Have you ever been making your way down a hill during a run, perhaps feeling a little out of control or hesitant, when another runner sails past you like they are on roller-skates, effortlessly gliding like they were born to do this?
Or maybe you feel you can run down the hills fast, but don’t feel confident doing it? Read this to improve your downhill running technique and make your next run down a hill more fun!
The good news is that even if you aren’t one of the lucky few that instinctively knows how to run downhill, you can learn great form and technique to practice on your next hill run. Given time, patience and consistency, much like all your training, you’ll improve. Running hills is great strength work, even as part of a long or easy run. However, if this is new to you, remember to approach change gradually and let your muscles adapt to the hills over time.
Downhill Running Mechanics
First, let’s think about the effort level required on downhills. To drop your mass down a hill requires less effort than just travelling forwards on the flat. If you maintain pace, your heart rate and effort level will drop accordingly, as long as you can run down with smooth, relaxed running form. If you can speed up, you could keep your effort level constant.
However, once it gets very steep, you’ll find the effort level starts increasing again, which is a bit counter-intuitive. The thighs will start burning and the concentration required is mentally taxing too. Fast downhill running needs practice and sadly this is often missed in training sessions. Many sessions just focus on running hard uphill and then running slowly back down, before repeating. The only way to get good at running downhill fast is to practice it.
What is it that makes running downhill trickier than expected? Consider how the slope affects where your foot lands and also how the normal range of motion changes. Due to the slope, if you don’t change anything, there would be an extra few centimetres vertically between where your foot would normally land (during flat running) and where it eventually touches down when running down the hill.
Here you can see me running down a hill without changing anything and you can see that compared to where I would normally touch down on the flat, there’s an extra couple of inches of downwards and forwards travel before the foot eventually touches down, due to the slope.
Therefore, your body has had a fraction of a second more time to accelerate towards the Earth, so by the time you touch down, you are falling faster than you would normally on the flat. Your legs need a way to absorb the extra downwards force created by that drop, otherwise everything will suffer, especially your thighs.
Due to the hill, more of the load happens while landing than when pushing off. Therefore the leg muscles are working harder in the opposite direction to normal flat running. This is called Eccentric loading, so the muscles are working hard while getting longer, as the knee bends to absorb the forces. To better understand this eccentric loading, go back to the stairs or a step and walk down the stairs in super slow motion. As you reach down to the step below, the leg that is still on the step does all the work, starting from a straight leg and moving down into a bent knee position. The muscles in the supporting leg start short when the leg is straight and get longer as you drop down to the step below. Then turn around and step back up in super slow motion and you’ll immediately feel the difference. Have a go now.
This switch to eccentric loading of the muscles is another reason that practicing downhill running is important. It’s easy to get injured if you encounter this type of eccentric load for the first time in a race.
Downhill Running Technique
Since the ground drops away with each step during downhill running, there’s less need to lift the feet and knees quite so high, unless the terrain is rough or uneven. Indeed the rear foot will remain on the ground in a longer position, extending out behind you as you drop down the slope. This will feel different to when you run on the flat or uphill. That back foot is giving an extra layer of stability and control. Find a slope and run down it with and without extending your leg behind you to feel the difference.
If it’s a short race, you can power down the hill with wild abandon, as long as you have the confidence and hope that your legs hold out. For longer races with a fair few hills in, you’ll need to avoid smashing your thighs up, so here’s what to do. Take shorter steps with a higher cadence. This keeps you going at a rapid pace, but each step you take is softer because you don’t fall as far.
To achieve the higher cadence, you need to work on your “Whip”, so engage the glutes to actively pull the leg downwards to the ground as fast as possible, and engage the hamstring to prevent the calf from swinging out too far in front of you. Aim to get the foot back to the ground underneath you, rather than out in front.
If you feel a thud through your knees with each step on downhills, you need to work on engaging the hip flexors, lifting your feet back off the ground as soon as they touch down. Increasing cadence will go some way towards succeeding at this, but you might end up having to play “The Floor Is Lava” to really focus on this area, minimising ground contact time and alleviating pressure on the knees. Give it a go.
The video below shows a fairly steep, chalky descent. Watch “The Floor Is Lava” in action!
The way your feet touch the ground is also worth considering for the downhills. If you land heavily on your heels, there’s more chance of twisting your ankle on a steep hill due to that extra drop with each step. Try to land more on the midfoot, which is super stable. The shorter steps and higher cadence will promote this style of running anyway.
If you’ve ever run using Cross-Country Spikes, you’ll note that they only have grip (spikes) on the forefoot. It’s assumed that you’ll be landing on the forefoot / midfoot on the way down steep muddy slopes. If you try to land on the heels in them, you’ll slip over immediately.
A trap that many runners fall into with their downhill running technique is leaning backwards too much in the hope that it will slow them down, or at least keep speed under control. This puts the centre of mass too far behind the feet and leads to landing on the heels in an unstable way. It also actually makes it harder to control speed and puts more pressure on the thighs. Instead, lean forwards from the ankles a little bit if the slope will allow, but if it’s really steep, you’ll feel like you are leaning backwards a bit regardless of how much effort you put into forward lean.
So how do you control your speed on the downhills? To prevent yourself accelerating off down the hill, take shorter steps. This will let you use the hill for free speed with confidence, but it does take a while to master. If you don’t nail it the first time you try, please keep going in future runs till you master it. To slow down, take even shorter steps.
As the slope increases, and easy speed happens, you might want to raise the elbows out a bit for balance. You don’t need to drive the elbows back as much because the legs aren’t coming off the floor as much.
If there’s room, you could make the slope less steep by coming down it with a slight snaking action – imagine you are skiing / snowboarding down, carving nice lines in powder snow. This lets you traverse the slope most of the time instead of going straight down.
Keep your head up. Look far into the distance and flick your eyes down to check for hazards 10-20m in front of you. You are going faster downhill, so hazards will arrive even quicker. Look for the good pieces of ground between any hazards.
Finally, it’s worth trying to stay relaxed. If you tense up on the downhills, you won’t land as softly as you would like. What do you do if you notice yourself becoming tense? Slow down for a second, shake your arms and legs a little, before getting back up to speed, with more control and confidence.
Downhill Running Technique Summary
- Practice is essential, but hills should be approached gradually if you haven’t done any before
- Take shorter steps with a higher cadence – Whip the leg down as fast as possible
- Get the foot back to the ground underneath you, rather than out in front
- Floor is lava: lifting your feet back off the ground as soon as they touch down
- Land on the midfoot for stability
- Raise the elbows for balance on steep sections
- Keep your head up, looking for good pieces of ground between any hazards
- Stay relaxed
Shoes on the hills
Shoes come in a variety of “drops”. This refers to the difference in height between the heel and the forefoot. Some are flat, so zero drop. Others are higher at the heel than the forefoot, so have a measurable drop. Shoes with a higher drop are going to be more fun on the uphills because the ankle won’t have to endure quite the same range of motion. Shoes with a lower drop are going to be more fun on the downhills because they won’t tip the feet forward as much. This is just something to be aware of if you have more than one pair of shoes and you’ll come to your own conclusions on what works best for you overall.
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