Hill Sprints

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  • posted by duckstrained
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    Hi – this is my first post. Been following the BSD since 31 March and have lost 8.5lb. I have a further 4 st or so to lose. I am doing more of a 4:3 pattern – I kind of lose it by Friday but still carry on with the Med style eating for the weekend. Week days at work I have been fasting until about 2pm and having a cup of bone broth and then a small avocado about 3pm and having a nice dinner about 6 when I get home with some plain greek yogurt for pudding and maybe a nibble of cheese.

    So far my exercise has been walking 10k steps a day, a beginners course in Nordic Walking, and some walk/jog half hour sessions and doing short sessions of kettle bells. Today I thought I would try some hill sprints as per the Fast Exercise book. I am looking to improve my cardio fitness.

    I live on the brow of a short and fairly steep hill that I can run up in just shy of 30 seconds. I started by walking round the block for a few minutes, running up the hill, walking to the end of the road and back to the bottom of the hill and so on with a few more minutes cool down. Luckily the builders working across the road do not seem to be around today lol.

    Below is a link to the file I got from my Microsoft Band. Can I assume I am doing this correctly? According to the calculator on the Fast Exercise web site my 90% heart rate is 157 and my max is 174, so I am going just over 90%. There is a big spike of 198 on the second sprint but I think that could just as easily be down to the band. I have noticed these on other workouts when there seems no reason behind it. My finishing heart rate was 110 so I guess I recovered OK. I would be grateful for any comments or encouragement 🙂

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/gv6r70kezn4lfrr/Workout.jpg?dl=0

  • posted by Hawks
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    Hi duckstrained,
    I am no expert, but it does sound as though you are doing the High Intensity Training thing right to me based on the book’s description. Are you pretty knackered as you reach the brow of the hill? How long in seconds does that sprint last? 10-20 seconds is apparently the target.
    Hills are quite handy for a good workout aren’t they? I live on one too and use it for uphill sprints. The first few I did were just jogs, but now I can get a little bit of genuine speed on them.

  • posted by duckstrained
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    Hi, Hawks. Thanks for your comments. When I was timing it it took me about 28 seconds to get up there and yes I would find it hard to carry on any further when I get there. I would say my sprint is more of a lumber but it is all relative to fitness isnt it?

    In the Fast Exercise book there are a few options for length of sprints, recovery and intensity. I live at the top of a big hill in three directions (the one outside of my house is really an up and down dip) so there is plenty of scope to try out the variations. One is to walk up a hill at full tilt for 4 minutes which I could do on the walk from the station but it has to be 8-10% gradient and I don’t know how to measure that. It says it is pretty steep but how steep is pretty steep?!

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