a place in the group). staggered start for reasons of space), during the break they have time to return to the starting position (adjust the intensity of the load and the recovery phase to the training goal). After the first interval, the participants/groups memorise how far they have climbed the hill/mountain in the specified time, as they will try to cover the same distance in each subsequent session (it is always important to cover the same distance per running session during interval training). There are the following options for timing:
- each participant receives a stopwatch/pulse clock and completes their training sessions independently;
- the sports leader starts and times the participants/groups (staggering makes sense, keep track of the break times);
- it is started in strength groups, with the pacemaker checking the time using the stopwatch/pulse clock.
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