CrossFit Newnan Daily WOD: 12-29-10

Why Hill Sprints Are The Fastest Way For Getting Strong, Fast, and Lean!!

Today you take advantage of the nice weather outside!!

You’re to find a hill and sprint up and walk down AMRAP

in 10 minutes!!

How many can you get??

Coach Notes:  

Joe Kenn, Jim Wendler, and Countless other  top strength and conditioning coaches swear by hill sprints for fat loss and conditioning. 

But why hill sprints?  Why not just plain, flat-land sprints?
Most people aren’t in good enough shape to run sprints!  If you haven’t ran a sprint since P.E. class in 1998 and are possibly carrying some extra poundage, going out to an open space and sprinting balls-out is a recipe for injury and disaster.  Most people new to sprinting proudly announce that they just “ran sprints for 45 minutes.”  No you didn’t.  And if you did, you need to notify the Olympic committee that you are on your way.  Nobody can run true sprints for 45 minutes.

Benefits of hill sprints

Safety.
The hill sprint is safer than a sprint on flat land because the incline forces you to slow down.  Most people get on flat land and run an all-out sprint and have their limbs flailing wildly and what happens?  They pull a muscle.  You can only go SO fast on an incline and you are still working extremely hard.

Preserves muscle.
The beauty of hill sprints is that they preserve all of your precious muscle because the work time is short!  A 5-10 second sprint is not enough time to start tapping into your muscle like other forms of high-intensity, long-duration cardio (think Spin, distance running – all highly catabolic).

Fat loss!
Hill sprints depend heavily on your muscular system.  Think of a hill sprint as a cross between cardio and weight lifting.  This means you get much more bang (fat burned) for your buck (time spent).

How far should you be sprinting?  I’d say between 20 – 40 yards, between 8 to 12 times, depending on the distance.  If you are brand new to hill sprints, start with 5 sprints.  Yes, 5.  Ease into it.

How often?  If you are just starting out, once a week.  After that, twice a week is plenty!  Hill sprints need recovery time just like anything else.  I typically choose to do hill sprints on my lower body lift days.  I find that it hinders my recovery time if I try to do them on separate days and still get my lifting in.

What should I do for a warm-up?  A warm-up is crucial.  Do not get lazy and skip it.  Take 5-10 minutes and do a dynamic warm-up.  Walk up the hill a couple of times, then jog up a couple of times, then run it once.  THEN start your sprints.  A full-bore sprint without a proper warm-up means injury!