This Climbing Workout Will Make You a Mountain Goat
Kick It up the Climb
They say there are many ways up a mountain, which is a good philosophy for cresting climbs on your bike as well as in life. You can sit, you can stand, you can spin, you can jam—it all depends on the grade and length of the climb. And because no hill is exactly the same, the best hill-training workout conditions your body to be ready for whatever the terrain tosses your way.
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That means improving your muscular endurance to withstand the sustained wattage output long climbs demand, boosting lactate threshold so you can maintain harder efforts without blowing up, and building your aerobic engine so you can keep your cadence relatively high to avoid frying your muscle fibers with undue stress. Easy right?
Nope. But it’s not supposed to be. Your workouts should be hard—stupid hard. That way, when you’re out on the road, it’s that much easier to fly up the mountain any which way you like. The following Three-Stage Hill Attack Plan targets all your climbing muscles and energy systems. If you’re new to riding intervals, go through it just one time. After a couple of weeks, you can add another round. If you’re already an interval veteran, you can jump in and do two sets out of the gate. (There’s also a ton of variety in here, so you may even enjoy doing a round or two of this workout even if you hate repetitive intervals—but just in case, here are four workouts for the interval-averse.)
These are best performed on a steady climb that’s about 5- to 8-percent grade. Always warm up for at least 10 to 15 minutes beforehand. Do these intervals once or twice a week on fresh legs.
Need an interval buddy? Get them riding with our handy kit.
This three-stage hill attack method will have you conquering every climb you ride