Training is all about making yourself better than the day before. If you’ve been running for months, years or are just starting off, adding incline into your workout will make you a stronger runner. Starting off may be challenging, but these tips will help you fall in love with hill training on an incline treadmill:

Running with good form takes stress off unnecessary places. The less you have to worry about pain in odd places, the more you’ll focus on the important parts of running.

Leaning into the incline should be avoided. Your body should be tall and long, similar to a flat run. This will avoid lower back pain, and keep your chest large, giving your lungs full capacity to stretch and breath.

Inclines take more energy out of your body, so your breathing will change to keep up. Try to match your breathing with a step count. Every three to four steps should include an inhale and exhale.

To reach the top you have to dig deep. The harder your arms pump, the more additional momentum you get. That extra force will help you hit the incline stronger and faster.

A tight core keeps your abs and lower back engaged. This helps control your momentum, and also helps you sneak in some ab work while you run.

Running on an incline means your feet meet the ground a bit faster. Instead of your usual long strides, focus on small and quick steps. This will help you keep more energy, and avoid getting burned out quicker from your climb.

Hills come in all different inclines, and all start off at a reasonable slope. There’s never a need to jump into the highest incline immediately. Just like you pace your speeds, you should pace your inclines. Start anywhere from a 1% to 5% and once you’ve warmed up, continue to increase your incline. This helps warm up your muscles for the larger demand you plan to place on them.

Using a treadmill helps pull your body along slightly. Use this to your advantage when incline training. For lower inclines, you can run at higher speeds, and for higher inclines your speeds should be lower. Sometimes it’s all about finding that perfect medium where the speed and the incline perfectly match, and you feel fully comfortable.

One of the best rewards of incline running is how much faster your flat run becomes. After you’ve trained on an incline for a week, try a flat run to see how much faster you’ve become. That is guaranteed to make you love inclines!

Like any type of workout, something new can be challenging at first. The only way to perfect your incline run is to challenge yourself on them. Pace yourself and in a few weeks, all you’ll ever want to do is run incline.