Are you one of those runners who has trouble keeping up with the rest of the field on the downhill sections of a course? It can be very frustrating. You work hard during a race to finish in your best possible time, and in the best possible place, BUT, every time you get to a downhill people come screaming past you. You’ll be even more frustrated to find out that they are gaining time on you with little or no effort!

It takes a lot more effort to overtake people on the flat, and especially uphills, than it does to breeze past them on the downhills, because if you run downhill efficiently, gravity is doing most of the work for you.

Becoming a fast downhill runner comes down to these three factors:

  • Confidence
  • Technique
  • Strength
Confidence

A lot of people get nervous when they run downhills. Nervous that it will make their knees sore, nervous that they might roll an ankle, and nervous because it is outside the normal pace that their brain is used to.

How many of you do uphill reps as part of your training plans?
  • Uphill reps are a great way to make any runner stronger and faster. It doesn’t matter whether you are looking to improve your 5km PB, wanting to get faster in a road marathon, or you are training for a hilly trail ultra marathon, uphill reps will help to strengthen your glutes, hamstrings and quads and, over time, will turn you into a stronger, more efficient runner.
How many of you have ever practised downhill reps?
  • Doing Downhill reps is so rare that is actually sounds a bit stupid. Why waste your time doing downhill reps when you could be making yourself stronger by running uphills? Why – because if you can’t run downhills confidently, you’ll never reach your true racing potential.

The best way to gain more confidence running downhills is to practice running downhills. But, make sure you start with an easy session and gradually build up over a number of weeks.

An example of a downhill training session to start with:

  • Find a hill of about 200m long at a gentle gradient of about 5-6 degrees. Warm up by running for 10-15 minutes, then do 5 hill repeats where you run up slowly, or even walk up if you need to, and run down at a “steady” effort. By “steady” I mean the sort of effort you would put in if you were trying to get a 10km PB. At the end of the reps you should cool down again with another 10-15 minutes of easy running.
  • Don’t worry about your pace on these downhill reps, just focus on the level of effort. Your pace will be significantly faster than 10km race pace because you are doing them downhill.

Expect to pull up a bit sore from the first few of these sessions. Especially in your quads, but possibly also with slightly niggly knees. When we run downhills we use our quad muscles as a brake, which causes micro tears in the muscle cells, which in turn, causes DOMs (delayed onset of muscle soreness). After two or three downhill rep sessions, you’ll find that your legs will feel fine, and that you can gradually step the sessions up a notch.

The way to progress these downhill rep sessions would be either to do more reps, do them on a longer hill, or to make them steeper (but don’t increase all three of these variables at the same time).

Make sure you read the section below on downhill running technique before you race out the door for your first downhill training session! Bad technique running downhill causes a lot of injuries.

If you practice these downhill reps once a week, over several weeks your legs will get stronger and your confidence will improve.

Technique

One of the easiest and fastest ways to improve your downhill running is to improve your technique. Just like running on the flat, when you run downhill you should be taking small steps and keeping your cadence high.

When we run downhill gravity is doing a lot of the work for us, so it doesn’t put much stress on our heart and lungs. Because of this, it is easy to inadvertently overstride when you speed up.

If you keep your strides short and increase your cadence it will help to save your quads and knees from injury.

Watch this video to learn more about downhill running technique:

What should your cadence be when running down a hill?

I am a firm believer that we should all run with a cadence of between 175 – 185 steps/minute. There are a lot of reasons for this which you can read about in THIS ARTICLE. A cadence of less than 175 puts more stress on your calf muscles and achilles tendons. A cadence of higher than 185 puts more stress on your heart and lungs, without there being any additional benefit in terms of reducing your stride length or improving your calf muscle efficiency.

When we run downhills and gravity is working with us, your heart and lungs don’t have to work very hard, so it is ok to let your cadence increase (even up to 200 steps/minute) if it helps to keep your stride short. It all comes down to how fast you want to be running.

If you are happy “cruising” down a hill at a comfortable pace, then a cadence of 180 and a short stride is perfect.

If you are racing down a hill at the edge of your comfort zone, then a cadence of 200 and a short stride, is preferable to a cadence of 180 and a long stride.

Are you worried about rolling an ankle?

If you are worried about rolling an ankle running down a hill, especially on a technical single track, then there are a few more things that you can consider.

  • Practice makes perfect
    • The more downhill running you have done, the better you will become. Try to pick some routes on your training runs which replicate the courses you are going to be racing on, and gradually start increasing your speed on the downhills.
  • What type of shoes you are wearing
    • Most of our stability when we run should come from “proprioception”. Proprioception is like your 6th sense which subconsciously lets your brain know what your body is doing. We have up to 200,000 nerve endings on the sole of each foot. These nerve endings send signals back to our brains to tell us what our foot and ankle is doing. The thicker and softer the padding on your shoes, the less efficient these nerve endings work, and the more likely you are to roll an ankle.
    • If you have sprained your ankles a few times, then you should look to run in a shoe which is firm. It can still have a reasonable amount of padding, but when you squish the sole of the shoe between your thumb and finger, there shouldn’t be too much give.
    • You should buy your shoes from a reputable specialist running store where you can ask the staff for a “shoe with a firm / hard midsole” – they should understand what you are talking about.
  • Strapping your ankles
    • Strapping your ankles properly can make a huge difference to your confidence when you run down hills, and significantly reduce the chances of rolling an ankle. If strapped properly, using the right sort of tape, it will also be comfortable and easy to run in. Watch THIS VIDEO to learn how to strap them.
  • Stability Exercises
    • Once you have rolled an ankle once or twice they become significantly less stable. If this is something you experience, then you need to do some stability exercises to strengthen the muscles around your foot and ankle to improve your proprioception.
Strength

The final piece in the puzzle of becoming a fast downhill runner is to have strong quads. As mentioned above, your quads work like brakes when you run downhills, to stop you from going too fast and falling over. Running downhill is the best running-specific way to make them stronger, but there are also a few exercises you can do which will help to strengthen your quads like jump squats, and other similar plyometric type exercises.

Watch this video to see how it should be done. Kilian Journet is one of the world’s best ultra runners, and an absolute mountain goat when it comes to running down hills.