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Many running plans include some ‘hill training’, which generally consists of either running a hilly course, or running hard uphill to build strength, aerobic and anaerobic capacity. While these techniques can be useful, they do not focus on the most important part of the hill – the downhill. While the uphill may seem to be the difficult part of the hill, for endurance runners the greatest benefit comes from the downhill. When running uphill, a runner can reduce pace so that the effort is close to the effort on the flat. The impact on the [[Muscle|muscles ]] and joints is generally lower when going uphill than on the flat as the flight phase of the running stride has less decent than ascent.
<gallery widths=300px heights=200px caption="[[Muscle ]] damage from downhill running">
File:EccentricA.JPG|Muscle before downhill running<ref name="images"/>
File:EccentricC.JPG|Immediately after downhill running<ref name="images"/>. Notice the disruption to the dark bands (z-bands) that are part of the muscle structure showing there is immediate damage.