0 Climbing Hills. Build Strength AND Speed!

It's very easy to get into a routine in your cycling that includes lots of long, flat rides that build fitness and endurance, but can lead to your fitness plateauing and boredom setting in.  Hill climbs are a great way to build leg strength, cardio-vascular fitness, and just as importantly, mental toughness that can help you push yourself harder and faster on race day.

True climbers are a strange breed.  Small framed, lean and weighing about 60kgs dripping wet.  You see them every year in the Giro and Tour de France, dancing on their pedals as the rest of the Peloton dies a slow, painful death on the slopes of Alpe d'Huez.  They have the innate ability to continue to accelerate regardless of the gradient, and seem almost superhuman in their ability to ride through pain. 

You don't have to be Marco Pantani or Alberto Contador to climb well.  The good news is that you can train to be a better climber, and the benefits to your flat, fast rides, and even your running will be noticeable.  

You should try to include a hill session into your weekly routine.  You don't need to train in the Alps, just find some nearby hilly terrain and get into it!

Here are some tips to improving your climbing:

• Keep your cadence high.  You'll use a lot less energy, and be able to climb a lot longer if you spin a smaller gear at a higher cadence.  If you load up a big gear and mash your pedals, you'll quickly burn up your legs.
• Stay in your saddle. You will be able to climb more efficiently if you stay on the back of your saddle.  Standing up and dancing on your pedals, whilst good for short bursts and attacks, will quickly lead to that all too familiar lactic burn and you'll fade out a lot quicker.
• Ride smooth.  Keep your pace steady and ride smooth.  Constant accelerations and decelerations are a great way to break up a pack, but it will obviously sap your energy as well.  
• Relax. Keep your hands light on the tops of your bars.  You'll tire yourself out if you are hanging on with an unnecessary death grip, and riding on the hoods or down on your drops will make it harder to breath. 
• Go hard.  As with any exercise, if you train with intensity, your fitness will improve faster.  Try to incorporate some high-intensity intervals into your climbing sessions.  Your leg strength will greatly benefit from the repeated uphill attacks.  This strength will directly translate to speed when you come to riding on the flat again.

You'll find that as you become more used to climbing, and the pain that comes with it, you will be not only stronger, but more mentally adept at handling the pain that comes on race day. Varying your cycle training is a great way to add variety, and improve your allround performance. 

0 Train Like You Mean It! Making The Most Of Your Workouts.

 I've got a confession to make.  In the past I often didn't work as hard as I could when I trained.  I backed off momentarily during a run, slowed down for a light that was still green, or tucked in behind another cyclist for a couple of kilometres to enjoy the free ride that drafting provides.  Now these are not sins that will condemn me to eternal damnation, but as someone with limited time to train, I can't afford to be wasting time by not giving 100%.  So I made a promise to myself that I will always make the most out of every minute of every workout.

Realistically, most people aren't worried about preparing for races, or running personal bests every week.  Most of us just want to be a bit fitter and more in shape.  The one unifying factor is that none of us have a lot of time to fit in exercise around our increasingly hectic work, social and family commitments.  That's why it makes sense to treat every workout as if it is an Olympic final.

 

Here are some of the ways I try to boost the value of my workouts:

Keep track of your progress:

I run at least three times a week, and use Nike+ GPS to keep track of my speed and distance as I run.  To ensure that I'm not slacking off and to minimise any chance of coasting, I always decide on an average speed or split time that I want to maintain, and use the Nike+ audio feedback to keep me on target.  I've found that since I started doing this, as obsessive as it sounds, my average run speed has increased, and I'm regularly going faster over every distance that I run up to Half Marathon.  As a pretty competitive guy, I often find myself pushing a lot harder towards the end of my runs in order to beat a previous best or to come in ahead of target. If you don't have or use Nike+, you could do something as simple as taking note of the time it takes you to reach certain landmarks on your regular run routes, and try and match or beat this each time you hit the road.

Don't let someone else do the work for you:

Every cyclist out there has used a fellow rider as a rolling windbreak at one time or another.  Closely drafting another cyclist can mean you use about 30% less energy/power than if you were riding out there in the wind alone.  Whilst tucking out of a brutal headwind can be a blissful experience, particularly on a long ride, if you're not actually racing, you're just shortchanging yourself.  When I train on my own, I try to treat each ride as if it is an individual time trial.  I imagine that the people in front of me are other competitors in a triathlon and resist the temptation to draft them regardless of how knackered I'm feeling.  I've been riding regularly for a few years now and had found that my average speed had plateaued.  I eventually realised that this way because I was soft pedalling behind other riders for about half of every ride I did.  Since I began to ride solo, my average speed in a triathlon has increased between 12-15%.  Not much when you see it written, but a big difference when you consider the time savings over a long course triathlon.  The added leg strength and endurance has also greatly aided my run leg too.

Pretend you're in a race:

I run a couple of times a week with one of the guys from my office, and he has often laughed at my over the top competitiveness.  We run The Tan before work and I have a very real aversion to having people pass me as I run.    Should someone pass me, I invariably find myself lifting my cadence and trying to catch and re-pass them.  Much to the amusement of Tim, who just shakes his head at my ego.  I also like to imagine that runners ahead of me are competitors in some imaginary race, and push myself to reel them in before we reach some equally imaginary finish line.  Writing this, I realise how silly all of this is, but I think that this sort of internal competition is a great way to increase the intensity of a workout.  When I look at my run times, I can always tell when I've tried to "beat" some unknowing jogger and 've got no doubt that "racing" has helped my fitness greatly.  It also helps to condition me to pushing harder over the last few kms of a race in order to pass as many other people as possible.  If you can finish strong, you will be amazed at how many places you can pick up in the closing miles as others begin to tire.

Now I know that this approach to training will only appeal to certain people, but using these tips can add some much needed zip to a training session, and help to take your mind off the pain you're feeling.  If you are time poor, training during your lunchbreak, or finding your workout getting stale, give this a try.