If you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, no doubt you’re thinking about heading back outdoors for your bootcamp sessions if your current COVID restrictions allow for it.
But you may have clients that are at various stages of running fitness after being holed up at home for almost 6 months.
So, we’ve complied these four drills to help improve your campers’ running endurance using stairs and hills. Use these drills individually to add to a bootcamp session, or combine some for a full running workout (add some great warm ups and finishers for a full session).
1. Short Distance Hills
Drill Length: 25-30 minutes
Equipment Needed: Nil
Environment: Large, open area with a variety of hills (600-1000m each)
Goal: To decrease 2km run time for fitness testing
Recommended Warm Up: Take a short jog to the location. Run through Run 1, pointing out landmarks along the way. Move into 1 leg partner push overs.
Clients will head out on several set runs around the park. Each run should take about 3-4 minutes (about 600-1000 metres). Use mapmyrun.com to plan out the courses in advance. Upon returning clients will perform a tri-set before having a short break and heading off on the next run.
Short Distance Runs:
Run 1 – Mostly flat with a gradual incline towards the end.
Run 2 – Flat, simple circuit or out and back run.
Run 3 – Mostly downhills with a steep incline at the end.
Strength Circuit:
Conduct each exercise for 15 reps. Perform 3 rounds after the first run, 2 rounds after the second run and 1 round after the third run.
- Pushups
- Band Shoulder Press
- Band Upright Row
Have a short break and head off for the next run.
2. Hill Run Challenge
Challenge workouts should be an important part of your bootcamps. A bit of competition is great for getting your clients to push themselves outside of their normal comfort zone.
You want to make your challenge workouts fairly difficult so that even the losing team(s) feels great knowing that completing the challenge alone was an awesome task. Which leads me to emphasize, always let everyone finish the challenge. Don’t stop as soon as the first team finishes and make sure you have allowed enough time for the challenge to be completed.
Drill Length: 50-60 minutes
Equipment Needed: Cones
Environment: Large, open area with a variety of hills
Goal: Challenge clients to work outside their comfort zone
Recommended Warm Up: Jog to the area with hills. Warm up the legs with some dynamic movements (leg kicks, lunges, butt kicks, etc)
Rules
- Clients will split into 2 teams (or more teams if you have 20+ clients). Try to handicap teams with a mixture of faster and slower runners.
- Teams are to complete a set number of hill runs (see below) in the fastest time possible. The first team to finish wins.
- Teams must stick together while completing runs with the exception of super long runs (see below).
How to set it up
Pick 4 or 5 different hills around your park. Clients will run multiples of their team number up each hill (eg. A team of 7 may have to run a certain time 10 x 7 times. Faster runners help the slower ones by running more times).
Try to pick a variety of hill lengths and gradients. Use cones to mark out shorter distances on long hills. I chose the following (n = number of clients on team):
- 60m steep hill – n x 5
- 80m gradual hill – n x 8
- 30m steep hill – n x 10
- 900m gradual incline – n x 2*
*The 900m run was an exception to the group stays together rule, I let teams send of 2 or 3 people at a time to run these laps while the rest did shorter hills. However, each group member had to run it at least once.
Bonus
I also had my clients perform 1/10th of their pushup fitness test every second run. For example: Tony made 42 pushups in his one minute fitness test. After every second run he must perform 4 pushups.
3 & 4. Stair Off
Description of workout location
The park I run my bootcamp in has a long set of stairs. The stairs are built in 5 stair sets (or flights) and there is about 15 sets (75 stairs total). It has a hand rail that runs along the first 8 sets that we can use for inverted rows and the like.
Next to this is a blue stone Amphitheatre (seen above) with more stairs and some rather large steps for sitting on. These large steps are a little higher then an exercise bench. You can replace these large steps in the workout with anything around the height of an exercise bench. Taking regular stairs two or three at a time should do the trick also.
Class concept
Split the group into two even groups. One group will complete mini class 1 with one trainer while the other completes mini class 2 with the other trainer. After approx. 18 minutes, clients will swap. If you a smaller group or only one trainer, simply keep the group together and perform the drills in written order.
Part 1
Drill Length: 15-20 minutes
Equipment Needed: Mats
Environment: Stairs (approx. 20-25 stairs up and back down)
Goal: Use stairs for a great crosstraining session for your clients
Recommended Warm Up: Jog to stair area. Complete this circuit 3 times: 10 jumping jacks, 10 pushups with hands on step, 10 mini-lunges, 10 squat pulses.
Pair up bootcampers and have them carry out 3 rounds of each superset. A1, B1 and C1 are the time keepers so clients swap once that exercise is completed.
A1. Run lap of steps (up about 20-25 stairs up and back down)
A2. Bench dips
B1. Step up, squat, step up (Increase squats by one on each step until six squats is reaches). e.g Step up right leg, one squat, step up left leg, two squats, step up right leg, … six squats)
B2. Plank with twist – alternate lifting an elbow off the ground while in plank
C1. 1-leg Squat to Step (10 ea. leg)
C2. Super-crunches
Spare time (if pairs finish early) – core work
Part 2
Drill Length: 15-20 minutes
Equipment Needed: Mats
Environment: Stairs (approx. 20-25 stairs up and back down), in flights – with handrails
Goal: Use stairs for a great crosstraining session for your clients
Have the clients complete the following circuit twice in a group. Take 1 minute on rows and pushups.
- 60 seconds Push Ups (feet elevated on stairs, level, hands on stairs)
- Run up entire stairs and back down
- 60 seconds Inverted Rows
- Run up 3 flights of stairs and then back down 1, then up 3 and down 1, continue in this pattern until the top is reached
- 60 seconds Push Ups
- Run up 2 flights of stairs and then back down 1
- 60 seconds Inverted Rows
Hey Trainer, need even more running drills?
Don’t run for the hills when you’re staring at a blank session planning document, yet again. Check out some more running drills here.
‘Planning Panic’ is part of why Kyle created the tool BootCraft, which is kind of like Bootcamp Ideas Premium. If you feel like planning your sessions takes up too much of your time each week, then this is definitely for you.
With BootCraft you can:
- Save time with our library of 900+ different drills (including 60+ running drills)
- Learn how to build great workouts with our mini bootcamp planning course
- Copy done-for-you workouts with our workout plans
- Learn new exercises thanks to our video library
- Tap into an amazing community of heart-centred trainers from around the world
Don’t just take our word for it, we recently asked Crafters (what we call BootCraft members) to review us on a third-party website. Here’s what one trainer said:
BootCraft is by far one of the best resources I’ve invested in as a personal trainer. The resources, community, genuine understanding of the challenges coaches and trainers face and always wanting to add continuous value to our community is really just awesome! Grateful I was referred to BootCraft when I first started out… years on and I am still engaged, still learning and know there is always value to be gained. Thanks so much for everything you and your team do Kyle!
– Stefanie Gillis
Theresa Prior has a mission to bring Mums and women together in a safe and supportive environment that just so happens to have fun fitness sessions at it’s core. She has been running her own personal training business since 2013. Theresa helps her clients understand that all aspects of their health are equally important.
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