Incline Treadmill Workouts

• Warm up by walking for 2 minutes
• Run easy for 5 minutes
• Run for 90 seconds at a 4 to 5% incline at a pace that elevates your effort to the Red Zone (hard effort, breathing vigorously, can’t talk); recover with a very easy jog at 0 percent incline for 3 minutes
• Repeat 8 times
• Run easy for 5 minutes
• Cool down by walking for 2 minutes

The quality of your performance on the hill intervals depends greatly on the quality of your easy jog recovery in between, say run coach Jenny Hadfield. Make sure to go slowly enough to get your breathing and heart rate down before you attempt the next hill interval.

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Power Hill Workout

• Warm up by walking for 2 minutes
• Run easy for 8 minutes
• Run 5 minutes at a 1% incline and at a pace that elevates your effort level to the top of the Orange Zone, or Zone 4, if you use a heart rate monitor
• Jog or walk for 2 minutes to recover
• Run 5 minutes at a 2% incline and at a pace that elevates your effort level to where it was on the previous hill
• Jog or walk for 2 minutes to recover
• Run 5 minutes at a 3% incline and at a pace that elevates your effort level to where it was on the previous hill
• Jog or walk for 2 minutes to recover
• Run 5 minutes at a 4% incline and at a pace that elevates your effort level to where it was on the previous hill
• Jog or walk for 2 minutes to recover
• Run easy for 5 minutes
• Cool down by walking for 2 minutes

Run coach Jenny Hadfield says the secret to running this workout optimally is to tune into your effort level (or heart rate) and find the pace that puts you in the target zone on the given day. The pace will slow as the incline increases with each repetition.

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Incline Tempo Workout

• Warm up by walking for 2 minutes
• Run easy for 8 minutes
• Run 1 mile at a 3% incline at an easy effort in the Yellow Zone or Zone 2 for heart rate; after each mile, run 2 minutes at 0 percent incline, at a faster, but controlled Orange Zone (or Zone 3 heart rate) effort to simulate the speed of running downhill; then, run 1 minute easy (Yellow Zone) at 0% before moving on to the next rep
• Repeat 3 times
• Run easy for 5 minutes
• Cool down by walking for 2 minutes

Adjust your speed to truly run easy on the incline, says running coach Jenny Hadfield. If you can’t hold the incline within the easy Yellow Zone, lower the incline percentage or powerwalk it until you build the fitness to do so. Ultrarunners train and race with run-walking to keep their effort at an appropriate level, and it pays off with energy conservation during longer runs and races.

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Mindful Long Incline Workout