This past weekend, I was at a high school cross country meet. I spent a good amount of time watching the runners go both down a good hill and then back up it after looping around a bit.
It’s amazing to see the various teams go down the hill. You can really see which teams give downhill running a good focus and which ones don’t really worry about it.
So, if you’re going to give some focus to downhill running, what should you work on?
The truth is downhill running isn’t much different from any other running but the natural instinct for most people is to do exactly the wrong thing.
There are a few things to focus on when running downhill. Some of this might sound familiar.
Hips forward
Just like with uphill running, you want to lean into the downhill as much as you safely can. Just like uphill running, you want a full body lean. So keep your hips forward.
By keeping your hips forward, you will set yourself up to “fall” down the hill, letting gravity do the work for you. All you need to do is keep your feet under you. If you get good at it, you can run down a hill at incredibly fast pace while actually not working hard at all. When I get some practice in, I can go down hills faster than I could sprint but get to the bottom breathing less hard than I was at the top.
Obviously, you need to be careful how far you lean in. Using gravity is great but you need to make sure your legs can keep up with your pace. However, you can counter balance some by leaning your shoulders back (as you can see the girl in front doing in the photo above).
Quick steps
One thing I noticed at the meet this past weekend was that some of the runners were bounding down the hill. While a long stride can be good on downhills (see below) you don’t want to get that long stride at the cost of your turnover.
Keep your cadence high. If anything, it should be higher than it would be on level ground. Ideally, you’re turning your feet over on the downhill as fast as you can move them.
Open up your stride
You can only turn over your legs so fast. In order to carry more speed, open up your stride. As I mentioned above, be careful to not bound with very long stride but slow cadence. That said, as much as you can while still keeping your cadence up, you do want to lengthen your stride.
When you lengthen your stride, do so by pushing out the back. Don’t reach out in front of your body or you’re essentially going to be riding the brakes on the downhill. You’ll use energy to slow yourself down.
Practice but do so carefully
Finally, a note about practicing good downhill form.
As good as it is to practice good downhill form on your training runs, be careful about really leaning into the hill too frequently in training. Good downhill running form does increase impact forces. Do it too much and you’ll increase your risk of injury, especially in the feet and lower legs. Practice cautiously and sparingly.