Happily & Healthily Down the Hills

We’re all hoping our beloved races populate our calendars some time again soon, but you can always use this time to hone your racing skills. One question frequently posed in our inbox is how to handle the rigors of hills (hells, to some!!) in the latter miles of a race. Strictly mechanically speaking, overcoming gravity by powerfully bounding uphill requires significant muscular strength & endurance namely in the hip flexors, gluteals, lower back, plantar flexors & triceps surae/Achilles tendon complex. Exercises that tax these muscle groups in a concentric (shortening) action, e.g., weighted step ups, standard heel raise, etc., can suitably prepare your legs for these demands. Where many athletes falter is inadequately training for the eccentric loads they will encounter. The quadriceps muscles will bear the brunt of your zealous descending pursuits. Sarcomeres (structural units of striated muscle) are overstretched with the repetitive eccentric muscle contractions as one brakes with foot strike instigating a cascade of proteolytic pathways deleterious to the muscles. Increases in muscle proteins, e.g. creatine kinase & troponin, etc. & delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), ensue. 

In lieu of racking more miles on equally punishing terrain, one can stave off or at least minimize these detrimental side effects with some attentive specificity, that being in the days & ideally weeks prior, loading the quadriceps in an eccentric manner in order to stimulate adaptive changes. Imposing a stretch on maximally contracted knee extensors may accomplish the task. Similar benefits can be obtained by preconditioning the same muscles with maximal isometric contractions at a long muscle length. Notably in both conditions, obtaining the greatest benefits hails from preceding maximal contractions. Such physiological and functional adaptations conceivably mitigate decrements in performance, injury risk and DOMS.  

So prepare your legs with some targeted intense lengthening work and you’ll be more than ready to hurl yourself happily & healthily down the hills when the time comes!