How to run up and down hills a lot easier

With these Chirunning tips you won’t have to fear or avoid hills any more

With the right technique you can actually start looking forward to hills.

Fri Apr 25 2014 - 11:00

Many runners fear (or avoid) hills. They arrive at the top of a hill breathless with their legs burning. They spend the entire hill wishing they were at the top.

But imagine hills feeling easy. Imagine looking forward to hills. With ChiRunning Technique, you can take some of the pain and pressure out of running on hills.

A lot of us overwork our lower legs when running up a hill, we take big steps, look down and use a lot of energy to move the body upwards. We also reduce our lung capacity and feel breathless. With Chirunning we take the pressure out of our legs and use our core and arms to help up run up the hill

Uphill Technique

READ MORE

We can’t use gravity, so we will use our arms and core

- Use your arms: punch up from waist to ears.

- Take small steps: like walking up stairs

- Land with your whole foot on the ground: Avoid running on your toes

- Relax your legs: take small steps

- Look up the hill, don’t bend at waist, keep tall

- Relax lower legs, don’t push off toes

- Lean into hill - your body should be ahead of your legs

- Imagine there is a string pulling you from chest up the hill

- Three quick reminders: Use the arms, look up where you going, small Steps.

Downhill Technique

Gravity will take you down the hill

- Let the body relax

- Drop and loosen arms

- Let hips relax and rotate

- Relax legs and shoulders

- Let body fall down hill

- Feel like a rag doll

- Let your upper body lead

Mary Jennings

Mary Jennings, a running coach and founder of ForgetTheGym, is a contributor to The Irish Times