Uphill running

Uphill running

Uphill running has become more popular the last few years. There are more and more races arranged and more and more people attending. I guess this is some kind of trend which will quiet down after some time. Trend or not, this is a very good way to exercise your aerob capacity. It’s easy to maintain a steady high HR throughout the intervals. If it gets to steep, you can even switch to walking and still keep the HR up. A steady HR inside the zone you want is crucial to get progress.

What kind of intervals you choose to run is up to you, but there are some basics you have to follow. If you want to keep your level of fitness steady or if you want to improve, you have to stay in the chosen HR zone as long as needed. See table below.

Training effect table

Maximum HR in this table is set to 195. To find your max HR you need to test yourself. As a rule of thumb you can calculate 220 - your age.

	HR From	HR To	From %	To %	Develop	Maintain
Zone 1	117	140	60	72	> 2,5t	1 - 2t
Zone 2	141	160	72,1	82	> 1,5t	45 - 75 min
Zone 3	160	170	82,2	87	60 - 90 min	30 - 60 min
Zone 4	170	179	87,1	92	40 - 60 min	20 - 40 min
Zone 5	180	195	92,1	100	20 - 30 min	10 - 20 min

This table is intended for athletes. If we apply the 4x4 interval rule to the table it should look something like this for the regular person.

	HR From	HR To	From %	To %	Develop	Maintain
Zone 1	117	140	60	72	> 1,5t	45 - 75 min
Zone 2	141	160	72,1	82	> 1,0t	30 - 60 min
Zone 3	160	170	82,2	87	30 - 60 min	20 - 30 min
Zone 4	170	179	87,1	92	16 - 32 min	10 - 16 min
Zone 5	180	195	92,1	100	10 - 15 min	5 - 10 min