r/trailrunning • u/Mart1nBU • 12h ago

Threshold training(VK uphill specific)

Hello, looking for some tips on VK uphill specific threshold training. My problem is that, since moving, I dont have big enough hills around me to do one of my favourite workouts; a continuous uphill thershold sesh (example: 5x6’/2’ 6’ run 2’ light zigzag hiking). A big race with a ton of elev. gain is coming up and I want to increase specificity in my training so I can think of these options:
1. shorter intervals, longer rest, lightly running downhill inbetween
2.include downhill intervals
3.stationary bike(seems specific enough)

Let me break down my opinion on each of these:
1. To be clear I have no idea why most threshold workouts have short rest times, if its just to shorten the duration of the workout or it has some actual way of improving the adaptations that the workout is trying to stimulate. Still, lighly running downhill feels counter-intuitive since even when going lightly the fatigue is still very notable.
2. Compared to one this trades off some specificity for a resemblence the of more traditional threshold workouts.
3. I can’t lie, thought of this on a whim, would be interested if anyone has actually tried this since I dont have access to a stairmaster :(

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u/Virtual_Opinion_8630 11h ago

use a treadmill?

control the gradient and speed. and you have an unlimited hill.

threshold training has short rests because you should be in a relatively controlled state. that's essentially what threshold is. quite hard but manageable up to say 40-50minutes if you're sorting of well trained in a race.

if the rests are too long then you'll eventually not be training your body to deal with lactate, then you're not getting the desired effect of the workout

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u/ThrowAway516536 11h ago

Treadmill, then you can run uphill. Stairmaster, then you can hike until you puke.

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u/Bone_Machine 1h ago

You can try including a downhill interval to break up the recovery. So a workout could be repeats of 6min up threshold, 1min down easy, 2min down hard, 1min down easy. Or change the numbers depending on the hill.