Short Steep Hill Sprints

Definition: 9-30 second hill sprints up a steep hill at an effort similar to 400 meter race pace.

Types os Hill Sprints: These examples are based upon a 26 week season. Week 26 would be the peak race. Week 1 would be the beginning of your training cycle / easiest and slowest week.

  • Weeks 1-3: 9 second sprints up the steep hill; 6 repetitions; 5 minute walking rest

  • Weeks 4-5: 11 second sprints up the steep hill; 6 repetitions; 5 minute walking rest

  • Weeks 6-7: 13 second sprints up the steep hill; 6 repetitions; 5 minute walking rest

  • Weeks 8-9: 15 second sprints up the steep hill; 6 repetitions; 5 minute walking rest

  • Weeks 10-11: 17 second sprints up the steep hill; 5 repetitions; 2 x 12 second long bounds; 2 x 12 second high bounds; 6 minute walking rest;

  • Weeks 12-13: 21 second sprints up the steep hill; 5 repetitions; 2 x 12 second long bounds; 2 x 12 second high bounds; 6 minute walking rest;

  • Weeks 14-15: 23 second sprints up the steep hill; 5 repetitions; 2 x 12 second long bounds; 2 x 12 second high bounds; 6 minute walking rest;

  • Weeks 16-17: 27 second sprints up the steep hill; 4 repetitions; 2 x 12 second long bounds; 2 x 12 second high bounds; 6 minute walking rest;


Technique: We prefer slightly smaller, very fast steps up the hill. You do NOT have to focus on tiny steps - just make sure you are not taking gigantic steps.


Video Example: The goal of this video is to show the viewer what this workout looks like, as well as to explain some of the details.

Video Block
Double-click here to add a video by URL or embed code. Learn more


Purpose: We believe this workout contributes to improved neuromuscular coordination and a more powerful stride. We believe the consistency of this workout, along with the weight training, along with the short sprints workout develops better and faster athletes.


How Often: Once every 7-14 days. This workout is done about 34 weeks per year.

Warm-up: We do about a 35-45 minute jog and sprint drill / sprinter’s warm-up. This should look like a meet warm -up.

Who does this workout: Just about all of our runners, from short sprinters to 10,000m runners. Once the athlete demonstrates world class closing speed for their event, you can back away from this workout being done weekly.

  • This workout, combined with our short track sprints workout, leads our athletes to about 800 - 1000 very high speed meters each week. That amounts to a little less than 1% of our weekly mileage / kilometers.


Bounding Up the Steep Hill: We start bounding up the steep hill around Week 10. There are long bounds (taking longer than normal steps up the hill), and there are high bounds (taking very high leaps up the hill).


The last 9 weeks of our season is spent mostly on the track / working on shorter, higher speed workouts. At this point we remove the Short Steep Hill Sprints. Notice, there is a predictable progression throughout the season.