Climb Fast - Beginner - 8 Weeks
Author
Alex Quirk
All plans by this CoachLength
8 Weeks
Typical Week
2 Strength, 5 Bike
Longest Workout
1:30 hrs
Plan Specs
cycling road cycling beginner
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Summary
Sick of getting dropped by your mates on climbs? Convinced they have a motor in their bike? Then look no further. This is a program designed to help you crack your strava times and drop your mates on the local climbs. They do not require you to have a power meter or even a heart rate monitor. Every session has a very simple guide using a rate of perceived effort. No session is longer than an hour and a half and is ideal for long time and experienced riders but maybe first time racers. Program contains
- 8 weeks of training designed to help you climb faster
- Efforts progress incrementally in difficulty to push your boundaries
- Less than 8 hours of riding time per week
- Sleep in Sunday's ;)
- Core strength guides
- Built in recovery week
- Variety of sessions to keep you engaged.
Stats
Sample Day 1
Doing some core strength work will do your climbing wonders. I recommend to do core strength between 2 to 4 times a week. There are a wide array of resources out there on the interwebs. Yoga and Pilates are also fantastic activities to pursue. My personal hobby is rock climbing which is great. It can be a little upper body heavy so be sure to mix in some pure core work as well. I've included some useful links below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVeHIDTy6MA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ic0URFZrzw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_nzO_bm05s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mROpewU414
The one thing I will say is to not try and copy some of the advanced exercises you may see the pros doing. Start with the basics, do them well and go from there. My athletes normally get an assessment from a strength and conditioning coach and then work off an individualised program. If you feel like going down that path, ask around and find someone in your area.
Sample Day 2
Find a local climb that you think will last 8 minutes. Ride out to the climb and ride three repeats. I'm not too worried about cadence here, just ride as you normally would. We aren't trying to smash your PB here. The session is as follows:
1st Repeat
Progression effort, start the climb at a comfortable pace, and every two minutes, push a little bit harder until and only in the last two minutes should you feel like your going as hard as you could.
Descend the climb and ride easy for 6 min
2nd Repeat
This is a threshold effort, it is the same difficulty as the middle part of the previous effort. You're breathing should be regular, but you would have difficulty holding a conversation. It should feel like a 6 out of 10 effort.
Descend the climb and ride easy for 6 min
3rd Repeat
This is very much like the last one, but in the last two minutes go as hard as you can go.
Go to coffee, you've earned one!
Sample Day 3
Go ride with some friends! If you don't have any friends :( or if they sleep in :( Then do some hill sprints. Either pick a short hill that is long enough for you to do a 30 second maximal effort or do the sprints on some the small hills or flats on what ever loop you happen to be riding. Here's my little guide:
- 6 x 30 second seated efforts
- Start from roughly 25 km/hr
- Go as hard as you can
- Take approximately 5 minutes before starting the next one
Sample Day 4
HIIT stands for High Intensity Interval Training. Why do we do HIIT? Lot's of research has shown that we get the far greater cardiovascular benefits from HIIT training sessions than we do from longer more steady exercise. Now, general endurance riding still has it's place, but HIIT is a great way to get some bang for your buck with limited training time so, todays session is a 2km warm up at a steady pace up a local climb. And then do:
2 x 1km Max efforts on a local climb with 10 minutes rest between each.
Not a long one, but a good one :)
Each Effort is a max effort, keep it smooth and try to pace it but the idea is for it to be exhausting.
Good luck!
Sample Day 5
Anywhere between 45 min to an hour is fine.
Sample Day 6
Go ride with some friends! If you don't have any friends :( or if they sleep in :( Then do some hill sprints. Either pick a short hill that is long enough for you to do a 30 second maximal effort or do the sprints on some the small hills or flats on what ever loop you happen to be riding. Here's my little guide:
- 6 x 30 second seated efforts
- Start from roughly 25 km/hr
- Go as hard as you can
- Take approximately 5 minutes before starting the next one
Sample Day 7
Doing some core strength work will do your climbing wonders. I recommend to do core strength between 2 to 4 times a week. There are a wide array of resources out there on the interwebs. Yoga and Pilates are also fantastic activities to pursue. My personal hobby is rock climbing which is great. It can be a little upper body heavy so be sure to mix in some pure core work as well. I've included some useful links below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVeHIDTy6MA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ic0URFZrzw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_nzO_bm05s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mROpewU414
The one thing I will say is to not try and copy some of the advanced exercises you may see the pros doing. Start with the basics, do them well and go from there. My athletes normally get an assessment from a strength and conditioning coach and then work off an individualised program. If you feel like going down that path, ask around and find someone in your area.