Cross Country Climbing Training Plan Intermediate with Power Meter
Author
Drew Edsall
All plans by this CoachLength
6 Weeks
Typical Week
1 MTB, 2 Day Off, 4 Bike
Longest Workout
4:00 hrs
Plan Specs
cycling mountain biking power based
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Summary
This climbing training plan is a 6 week plan with the goal of building your ability to climb long 4-20 minute climbs faster and more effectively. The training plan is for an advanced rider with experience training with a power meter. The plan will start with a Functional Threshold Test(FTP) to establish your training zones for the remainder of the plan. You will be training 5 days a week with one off days every Monday and Friday.
This plan will incorporate a mix of climbing specific workouts that will build your climbing power, along with longer base maintenance workouts on the weekends to maintain and build your aerobic fitness, and will also have mountain bike specific training rides to transfer your gained speed to the trail.
Although not required, I recommend you have 6-12 weeks of base miles in prior to starting this plan. The Foundation Mountain Bike training plan I have would be a good fit.
Stats
Sample Day 1
Ride easy for most of the time. Within the workout include 6 x 90 second Zone 4-5 intervals. Build into these slowly. Take 3 minutes recovery between each. These are Time Trial prep intervals: build up to expected pace for the TT's tomorrow. Practice you feel you can hold and maintain.
Remainder of ride should be easy-moderate zones 1-2.
Sample Day 2
Power Testing Day 1. Warm up well for 20-30 minutes with 3-4x60 second accelerations to the pace you plan to hold in the 20 minute TT. Take 2-3 minutes rest between the accelerations and 5 minutes rest before starting the Time Trial. Then do a 20 minute TT pacing yourself aiming to start at the same wattage as you end with. Follow this with 10 minutes of easy spinning in Zone 1-2 only. Then perform a 5 minute all out TT. Download the info to Training Peaks and we will see how you did. Be sure to get 20 minutes of Zone 1-2 easy spinning in afterwards as a cool down.
After your TT, you can update your Power Zones by doing the following:
Multiply your 20 min TT average by .95 or 95%. That is your Threshold Power
-Go into your settings in Training Peaks
-Go to Zones
-Scroll down to Power Zones
-Put in your Threshold power
-Choose type: Threshold
-Choose Method: Click the down arrow and Select Andy Coggan (6)
-Select Apply
-Your zones are good to go!
Sample Day 3
Ride primarily in Zone 1-2 today. Steady and consistent ride.
Sample Day 5
Before the ride, watch this video and focus on the three main points:
1) Looking into the corner
2) Weighting your outside foot
3) Leaning your bike into the corner(he focuses on elbow up/pointing it, I also like to think of pushing down on your inside handlebar!)
Here's the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gF5K9V2w6W8
Practice these techniques while riding today. No hard efforts, mainly easy to moderate zones 1-3. As you feel more comfortable, pick up the pace through the corners challenging yourself mentally and physically to corner faster!
Sample Day 6
Ride Zones 1-2 today. Get 50% or more of the time in Zone 2.
For the last hour of this ride, pick up the pace to a hard sustainable zone 3-4 pace.
This pace should be a pace you can hold for the last hour, but also that will max you out by the end of the ride. You should be fried by the end of this ride!
Sample Day 8
Warm up well with 20-30 minutes of spinning and 3-4 x 60-90 second accelerations to Zones 4-5.
Follow this with 1 x 20 minute intervals building up to Zones 3-4. Within the 20 min interval criss cross from .65-.75 FTP to .95-1.1 FTP every 2 minutes. Finish off with easy spinning in Zone 1 only.
Sample Day 9
Ride Zones 1-3 off road. During this ride focus on "flowing" through the trails. Look ahead and into the trail, brake before/after and not into the turns, and think/plan ahead.