Does Running on Hills Make You Lose Calories?

Running on hills can annihilate calories, if you are up to the challenge. While moderate aerobic activity on flat land, like running on a track or a treadmill, is efficient for burning calories, adding hills into your running routine is markedly more effective. Take your cardio to the next level by burning calories with an uphill running workout.

Calories Burned by Running

• Aerobic exercise, like running, is the most efficient way to burn calories. But you can burn even more calories when you make your aerobic activity more difficult. Adding hills into your running routine will definitely increase the challenge. For every 5 percent increase in grade -- a small change in topography -- you can burn up to five more calories a minute than running on flat land. Take shorter, higher strides than you would on level land and swing your arms more forcefully to make the most of your workout.

Muscles Burn Calories

• Besides the fact that hills push your heart rate and your oxygen consumption to increase, they also challenge your muscles more than running on flat land. Your quads strain to push your body uphill, which helps you build stronger thigh muscles. This is a huge bonus for burning calories, because muscle tissue burns more calories than fat tissue. By increasing your strength with uphill runs, you will increase the amount of muscle tissue in your body, increasing your body's ability to burn calories more efficiently.

Break it Up

• Running uphill has many advantages, but it is also extremely difficult. Make the most of your time and energy by doing running sprints for short periods of time uphill with an interval workout. After jogging to warm up for 10 minutes, run uphill quickly for 20 seconds. Walk briskly for two minutes and then repeat this four more times, switching on and off between the brief hard runs and the longer recovery walks for a total of five sprints. If you combine this with two miles of running on flat land you can torch up to 340 calories a session. You may end up a happier runner, too, since high-intensity interval training has been linked to a greater enjoyment of running.

Lack of Oxygen

• You should be careful running up hills that are located at high elevations. Oxygen is harder to access the higher you get, and that can lead to hypoxia. Hypoxia is a lack of oxygen in your body, which can result in fatigue, injury and even death. If you feel dizzy, light-headed or like you can't see very well while running at a higher elevation, take a break. Hill-running is an effective method for burning calories, but you should be mindful of your health and safety when embarking upon this challenging exercise.