2. Exploring: Lydiard Hills

30/05/22 15:10

Arthur Lydiard was the pre-eminent exponent of hill running. He is, for Vorsprung and perhaps even Peter Coe, the godfather of hill training.

At The Vorsprung Project, we use his hill sessions as the back-bone for winter work, whether you are a runner, soccer player, tennis player, rugby player, actually for any sports involvement. In fact, for anyone to gain strength and stability in the hips.

Every movement comes from the hips.

“You use your hips as a pendulum. This is a pivoting point for running. If the hip is to go at a faster frequency, the hip has to be strong. So most of my training works on very particular muscles.” Bernard Ouma.

We concentrate a lot of work on strengthening and mobilising the hip. The Lydiard Hills, are part of a 'package': they combine with 'The Vorsprung Dynamic Gym' sessions, to add function to the strength gained in the gym sessions.

Normally, performed over the autumn, winter and early spring seasons, they are split into two particular sessions.

The first, is a simple pyramid. The hill we use with our home-town group is perfectly split into seven segments, which fit this purpose. The second, is a High-Knee and Bounding session, using the same seven segments of path to map-out a series of reliable and functional sets.

The added benefit of hills performed in this way is, that, it embeds a shorter stride - a shorter stride is both better for performance and healthier for the knees. We are looking for people to be approaching 185+ steps per minute.

Additionally, at The Vorsprung Project, we see the change in middle-distance running. The 5000 metres race is much more akin to the old mile or 1500 metres. Whilst, the 1500 metres and mile are now like an old fashioned 800 metres race. As such, it is more strength that has moved times forward, not more running.

The advantage of strength, is that it relieves the pulmonary and cardiac system. We have observed how athletes are, now, able to sustain 1500 - 5000 metres in a way more similar to 400 and 800 metres. Once you have that strength, we have found, that, the athlete relieves the pulmonary and cardiac systems only engaging them when really necessary.

This makes these distances, closer to 60 / 40 in favour of strength as opposed to previously favouring aerobic. This evolution is borne out in our own studies, where we have trained people purely in strength (gym and hill work) and their middle and long-distance times have either remained the same or bettered after a year.

Having stronger hips everyday benefits, too. Post-sexagenarian people seem to begin to lose the lifting motion in their walking. At The Vorsprung Project we increase hip exercises to help counter and alleviate this ageing process.

In this case, hills don't have to be executed in a running motion. We use these sessions for rehabilitation and post-sexagenarian hip strengthening.

Truly an all round session.

© The Vorsprung Project 2022.