The benefits of incorporating hills into an athlete’s training schedule are already rather well established. Whether it be through short 10 second sprints up a steep incline, or long climbs to build mental toughness, running hills is a well established staple in training, used to build an athlete’s explosive stride, power, and stamina should running be specific to their sport. However, running up a hill is only half the story.
A study published in November of 2017 in the Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism section of the Canadian Science Publishing site sought to investigate the effects of downhill running on aerobic and muscular performance in trained individuals. Male subjects were divided into two groups to perform training sessions on treadmills, either adjusted to be flat or on a constant down hill (-10% grade) with sessions lasting 20 minutes and occasionally approaching a subject’s lactate threshold within a safe margin to not risk injury from the machine.
What the researchers found is that while there were no significant differences between the changes in aerobic capacity among the two groups, the group that performed the downhill training displayed significantly better improvements in the torque they were able to produce at varying angular velocities during knee extension, and their ability to quickly change direction while running.
What does this mean for athletes? While uphill running has its benefits in power development, downhill running presents a non-traditional opportunity to work on agility and develop critical strength in the quadriceps through eccentric loading. Examples include downhill sprints lasting 30 seconds to a minute to focus on the muscular component, being followed by a flat finish to hone the speed achieved on the downhill and work on the speed endurance component.
Running Science Expanded 