Run Strength Development

Fun and easily scaleable workout for building some run strength, primarily in the off-season or base training phase. This is a really great “getting back into working out” workout as the time based interval doesn’t put too much pressure on performance and the tempo range is usually an effort people can get into without a ton of fitness. It’s also great for building up strength when done over hills, trying to manage effort over undulating terrain.

Most often these work best as a form of progression run: trying to get slightly faster from Tempo->towards->Threshold effort by the end. The short hill sprints at the end really build that neuromuscular power and good form that will help you become more mechanically efficient in the long term, plus hill reps have a great mental “I did something hard” factor to keep you motivated about the quality of work you’ve done.

This workout can also really be done during any training phase, especially if you’re struggling to hit faster paces and want to back off the intensity without completely letting it go. That said: if you find yourself doing this too often, you might want to get a blood test or be checking your HRV/resting HR levels and nutrition or even evaluating if your threshold levels are set too high!