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Bang for Buck Hill Training

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Bang for Buck Hill Training

Old 12-26-22, 04:00 PM
  #26  
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Originally Posted by terrymorse
Riding out of the saddle is an important part of a climber's toolbox, too. On the bike, I'll do standing drills in a big gear, targeting a 50-60 cadence. These will work the quads. 30 seconds standing, 15 seconds seated spinning.
Do you ever do 'big gear spinups'? After working your legs in the weight room, and/or doing those low-cadence climbing drills, you need something to help your legs remember how to recruit all of the muscle fibers possible when they're needed. I would get to at least a shallow climb, put the bike in the highest gear, and slow to a near-standstill; then stand up and pedal as hard as possible for 10-12 revolutions, by which time cadence should be pretty high.
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Old 12-26-22, 04:16 PM
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Originally Posted by Koyote
Do you ever do 'big gear spinups'? After working your legs in the weight room, and/or doing those low-cadence climbing drills, you need something to help your legs remember how to recruit all of the muscle fibers possible when they're needed. I would get to at least a shallow climb, put the bike in the highest gear, and slow to a near-standstill; then stand up and pedal as hard as possible for 10-12 revolutions, by which time cadence should be pretty high.
how high a cadence after 12 revs? From a near stand still that sounds pretty hard. I can find the hill very easily. I'll try that next time I'm out there.
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Old 12-26-22, 04:25 PM
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Originally Posted by spelger
how high a cadence after 12 revs? From a near stand still that sounds pretty hard. I can find the hill very easily. I'll try that next time I'm out there.
I don't recall my finishing RPM, but it should get up there -- you're really wailing on the pedals, hands in the drops and tugging on the bar, giving it all you've got.
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Old 12-26-22, 04:36 PM
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I'm just gonna ignore everything up-thread, sorry if I happen to repeat good advice. Reading the fighting stuff messes with my head.

I used to do a century with 2 long pass climbs and then into a 20-25 mph headwind for about 15 miles. We called it the 3rd pass. Max speed for a tired rider in good shape and aero was abut 11 mph, no drafting. We geared down to our climbing cadence. I don't know if that was helpful or not, but it sure was hard. I guess we learned that getting really tired was the thing to do. It seems that emptying oneself out increases capacity. OTOH, if the training is over too many hours, one doesn't get enough intensity. I think 4-5 hours once a week is really good.

Studies of instrumented pro riders show that climbing is not the same as being on the flat. The difference is crank inertial load and thus bike speed. The slower we go and the harder we work, the more we have to keep the chain tension up throughout the pedal stroke. That's the big thing which riders notice who mostly ride on the flat, though they may not realize what the source of the seeming extra work is. On the flat, we mostly hammer the downstroke, but climbing also uses other muscles, especially glutes and hip flexors. So . . .

I think strength training helps a lot. One should be able to squat at least bodyweight for 10 reps, full ATG squats. Dumbbell deadlifts, 4 sets of 10, all same weight, all you can do. (I prefer to see reps, not 1RM so much). And other stuff. I don't think leg extensions do anything - muscle use is too limited. Reps on the Roman chair for hip flexors. One legged leg sled reps, again all you can do, full range of motion. Two workouts a week.

On the bike, I've found one-legged pedaling on the trainer at climbing cadence to be very helpful, to failure, meaning until one gets slack chain on the backstroke, that's failure. Climbing in a huge gear at 50-55 cadence, not on the trainer, at some intensity. at least upper zone 3, say 3 X 10 X 1.5. Another good trainer workout is holding 115-120 rpm in a low gear for long periods, no break, say 15' working up to 45'. I also liked going out in mildly rolling terrain and holding 100 rpm in Z3 -shifting a lot- for 30', 5' rest then repeat the same on the way back. This is all good-for-the-legs, outside-the-envelope stuff.

So there's a bunch of good stuff one can do without much climbing. That said, there's nothing as good as 4 hours of hills, once a week, every climb attempted at the same power, enough that you fail near the end. That helps with pacing and sensations, mental stuff, as well as the physical.
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Old 12-26-22, 04:57 PM
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Originally Posted by Carbonfiberboy
I don't think leg extensions do anything - muscle use is too limited.
Leg extensions? Did you mean knee extensions, or maybe hip extensions?

I don't do any isolated knee extensions (don't like isolated exercises), but I do one hip extension exercise that targets the glutes specifically: kickbacks with ankle weights. They are a decent addition to squats:


example kickbacks (by someone who is not Terry)
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Old 12-26-22, 05:10 PM
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Originally Posted by Koyote
Do you ever do 'big gear spinups'? After working your legs in the weight room, and/or doing those low-cadence climbing drills, you need something to help your legs remember how to recruit all of the muscle fibers possible when they're needed. I would get to at least a shallow climb, put the bike in the highest gear, and slow to a near-standstill; then stand up and pedal as hard as possible for 10-12 revolutions, by which time cadence should be pretty high.
I do a version of big gear spinups, except I force myself to do them in the saddle for as long as possible.

I'll start it at the bottom of a short climb, click up into a much-to-high gear, and try to put big force into the pedals for as much of the pedal stroke as I can.

The power pedals tell the story of whether or not I produced decent force through the pedal stroke.
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Old 12-26-22, 06:27 PM
  #32  
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Spending time on the bike is the single most important factor in your preparation. While you're doing those preparatory hours on the bike, your bike's gearing can and should be used to enable you to climb all those hills at an effort level not much above that which you use for your flat-road riding at your average training effort.

To monitor your effort levels, if you don't have (or don't want to bother with) a power meter for your bike, you can buy an inexpensive pulse meter that can help you maintain a steady effort both on flat terrain and up those hills. Me, at age 71, I can still spike my pulse to over 180 bpm in anaerobic efforts (sprints and hard hill climbing), but for 80% of my riding, I try to keep my heart rate at 135 bpm or under, including climbing hills.

That approach, by the way, is based on the most current thinking on building strength and endurance for sports that are primarily aerobic such as cycling, running, triathlon, etc. Worked for me. My heart rate for a given power level has gone down significantly since I started doing 80/20 training about 8 months ago.

Here's a video that explains the reasoning behind 80/20 training:

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Old 12-26-22, 07:44 PM
  #33  
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Originally Posted by Koyote
I agree with this, but feel that the muscular training/gym work is most useful if you will be climbing some very steep grades. I did substantial gym work (of the sort Terry Morse is describing) for some races that involved some relatively short but extremely steep (up to 37%) grades that required some brute force. But even for shallower but longer climbs (such as the OP described), those exercises certainly won't hurt, and may help stave off fatigue or (worst-case scenario) cramps.

By the way, Cramic : the posters who are pissing on one another haven't offered any reason to believe that they know anything about this. I'll just offer that, for some years, I was in your situation: living on the flatlands, and occasionally traveling to Colorado to do some of the biggest climbing events in the country. Like this and this. The advice that I gave in an earlier post, copied below, worked for me. Sure, training on hills is better, but not essential. Even when I later lived (and raced) in a hillier area, I only rode big hill workouts 1x per week, at the most. As for the "psychological" benefit of training on actual hills...Again, not really important. And again, my advice comes from actual experience.

Jeez, didn't realize I was expected to give my cv here. I'm a 61 y.o. man who did several 80-140 mile rides this summer involving several thousand feet of climbing per ride, and I think I'm pretty good at it. I don't think I was telling him to do much you weren't telling him to do, but I happen to think that doing a bit of hill climbing is in order as OP clearly was expressing some discomfort with it. 1x a week might be fine, but it also sounded like op just needed to make a small adjustment to their commute to incorporate some hill climbing. Seriously, it can't hurt. Also, op mentioned not doing much if any getting out of the saddle, and there could be some opportunity to experiment with that.
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Old 12-26-22, 08:05 PM
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post #34 https://www.bikeforums.net/22749625-post34.html

ha-ha probably the funniest thing I read on bikeforums....


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Old 12-26-22, 08:15 PM
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I think there's some technique going up hill, maybe it's just mental toughness and I lack it. I can hold 200 watts for an hour+ on the flats at 80 to 90 rpm no problem.

Probably only hold 200 watts @ 40 to 50 rpm putzing up hill 13% + grade at 3 mph for like 10 minutes. ha-ha then I just switch over to I just want to make it to the top of the hill without putting my foot down and drop the power to say 150 watts and just take my time going up hill.


Maybe it's just more rewarding with the same power covering some much more ground, plus you are turning the rpm you like and you have all the wind to cool you down. No joy for me struggling to do 3 mph.
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Old 12-26-22, 08:52 PM
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Originally Posted by terrymorse
Leg extensions? Did you mean knee extensions, or maybe hip extensions?

I don't do any isolated knee extensions (don't like isolated exercises), but I do one hip extension exercise that targets the glutes specifically: kickbacks with ankle weights. They are a decent addition to squats:
example kickbacks (by someone who is not Terry)
Yes I meant knee extensions if you like. Bodyweight stuff I do: pushups, planks, Roman chair, one-legged calf raises. I run stairs, which is bodyweight, but the impact forces make it very good for bones as well as muscles and aerobics. Sets of one-legged knee bends on a chair are good, too.

About pacing: many, many group rides have proven that the fastest way to get though the hills is to go hard on the hills, coast the descents, and go moderate on the flat. The reason for that is that power to overcome wind resistance varies with the cube of speed. What "hard" and "moderate" mean will vary with the length of the ride. Only experience and riding with others can tell you what those efforts should feel like or what those numbers might be and how they should vary depending on ride length and amount of climbing. Spend on the climbs, conserve and recover on the flats.
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Old 12-26-22, 08:57 PM
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Originally Posted by Carbonfiberboy
Yes I meant knee extensions if you like. Bodyweight stuff I do: pushups, planks, Roman chair, one-legged calf raises. I run stairs, which is bodyweight, but the impact forces make it very good for bones as well as muscles and aerobics. Sets of one-legged knee bends on a chair are good, too.

About pacing: many, many group rides have proven that the fastest way to get though the hills is to go hard on the hills, coast the descents, and go moderate on the flat. The reason for that is that power to overcome wind resistance varies with the cube of speed. What "hard" and "moderate" mean will vary with the length of the ride. Only experience and riding with others can tell you what those efforts should feel like or what those numbers might be and how they should vary depending on ride length and amount of climbing. Spend on the climbs, conserve and recover on the flats.
You're saying that one should expend max energy where aero drag is at it's lowest. That makes sense as long as it doesn't mean getting dropped on the flats.
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Old 12-26-22, 10:07 PM
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Originally Posted by Koyote
You're saying that one should expend max energy where aero drag is at it's lowest. That makes sense as long as it doesn't mean getting dropped on the flats.
Exactly. However, I've dropped off of many a paceline which felt like it was working too hard on the little risers. One just has to try and see what happens. I never was a great climber.
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Old 12-26-22, 10:39 PM
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Originally Posted by Carbonfiberboy

About pacing: many, many group rides have proven that the fastest way to get though the hills is to go hard on the hills, coast the descents, and go moderate on the flat. The reason for that is that power to overcome wind resistance varies with the cube of speed. What "hard" and "moderate" mean will vary with the length of the ride. Only experience and riding with others can tell you what those efforts should feel like or what those numbers might be and how they should vary depending on ride length and amount of climbing. Spend on the climbs, conserve and recover on the flats.
If riding solo mathematically this makes the most use of your power.
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Old 12-26-22, 11:14 PM
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Thanks for the great advice all. Will aim to condense it and use it to form some sort of programme.

My aim will just be to finish this ride, but interesting to consider conserving energy on the flats in terms of the wind resistance (cubed) and attack the hills (but will probably conserve on the hills too!).

Elliptical a fine idea for gym time as also getting the CVS benefits and will work on the leg and lower back exercises as described.

Hadn’t thought about intervals, which is daft as were a mainstay of running, but will incorporate going forward.

And, of course, will get out onto as many hills as time allows and lose some weight. Will do a mix of in and out of saddle on the hills I do get.
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Old 12-27-22, 09:48 AM
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Old 12-27-22, 02:43 PM
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My experience with hill climbing is the lower the body weight and higher the threshold power the faster I can climb. Also, I tend to spin slower and there is more torque in my legs for the same power produced when climbing versus the flat road where I can spin faster.

Also, if I can find a proxy course that matches the terrain I will face in my event, all the better on which to practice.

My reality is that most of the time, I have some kind of compromise and the practice routes do not match up with the course and some times the course may include altitude.

So I do the best I can. One of my coaches, who also coached a couple of the Team Sky pros, once told me that the hardest course to ride is in the wind. He had the two pros prepping on flat courses riding into the wind getting ready for the grand tours. Riding into wind is similar to climbing in that it is mentally draining, buffets the body and requires surges of power in the legs and if one slows the cadence to climbing cadence will provide the constant torque feel of climbing. One could train in the wind and go on a long climb and think climbing is an upside.

The same coach had a cycling gym. We had to show up at the gym and go through a circuit 10 times that focused on the pedal stroke. After 6 exercises of 10 sets of 10 reps, we would get on our road bikes that were set up on the trainer and do low cadence intervals. That was done in the fall and then we moved into climbing. The gym workout took an hour of strength training and then about 30 minutes on the bike. Not the bike first.

This is a pretty fatiguing workout. So I would do it now for a few weeks. I do not do gym workouts prior to events.

IMO, you have a pretty good training setup with the windy rides and gym. It is a matter of setting up a schedule and doing it.
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Old 12-27-22, 03:10 PM
  #43  
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Originally Posted by Hermes
One of my coaches, who also coached a couple of the Team Sky pros, once told me that the hardest course to ride is in the wind. He had the two pros prepping on flat courses riding into the wind getting ready for the grand tours. Riding into wind is similar to climbing in that it is mentally draining, buffets the body and requires surges of power in the legs and if one slows the cadence to climbing cadence will provide the constant torque feel of climbing. One could train in the wind and go on a long climb and think climbing is an upside.
Having lived in some very windy areas, I agree with this. At least with a hill, you know when it will end.
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Old 12-27-22, 03:50 PM
  #44  
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Originally Posted by terrymorse
Your advice is off the mark. Climbing is all about strength and power-to-weight ratio. Riding strong requires virtually no "technique".

To the OP, the biggest mistake I see non-climbers do on hills is to attack them with more power than they can sustain. If there's any "technique" to climbing (more accurately called a strategy), it is to settle into a sustainable pace on the hills. If you have a power meter, that's the best guide for managing effort, but a heart rate monitor will do.

Climbing does call for higher muscle forces, particularly in the quads, glutes, and lower back. If those muscles aren't adapted to the additional force required, they can fatigue quickly. So your gym time should incorporate exercises that target glutes, quads, and lower back. My leg/back day works all of those muscle groups, plus hamstrings and calves. My go-to quads/glutes exercise is the chair plié:




This exercise will leave you shaking like an unbalanced washing machine.

Riding out of the saddle is an important part of a climber's toolbox, too. On the bike, I'll do standing drills in a big gear, targeting a 50-60 cadence. These will work the quads. 30 seconds standing, 15 seconds seated spinning.
Just for ‘fun’ this morning I did 25 squats, 30 lunges (15 each side) and 25 of what the pretty young lass is demonstrating above, which didn’t feel difficult. One half hour later, I can say, that I am noticing (as the medical professionals say)’ some mild discomfort’. BUT, I have 15 puny miles today to reach my goal to the year, so onward!
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