One of the most basic and effective workouts in your training arsenal is the progression run. to boost fitness, train their bodies to run faster while fatigued, and speed recovery. The workout isn’t just for elites, however; it can also be a great training tool for competitive age-group runners and recreational runners alike. Not only can progression runs effectively improve your race fitness without requiring additional recovery time, they can add variety to your weekly training regimen and spice up your long, slow runs.

Simply put, a progression run is any run in which you begin slowly and gradually increase your pace to finish faster than you started. There are many different types of progression runs and each has a slightly different goal: building fitness, sharpening up for races, developing speed and endurance, even enhancing recovery.

Benefits of a Starting Slowly

A allows the body to thoroughly warm up at a slower pace before speeding up to a pace that requires more muscle power, greater hip extension and more agile movements. If you try running fast from the start of a run before your respiratory, circulatory and muscular systems can warm up, you not only run the risk of injury but you also greatly increase lactic acid production by stressing your anaerobic system too much.

Another big benefit of inserting progression runs into your training schedule a couple of times per week is they allow you to increase your volume of up-tempo training more quickly than you would if you kept all of your recovery runs, maintenance runs and long runs at a slow, methodical pace. To race fast, you have to train fast, but hard track workouts or sustained race-pace runs can beat you up and require several easy days between them. Progression runs add intensity but bring on considerably less fatigue than workouts that hit it hard from the outset, and therefore require less recovery and can be done more often. In fact, a light progression at the end of a recovery run can actually speed recovery from a previous day’s hard workout and give your body a better chance to absorb the harder session.

Longer progression runs can be an effective way to increase mechanical efficiency by forcing a runner to increase stride length and stride cadence while the body is fatigued and form has started to break down. In essence, the increased pace and stride adaptations at the end of a progression run can act as the equivalent of dynamic stretching while you’re running.

Progression run workouts are best run by feel or perceived effort, but they can also be gauged by heart rate or actual pace. Developing that sense of effort takes time, and while it’s important to err on the side of slightly too slow instead of too fast, the most important consideration is to keep your up-tempo paces consistent so your body can begin to understand what it feels like to run at a sustained pace. An added benefit: you’re building pacing skill and confidence in a negative-split approach as fast miles speed by comfortably late in the workout.

The variations you can create are limitless, from to short, steady step ups in pace.

Here are four types of progression runs I use in my coaching:

Easy Progression Runs

These are often run without even being aware of it. On a recovery run the day after a hard workout or long run, most runners tend to start out slower than they ordinarily would because of lingering fatigue and possibly some soreness, and that’s a good thing. Aside from allowing the body to warm up, starting slow and then increasing your pace a notch on a recovery or easy maintenance run can also boost the aerobic system and aid active recovery. A slight progression during the second half of a recovery run can help flush lactic acid out of your legs and add a little more zip into what might normally be a slow, lethargic run.

When: Twice a week, when appropriate.

How: Run 15–30 minutes at a very slow pace on flat or slightly rolling terrain, followed by the same duration at a slightly faster (but still very easy) pace on the same type of terrain. In short: run slowly overall, but start out very slow.

Mid-Range Progression Runs

Medium to long in length, these workouts are geared at boosting the aerobic system by adding an increased aerobic stimulus once the body starts to tire halfway through a run. Studies have shown when a runner increases aerobic resistance after they’ve become glycogen-depleted (in other words, start running low on fuel), the body produces considerably more aerobic enzymes, which in turn helps the body do a better job of processing lactate. The net result is that it allows you to run at a faster pace longer before you fatigue. The mid-range progression run helps prevent long runs from becoming tight, monotonous shuffles in which the stride length gets too short and neuromuscular timing goes flat.

When: Once a week.

How: Head out for a 12- to 14-mile run in which the second half of the run is completed at a moderate pace, or a longer run done mostly at an easy pace, but with the final 30 minutes at a moderate pace. Try some variation of a moderate progression run one or two days after harder workout days such as an interval session. If you’re not doing aerobic work after those harder days, you’re not going to strengthen your specific endurance for your goal race.

Pre-Marathon Progression Runs

These are harder and longer progression runs that typically involve running at half-marathon race pace or faster for extended periods of time. They are used to briefly stimulate the aerobic and metabolic systems, but without putting either system in too much distress. These types of progression runs allow a runner to simulate the pace and some of the fatigue of a race without complete breakdown that an extended hard effort might bring on.

When: Once or twice late in a marathon training cycle.

How: Run 16 to 18 miles in which the first half is done at a moderate pace and the second half is at 80 to 95 percent of half-marathon race pace.

Threshold Progression Sets

These types of workouts will help boost your race-day fitness thresholds by running hard for relatively short distances at speeds faster than race pace with short rest.

When: Once every few weeks during a marathon race buildup.

How: After a thorough warm-up, run 3 x 3-mile repeats, running the first mile of the three-mile segment at marathon pace followed by a one-minute jog. Run the second mile at half-marathon pace followed by a one-minute jog, and run the final mile at 10K race pace. Jog easily for three minutes after the set, then repeat the set twice more at the same pace.

Matt Fitzgerald details three types of .

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One of the signature training methods I use with my runners are steep . These short, maximum-intensity efforts against gravity provide two key benefits:

• First, they strengthen all of the running muscles, making the runner much less injury-prone.

• Second, they increase the power and efficiency of the stride, enabling the runner to cover more ground with less energy in race circumstances.

These are significant benefits from a training method that takes very little time and is fun to do.

My runners don’t lift any weights. Except for a little core conditioning work, steep hill sprints are the only strength training they do, and they do them year-round, because you need strength at all times in the training process.

If you have never done a steep hill sprint before, you should not leap into a set of 10 of steep hill sprints the very first time you try them. These efforts place a tremendous stress on the muscles and connective tissues. Thus, the careless beginner is at some risk of suffering a muscle or tendon strain or another such acute injury when performing steep hill sprints. Once your legs have adapted to the stress they impose, steep hill sprints actually protect against injury. But you must proceed with caution until you get over the hump of those early adaptations.

First Hill Session

Your very first session, performed after completion of an easy run, should consist of just one or two 8-second sprints on a steep incline of approximately six percent. If you don’t know what a six-percent gradient looks or feels like, get on a treadmill and adjust the incline to six percent. Then find a hill that matches it. Or use a GPS watch and mapping tool that shows elevation and grade to find an appropriate hill.

Your first session will stimulate physiological adaptations that serve to better protect your muscles and connective tissues from damage in your next session. Known to exercise scientists as the “,” these adaptations occur very quickly. If you do your first steep hill sprints on a Monday, you will be ready to do another session by Thursday — and you will almost certainly experience less muscle soreness after this second session.

Power Up

Thanks to the repeated bout effect, you can increase your steep hill sprint training fairly rapidly and thereby develop strength and stride power quickly.

Keeping with two steep hill sessions per week, increase the number of eight-second sprints you perform each session by two per week. Once you’re doing eight to 10 sprints on the 6-percent hill, move to 10-second sprints and a steeper, eight-percent hill. After a few more weeks, advance to 12-second sprints on a 10-percent hill. You should not go longer than this or you will change the energy system, the intensity, and the effect of the workout.

Always allow yourself the opportunity to recovery fully between individual sprints within a session. In other words, rest long enough so that you are able to cover just as much distance in the next sprint as you did in the previous one. Simply walking back down the hill you just ran up should do the trick, but if you need more time, take it. Resist the urge to jog down and hit the next repeat quickly; hill sprints are solely a muscular-strength workout and reducing recovery will not add to the workout but reduce the intensity of your sprints and their effectiveness.

Most runners will achieve as much strength and power improvement as they can get by doing 10 to 12 hill sprints of 12 seconds each, twice a week. Once you have reached this level and have stopped gaining strength and power, you can cut back to one set of 10 to 12 hill sprints per week. This level of maximum power training will suffice to maintain your gains through the remainder of the training cycle.

Very few distance runners perform any truly maximum-effort running in their training. That’s a shame, because it is very beneficial and quite exhilarating. Try my steep hill sprints and see for yourself!

Adapted from an article that was originally published October 2018.

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