Hill Sprints – Burn Fat & Build Killer Endurance With Hill Sprinting!

If you’ve ever wondered about hill sprints or wanted to know how to get started with hill sprinting (or even what they heck they are), then you’re going to love this lil article!

Or to put it another way, if you wanna …

• Burn off pounds of fat …
• Build explosive, athletic ability …
• Get never-quit endurance …
• And get a tight, sexy butt (pictures to follow) …

Then you wanna keep reading

What Are Hill Sprints?

Easy. It’s sprinting up a hill. Duh. Not to insult your intelligence, but come on?!

Actually, I’ll only address two types of hill sprints because I feel they’re the most valuable:

1. Sprinting up a grass hill or …

2. Sprinting up a sand covered “hill” (they call these “dunes” mate!)

Why Should You Sprint Anyways?

My oh my there are so many benefits to sprints!

Here’s just a few:

• Speed training — you’re training yourself to explode and get from one place to another REALLY fast. Just what any athlete (or human) needs …
• Anaerobic Endurance -- if you can sprint really fast for short distances and do it over and over again you’re going to have the type of “never quit” endurance that’s useful in every day life (you know, instead of having the type of endurance to run for 26 miles … which I’m suuuurrreee you do every day right?)
• Body Composition — anaerobic training like this burns fat , it’s that simple. Check out the picture of the sprinter Shawn Crawford below:

• Muscular Development – sprinting hits ALL the right muscles. Namely the glutes, hamstrings and other leg muscles — primary movers for us bi-pedal humans. Please observe the extremely hetero picture of the olympic sprinter below and agree that sprinting will give you that “booty butt”:

• More Fun — than running on a treadmill for hours on end which is BOOORINNGG.
• Faster Workouts — after a few sprints, you’re like “whew! Great workout. Done now!” and you’re not actually slacking off that bad because you have done something.
• More Testosterone & Growth Hormone: there have been some promising studies proving sprinting increases both!

Why Hill Sprints Are Even Better!

What’s the only problem with sprinting? A lot of people pull hamstrings, etc because they’re getting off too hard while doing them … they’re not use to the stress … etc.

Also, when you get good at them, you have to work even harder to get a great workout. That’s where hill sprints come in.

Charles Staley once wrote a good article on hill sprints, and here’s his 8 reasons why hill sprints are so great:

1. Safety: Due to the inclined surface, maximum limb speed cannot be attained and thus serves as a safety barrier for your precious hammies! However, in the process, your posterior-chain muscles (low-back, glutes, hamstrings and gastrocs) get an incredible strengthening effect!

2. Technique: Because of the inclined surface, you are forced to lean forward as you sprint, which teaches you the proper acceleration mechanics that you would want when sprinting on a flat surface. Hill sprints actually become your sprint coach because you almost can’t help but do it right!

Hills sprints also teach aggressive arm and shoulder action, which is so critical for maximal acceleration. You simply cannot sprint fast up a hill without deliberate arm action. This helps teach the coordination and little-appreciated upper-body drive needed to sprint effectively on a flat surface.

3. Efficiency: Hill sprints offer great multitasking potential! You can train, catch a tan, and listen to your favorite tunes (or books on tape if you’re learning junkies like we are) while you train.

4. Optimization Of The Force-Velocity Curve: Powerlifting guru Louie Simmons often uses the following analogy to explain the force-velocity curve: if you try to throw a bowling ball as far as possible, it won’t go very far because the mass (read: force) is so great. If you try to throw a whiffle ball as far as possible, you’ll also end up with a short throw because the whiffle ball offers minimal mass to push against. A baseball, on the other hand, can be thrown far because it’s a perfect blend of force and velocity. Keeping this analogy in mind, hill sprints offer similar advantages…in essence; they’re basically a “sweet spot” between lifting and sprinting. The best of both Worlds.

5. Vanity: Hill sprints are a great way to dramatically increase the caloric expenditure of an activity that already burns a boatload of calories when performed on flat ground. Again, think of hill sprints as a cross between sprinting and weightlifting. This has amazing benefits on body composition! The next time you see a major track meet on TV, pay close attention to the short sprinters: they have arguably the greatest physiques on the planet…bodybuilders included.

6. Self-Discipline: Unlike almost any other form of training, that hill has a way of making you work hard…once you’ve got your momentum up, you won’t want to lose it, so you’re actually compelled to maintain or even increase your speed. Again, the hill becomes your coach…you’re compelled to work hard and you’re compelled to have awesome technique…what other exercise can offer this?!?

7. Endorphin Rush: At the risk of getting all misty-eyed on you, we gotta say, completing a hill has a Rocky-esque feeling of victory (honest!) Many of our clients have reported this experience after performing hills.

8. Functionality: Lastly, sprinting is, well, f_ _ nctional. A lot of “functional training” guru’s constantly push exercise balls and Bosu boards, but we’ll place our money in a good program of hill sprints any day of the week.

How To Get Started Hill Sprinting …

Step one: find a hill. Where I live, there’s only grassy ones. That’s cool with me and good for everyone because running on a hill of grass which covers not-so-hard dirt is a LOT more “forgiving” on your joints than running on pavement or concrete!

And it’s even better (read: harder) if you live near the beach (you lucky devil you) because running in sand is a lot more hard — so have fun!

Step Two: You’re going to do a quick little jog there, or warm up a little there with some body weight squats or walk up and down the hill a couple times.

Step Three: Sprint up the hill …

I like to pick a fixed distance hill, something like 25 yards or so and sprint up to the top … then jog down. That’s one set, then I repeat just about as soon as I hit the bottom of the hill and get “set” again.  Then when I’m getting REALLY out of breath (like 5 or so sets into it) I’ll probably start walking down the hill to give myself a little extra recovery time.

You don’t have to do fixed distance hill sprints though. Staley recommends:

• 5 x 10 yards (rest 15 seconds in between)
• 4 x 20 yards (rest 30 seconds in between)
• 3 x 30 yards (rest 60 seconds in between)
• 2 x 40 yards (rest 90 seconds in between)
• 1 x 50 + yards if the hill is long enough

I’m not big on rest periods in general because I get bored … It would require me to keep a stopwatch or watch handy … etc. So most of the time I try to get in as many sets of a fixed distance with no rest (except the walk down) until I’m wiped out.

Do You Need To Do Hill Sprints On Hills?

No. You could do what some athletes do and run up stadium stairs. Or you could do what Matt Furey does and run up Chinese Temple steps when you’re vacationing in China, like in the pic below.

Or You could run up the sides of pyramids like my old Egyptian Taekwondo coach told us he used to do for training in the desert. Then again, he used to say his instructor would punch the sun scorched desert earth and hold up the cement-like dirt for use as kicking paddles … so he might have been lying about that pyramid sprinting stuff

Anyways, I recommend either dirt, sand or grassy hills because they’re easier on your joints. But it’s all good.

So there you go a simple guide on hill sprinting to get you started using hill sprints to burn fat, build endurance, and get yourself into awesome shape.

Want Some More Awesome Fat Loss Tips?

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