I know, I know most of us don’t like doing them so I thought I’d explain why we do short hills. Running uphilll promotes strength endurance and short hills help us focus on our hill technique. The hill is short so we don’t get tired and lose form. The repetition helps to programme good technique into our muscle memory.
UK Athletics recommend hill technique as follows:
1 Positive backward drive of arms (imagine using your elbow to drive a nail into a wall).
2 Terrain guides optimal efficiency and pacing.
3 Hips high
4 Foot lands naturally on forefoot.
5 Triple extension of the driving leg.
Most of us can only focus on one thing at a time so starting at the top pick one of these to work on and try to really ‘nail it’!