Why You Should Run Hills (and How to Get Started)

Hill repeats are a great training tool if you are a runner or any athlete looking to improve your cardiovascular fitness. But you can’t train on a hill without a good hill, so your first question will likely be : where?

I will briefly answer the next few of your questions: why? How many? And how far? Let’s figure them out first and then find your perfect hill.

What are hill repeats and why do them?

Hill repeat means running uphill. They’re called “repetitions” because you won’t do just one thing. You’ll immediately go back down and repeat the process—perhaps doing 10 reps of a short lift, or 2-3 reps of a longer lift. The shorter, faster ones are sometimes called “hill sprints.”

Hill repeats are a type of interval training, so in theory their benefits are the same as any similar interval training. You can improve your VO2max, insulin sensitivity, overall fitness, and so on. But there are many ways to do intervals. Why go to the mountains?

The textbook benefits of repeating hills:

• They have less impact than sprints or speed work on flat ground because the ground actually rises to meet your feet.

• They benefit runners by making the glutes and hamstrings work a little harder. (However, hill reps still do not replace strength training with weights .)

• They force you to practice good running form by lifting your knees up and landing softly on your midfoot.

But that is not all. I think these benefits are underestimated:

• They give you confidence when tackling hills during training or racing. There’s nothing better than walking up a hill in the middle of a marathon and having people around you stop to walk.

• They give non-runners an easy way to measure effort during a workout. You don’t need a standard course or stopwatch to do hill repeats, you don’t need to plan a route or know your pace. You simply run up until it’s time to come down, and then repeat. One hill, one workout.

How many reps of hills should I do and for how long?

Hills are a tool, not a workout. So it depends on what you are trying to get out of repeated hill training. If you are following a training plan, it should include a distance or time for both the lift and recovery. However, here are a few common types of hill training:

• Uphill sprint (real sprint): 6-8 seconds at full power . Rest for about 3 minutes before continuing. (This includes going downhill.) Maybe 4-8 reps.

• Uphill Steps : This is a version of uphill steps , 15 to 30 seconds of brisk jogging with at least a minute or two to recover. They shouldn’t put pressure on your lungs, it’s just a leg workout. Do this at the end of your workout or at the end of your warm-up when preparing for a race or hard run. Two to six repetitions are typical.

• Short ascent repeats : These can last a minute or two, with a recovery equal to the time it takes to descend back down. Some runners add an extra minute of recovery time at the bottom before running again. You can do from 4 to 12 of these exercises.

• Longer hill repeats : These last for several minutes or a certain distance. I’ve done 400 meter (quarter mile) hill repeats and I even have a favorite half mile hill for very long distances. You can only do 2-4 of these exercises as they are very long.

If I give a range of reps, usually you do a lower number the first time and then add one or two reps the next time. There is nothing set in stone in these descriptions; think of them as typical workouts that you can see, not as the only types or the only way to do them. If you’re doing a running program and it requires hill reps, it should give you all the specifics.

Make sure you warm up before repeating lifts (as before any heavy workout). If hill repeats are the main part of your day’s workout, run an easy mile before you tackle them, or warm up in any way you choose for 10 minutes or so. At the end, you can run another easy mile as a cool-down.

What incline is best for hill repeats?

The steepness of a hill is usually measured as a percentage: 0% is level, 2% is a slight slope, and 10% will look like a mountain if you had to climb (or drive!) up it. Several of the world’s steepest streets have gradients of 30% or more.

Since you’re unlikely to run up a hill with more than a 10% incline, I’d recommend thinking of the incline as a scale of 1 to 10. Want to walk up a hill a bit? 2%. Need something really complicated? See if you can find 8%. The longer the rep, the lower the incline you probably need.

Here’s a guideline for how steep a hill you need:

• 2-4% if you typically run on flat terrain and want a gentle incline for longer reps.

• 4-6% if you are used to hills and want long reps, or short to medium reps for most normal people.

• 6-8% if you’re used to hills, short rep runs, or just feel up to the challenge.

How do you know how steep a hill is?

To calculate the percentage slope of a hill, remember the phrase “rise over run.” This means that the increase in height (“rise”) is divided (“over” as a fraction) by the horizontal distance (“run”). Here’s a USGS description of how it’s defined , and a handy calculator so you don’t have to read it all. If you ever forget how to do this, just Google “mileage lift calculator” and find one that allows you to enter whatever units of measurement you want. If you’re in the United States, height is usually most easily measured in feet and mileage in miles.

So how do we find the lift and run? Running is easy: You’re probably already tracking your distance with a running watch or with route planning tools like Strava or MapMyRun. Or you can go to Google Maps and right-click on a point to measure the distance.

As for elevation, I like the elevation finder tool here . Click on the top of the hill, wait a few seconds for the website to do the calculation, and then record the height in feet (or meters). Then click on the bottom of the hill and do the same. Subtract the lower elevation from the higher elevation and the difference is your rise, the change in elevation in feet.

I’ll do the same thing when I select a hill, testing different starting and ending points to pinpoint , for example, where the steepest hill in my area is. But if you already have a hill in mind and just want to know how steep it is, you can use a route planning app.

How to find the height of a hill in MapMyRun or Strava

MapMyRun requires a free account to usethe route builder tool . Click the start point and end point and make sure the “show height” switch is turned on. The elevation gain in feet will be shown at the bottom of the screen.

Typically, if you are running on hilly terrain, you need to worry about the overall elevation gain as you run up and down, up and down. But for one hill there is only the top. So, take that elevation gain and mileage and plug it into the excess mileage calculator. The hill in my example is 0.39 miles high and 175 feet tall. That’s an 8.5% estimate, yes.

Strava also has a route-building tool, but it requires a premium subscription. It works the same way: draw a line from the bottom up the hill and look at the total distance and elevation gain.

How to do hill repeats if you live on level ground

Finally, I know some of you have one last question: how do you find a hill if there are no hills in your area? If you live in a relatively flat area, open Google Maps and turn on the Terrain layer, which will add shading to the hills so they’re easy to spot. (Any topographic map tool can do the same.)

Pay special attention to parks within a short drive; sometimes there may be a public trail you can jog along if you want to go.

Otherwise, people in the prairie states and other lowland areas have been known to drive hill repeats on overpasses and garage ramps (please use caution due to traffic if you take this route). Stairs are also an option: they’re not the same as hills and you may have to go slower, but you can still get some repeat hill benefits by taking the stadium stairs on a school track. Lastly, there is always an incline button on the treadmill.

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