Hill Climb Cycling Training
Hill climbs have become quite popular throughout the UK and there are some big ones here in the United States as well. While you may not be competing formally in a hill climb race, I bet there is a Strava KOM or QOM that you are eyeing…that is the same thing!
What we want to focus on in this article is to understand how you can best train to become better at climbing hills very quickly, whether for racing or for a Strava KOM/QOM.
While a hill climb training program would be great, as you’ll see, it would be detrimental to put out a template for this because we need to know if the athlete needs more aerobic or anaerobic training based on their strengths and weaknesses, but also on the duration of the course that they are targeting.
That being said, we can hone in on the energy systems that you need to focus on, whether you are looking for hill workouts for beginners, or you’re a more seasoned cyclist who has been doing hill repeats but doesn't seem to be getting to the top any quicker.
See Also: Top Climbing Tips for Cycling
Energy Systems for Hill Climbs
Both aerobic and anaerobic systems will be used during hill climb efforts, and if we could choose, we would want to make most of our energy aerobically because there are far fewer fatiguing metabolites created than when energy is created anaerobically. However, the anaerobic system creates huge bursts of energy, but there is a cost…we all know that burning feeling!
Therefore, it will be important to have both a high aerobic capacity and a large anaerobic capacity. You might be wondering how to balance this though, and we’ll dig deeper as we look at the duration of your hill climb event or Strava KOM.
In cycling, there are no purely aerobic or purely anaerobic efforts. There is a continuum, where efforts are weighted one way or another. If you’re unfamiliar with largely aerobic based training, like base miles, check out this video where we describe what is actually happening when you ride at an endurance pace.
If you want to learn more about anaerobic energy production, check out this article. Related, but slightly different, is neuromuscular training.
Hill Climb Physiological Profile
We need a large anaerobic capacity, as well as a large aerobic capacity. We will be utilizing both, it just becomes a matter of which one is more predominant.
4 Biggest Physiological Determinants for Hill Climb Success
1. Your aerobic capacity, or VO2max. This creates the most energy with fewer fatiguing metabolites, and uses lactate and other metabolites to create energy. If two riders are putting out the same exact watts and weigh the same, but one has a larger percentage of power being created aerobically, they will last longer than the more anaerobically powered athlete who will fatigue sooner.
2. Your ability to produce enough energy anaerobically. Both the maximal wattages (anaerobic maximal power) and the duration (anaerobic stamina) with which you can hold that power will both be critical to a great performance.
How do I know if I have enough anaerobic power? One good guide is looking at your 5, 10 and 20 minute power; they should be different numbers! The shorter durations should have more anaerobic contributions, say 15% of the power at 5 minutes. Around 10 minutes, that may be halved to 8%, and at 20 minutes, only 4% of your power is anaerobic. Therefore, if your numbers are all very similar, you might need more anaerobic training.
See Also: Anaerobic Intervals For Cycling
3. Muscular strength: you really have to have the ability to push big watts and maintain them for more than just 30 seconds. This is why I like 5x5’s by power and not just HR, because it trains us to push a lot of power, stress the muscle fibers, clear lactate that is building up, and really challenge the respiratory system.
4. High threshold power or FTP. With lactate threshold being such a big determinant in energy production and how we produce power, the higher your lactate threshold, the better chance you have of pushing big watts throughout the hill climb event. Of course, if your lactate clearance capabilities or VO2Max are not well trained, a large FTP will only take you so far. Watts per kg are important, but I’d recommend you not get too psyched out by your competitions’ numbers on Strava. Fewer w/kg can sometimes still win the race! More on that below in the Pacing section.
There are some nuances to these recommendations, and we’ll dive into more detail on them below.
A very short prologue of 2-3 minutes will favor more Anaerobic Capacity.
An 8 minute effort will require VO2Max and Anaerobic Stamina.
Longer efforts at 10-25 minutes will favor VO2Max and FTP.
See Also: The Complete Guide to Cycling Physiology
Hill Climb Course Durations and Training Focus
Short (2-3 minutes), Training Focus: Anaerobic Power and Strength
Very short hill climbs or Strava KOM/QOMs in the 2-3 minute range will focus mostly on an athlete's ability to create a large amount of anaerobic energy. Fortunately, many times this effort isn’t long enough for the fatiguing aspects of anaerobic energy production to cause us to stop pedaling. It will hurt a lot and burn, but you should be able to power through if you have a large enough capacity. Also, I am a HUGE fan of Lactigo, because it removes the biggest culprit of leg burning when we pedal hard, the hydrogen ion.
Therefore, in order to perform well in short hill climbs of 2-3 minutes, we would mainly focus on Anaerobic Power and Muscular Strength.
The strength aspect comes into play because many times you will be pushing a massive gear at a slightly lower cadence than normal due to the incline. Many athletes have reported having that extra strength helps them push harder, but also push for longer (Time to Exhaustion). You definitely want to get into the gym before hill climb season starts!
See Also: The Complete Guide to Cycling Supplements
Medium (5-10 minutes): Training Focus: VO2max and Anaerobic Stamina
These 5-10 minute efforts could be broken down even more, to 5-6 minutes being focused on VO2Max and Anaerobic Stamina, and 7-10 minutes being more of a VO2Max and Suprathreshold effort. That being said, anything that is “long VO2Max” or “short FTP” is definitely along a continuum, and I tend to think of it as a suprathrehsold effort.
If you are riding an 8 minute effort at FTP, you aren’t going hard enough to get the win.
Therefore, in order to train this, you need to improve your VO2Max and also your anaerobic stamina. VO2Max training has been discussed above, but for Anaerobic Stamina training, I would focus on improving your anaerobic repeatability. For these intervals, you won’t be hitting max watts but slightly lower wattages for longer durations, with shorter rest (only 1-3 minutes).
Also, it’s important to note that this assumes you’ve developed your overall anaerobic capacity. It is more important to develop the pure power first. If you go to work on repeatability, but have a low anaerobic capacity, you won’t be going hard enough to get the training benefit for these hill climbs and KOMs, so you might want to work on the maximal power first, then shorten the rest periods and work on repeatability/stamina.
Read this anaerobic training blog post for more details.
Longer (10-20m): Training Focus: VO2max and FTP
The longer efforts will no doubt be more shifted towards your aerobic capacities, and therefore we want to focus on VO2Max training and Functional Threshold Power.
For increasing your FTP, utilize Over Unders and some constant power intervals, and we’ve already touched on the VO2Max Training above.
We will get further into pacing a hill climb effort, but it is extremely important on these longer efforts. If you go too hard, too soon, and are forced to ride below your threshold power, you will not win (or get the Strava KOM/QOM!)
Patience is crucial.
See Also: Improve Muscular Endurance and Fatigue Resistance For Cyclingd
Pacing a Hill Climb In Cycling
What is the fastest way to climb a hill on a bike? Let’s consider some other aspects of a hill climb that will affect how you race.
There is no point in going out too hard, only to use up all of your Anaerobic capacity (FRC or W’) too early, which by definition, will force you to ride BELOW THRESHOLD for nearly the remainder of time. This is not good.
Remember the pacing! If you look down and you are doing 50-100W more than your target, but are “feeling good”, alarm bells should be ringing! You did not magically bring 100 more watts today; you will explode.
Use the initial burst to get out of the block and up to speed, but then be patient! This initial burst is at VO2Max, it is short, and it should not burn at all. You do not want to be drowning in lactate in the first ⅓ of the effort. It would be much better to be pouring it on during the last ⅓, with massive wattage.
Shout out to Tom Bell, my former coach and British National MTB Champion, who taught me about what’s called an oxygen deficit, meaning you will use more anaerobic power earlier on in an effort, especially if you are not fully warmed up. This will create more fatiguing metabolites than if you started at a more reasonable pace, allowing the aerobic system to essentially “warm up”. If you start too hard, with too much anaerobic power, it will produce a slower finishing time.
Finishing strong, through the finish line, will give you the fastest time. Those who have started too hard will be dying at that time, and you’re making up time.
See Also: Understanding Power Meter Data
DURATION AND WATTS PER KG
Clearly you want to try and figure out what a great time finish time would be based on the previous year’s efforts or the Strava Leaderboard. If this isn’t available, some estimating will have to take its place.
Then, figure out how many watts you’ve produced on your best day versus that duration. That said, you might not have your best day come the hill climb, so don’t overcook it early on and fall apart.
Watts/kg: Don’t get overly bogged down by this when seeing others in strava! A rider with a higher w/kg can have a slower time versus someone with higher raw wattage, especially when the gradients are shallow. That said, knowing how to dole out the watts (harder when it’s steeper) on an undulating course can have a huge difference
See Also: Finding Your Race Weight and Maximizing Power to Weight Ratio
WIND
Wind can be a huge factor, so check out mywindsock, and see what data you can draw from there.
COURSE PROFILE
Will this be best paced evenly throughout, or will there be portions of downhill where you will be able to recover? To note, a 10 second downhill will not give you much recovery, so do not overcook it early thinking that you will magically recover in 10 seconds! This sounds obvious, but can create havoc for the rider during the hill climb.
Speed is what you want to maximize on this ride, so if the course is undulating, make sure you know where you can surge, where you can recover a bit (while keeping speed up!), and hitting it again. To clarify though, a surge is not a max effort that leaves you so flooded with lactate that you have to ride below threshold. A surge must still be followed by more riding above your Functional Threshold Power.
Training Plan for Hill Climbs
Let’s say your hill climb season starts in September, and you’re only racing hill climbs this year. If that is the case, a rough training plan would be:
January - April: your Base Training
May - June: VO2Max Training, and possibly some road races
July - August - continue this progression with VO2Max training and also look at the duration of the main hill climb goals: which duration to they match up to before: more anaerobic training required? More vo2max training? More FTP?
Slightly reduce the endurance volume and hit these hard anaerobic sessions and vo2max session with TONS of energy. Fine tune as needed
September - race and recover!
See Also: Top Tips For Cycling Interval Training
Conclusion
Hill Climbs are such an amazing style of racing to take part in. You get to go full send and really push yourself to the limit. While there are a few different types of hill climbs to take part in, hopefully by the end of this article you now have a better sense of what you need to train in order to ace your event.
Get a solid grasp on your physiology and what is needed for the different climbs, assess how the duration of your main events affects the training focus, then pace it well on race day and you’re on your way to the top step!
If you need more help, check out our Training Packs, or message me for bike coaching options!
Good luck this year!
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