Need hill climb training advice

[Mish]

I'm tired of getting semi-dropped on hills. I lead or nearly lead on the flats and on the hills I get passed. The passer usually is more winded at the top than I am but I cannot seem to keep up through the climb.
I'm 6' 165 & can ride 50+ miles at 17mph alone but can't climb as well as I want. In Raleigh, NC there are few hills that last more than 1/4 mile.
What can I do (rollers, stairclimber, squats, intervals) to become a better climber by the middle of the summer??

 

[whoawhoa]

If we're just talking about 1/4 mile climbs, do intervals in the 1-1.5 minute range. It's not about climbing as much as it is about pure power.

 

[frenchyge]

I'm tired of getting semi-dropped on hills. I lead or nearly lead on the flats and on the hills I get passed. The passer usually is more winded at the top than I am but I cannot seem to keep up through the climb.
I'm 6' 165 & can ride 50+ miles at 17mph alone but can't climb as well as I want. In Raleigh, NC there are few hills that last more than 1/4 mile.
What can I do (rollers, stairclimber, squats, intervals) to become a better climber by the middle of the summer??

If he's more winded, is it possible that he's just riding it harder than you? Could you just push a little harder and keep up with him?

My suggestion: go find a hilly area and work on riding up and down. Stay seated, hands on top of the bars, keep your upper body still, and just focus on keeping your hips and thighs in tension as you pedal circles. Think about holding his wheel as you work, and you'll be dropping him by summer.

 

[Mish]

I'm pushing hard enough that my heart rate is pegged at 187 and I can't seem to get any more out of myself. I nearly puke but I recover to a normal breathing rate as he pants. This occurs on every hill over a 30 to 50 mile ride. My cadence on the flats is 90+ and I feel more comfortable trying to keep a high cadence on the hills, although I seem to make up more ground when I gear up and my cadence drops some.

 

[frenchyge]

Oooo... that's gotta suck. That's just plain old leg power I'm afraid. Intervals like others have suggested should do the trick and just try to work towards pushing a little more gear. Personally, I find that my breathing stays more under control when I climb at a moderate cadence (80-90) in a higher gear. That burns the legs more, but you can find a balance if you experiment a little. Good luck and let us know how it goes.

 

[babybirdie]

I wrote this a while back for my club members. Check it out and see if it helps.
(oh, by the way. I smoke most people on the hills so I know this works for me)

Here are a few things I do to make climbing hills a bit easier.
Practice standing up more on the flats. This helps build those other muscles in your legs.
Alternate standing and sitting while going up hill. It uses different muscle groups and can help the other muscles rest a bit.
Pulling up on back stroke. Rather than just mashing down on your pedals the entire time, try pulling up on your pedals. Works great when you alternate this with pushing and lets a few muscles rest at the same time. Works standing up too.
Scoot way back on your seat. This helps your body use more muscles and gives you more power. It also changes your position in a way that is more like pushing away rather than down. When sitting clear at the back of your seat, you will feel your behind working more too. Great way too firm up that back side...
Drink plenty of fluids. It can be difficult to drink when climbing due to increased heart rate and breathing. But in the few moments it takes to get a drink, you often forget to feel the pain in your legs.
Distraction. I have found that distraction while climbing helps the most. If you are on a long steady climb, messing with your bottle, taking inventory of your pockets, checking your computer and even sending text messages on your cell phone (although not safe) helps take the focus off of the pain in your legs.
Breathing is vital. When I start a long climb, at the very beginning I will start monitoring my breathing and try to get it into a rythm. I concentrate on exhaling only. I exhale quite heavily and put alot of concentration in it. Not only does it help you get more oxygen into your lungs, but the concentrating takes the pain in your legs away.

So now you know what my climbing secrets are. Try them out and see if they help you. Keep in mind that the first time you try these tecniques, its going to hurt like hell. But the more you practice, the better it feels and the stronger you get.

 

[Brizza]

How you climb hills will vary from how others climb, and while I know the above suggestions work for me, I'd suggest experimenting with your training to see how you can climb best.

To build power I suggest;

Remaining seated, slide back in the saddle, and practice pushing harder gears during training.This will develop strength in your hamstrings and gluteals and also help you in fighting headwinds during flat races. Some imagine they are scraping mud off the bottom of their shoe.

If your struggling with out of the saddle climbing, I'd suggest developing your quads and calf muscles by training out of the saddle. This will assist your power in sprints and surges.

I also alternate between sitting and standing.

 

[Carrera]

All good advice being given so far. The only point I'd like to make is there is probably a specific climbing style that suits some more than others. Both Iban Mayo and Jan Ullrich are great climbers but they have totally different styles. Jan pushes a big gear at about 85 rpm and stays seated for most of the time. He maximises on his power. Mayo, on the other hand, has to build speed by standing up and pedaling at very high cadence for intervals, before sitting down again. He doesn't push anything like as big a gear as Ullrich or Indurain.
So, I often ask myself, should I copy Jan or should I carry on spinning? Even in my own case, I still don't know the answer to that.

 

[Lonnie Utah]

In Raleigh, NC there are few hills that last more than 1/4 mile.

Move about 3 hours west. Seriously, western NC has some great riding with plenty of "hills". How about a weekend road trip...

Alternatively, have you ever thought about doing intervals on the hills you do have? If the hill is only 1/4 mile long, why not do 5-10-15 laps on it? Yes you'll see a little decrease in HR as you coast back down, but from my understanding it's all about total work and the total number of circuts you complete anyway.

Good Luck,
L

 

[zaskar]

I'm pushing hard enough that my heart rate is pegged at 187 and I can't seem to get any more out of myself. I nearly puke but I recover to a normal breathing rate as he pants. This occurs on every hill over a 30 to 50 mile ride. My cadence on the flats is 90+ and I feel more comfortable trying to keep a high cadence on the hills, although I seem to make up more ground when I gear up and my cadence drops some.

For one, don't take the hills at such a hard effort back off some. you want to have somthing left so you can complete the climb. also trying to push 90 rpm on the hills is alot, that will make it harder on your cardio.

 

[RonHeal]

Does anyone know if one method (sitting vs standing) is putting less strain on the knees than the other method?

 

[Lonnie Utah]

Does anyone know if one method (sitting vs standing) is putting less strain on the knees than the other method?

I do know this, standing is harder on my heart. When I stand, my speed generally goes down about 1/2 mph and my HR slowly climbs until I blow up. Now the aforementioned posts do make a good case working the different muscle in the legs, and that's worth while on very long climbs (3-4-5+ miles). Generally, I'll stand, go until the HR hits 95-97% max and then sit and let my HR recover.

To answer Ron's question, when I sit my cadence is much higher and I use smaller gears. When I stand, I'm using a bigger gear and lower RPM's. I would say this is worse on my knees as I'm putting more force for a particular pedal stroke. At the same speed, total work will be the same no matter which gear you are in. With a smaller gear, that work gets spread out over more pedal strokes. So this leads to another question. Why are your knees hurting? Is it from too much pressure or repeatative motion? The answer to that question will help answer your original question...

L

 

[Carrera]

The official version given by physios is that standing is far easier on the knees than sitting. Look at Jan Ullrich. His career nearly ended due to knee problems and he winded up having surgery. Ullrich also pushes big gears and sits most of the time and this can place strain on the knee joints.
Lance has only had knee tendonitis during the last year and he's known for his spinning and standing during climbing. Myself, I think Lance's way is the safest to go for your knees.
On a personal note, I did all my climbing today and suffered in the process. Did some very steep hills over in Mow Cop and stayed standing all the time (heart rate getting quite high). But my knees don't trouble me since I quit banging away at big gears and using some knee wraps as well.

Does anyone know if one method (sitting vs standing) is putting less strain on the knees than the other method?

 

[Lonnie Utah]

So Carrera, don't you think Jan's issues come from big gears and not if his sitting or standing? I think he would have had the same problems if he stood while climbing. Personally, I think it's primarlly gearing (He uses 180+ crank arms for goodness sakes!). Just looking for opinions....

 

[RonHeal]

So this leads to another question. Why are your knees hurting? Is it from too much pressure or repeatative motion? The answer to that question will help answer your original question...

L

Yes, I have recently been dealing with Bursitis, but unfortunately not too sure of the cause. I have been training for the past year, but recently intensified my hill climb workouts. Seeing as that is the only change to my program as of late, I am wondering if it could be due to additional strain on my knees from the climbs.

The majority of my climbing is in the standing position.

I am just looking for some possible changes I can make to my program once recovered to avoid this from coming back. It has been driving me nuts not being able to ride over the past week!

 

[frenchyge]

Does anyone know if one method (sitting vs standing) is putting less strain on the knees than the other method?

I would think standing would be much easier on the knees because the majority of the force is applied when the leg is nearly straight. Most of the knee bending comes into play while the leg is unloaded and coming over the top of the crank.

 

[Lonnie Utah]

I would think standing would be much easier on the knees because the majority of the force is applied when the leg is nearly straight. Most of the knee bending comes into play while the leg is unloaded and coming over the top of the crank.

BUT, Standing your knees are taking the ENTIRE weight of your body. When sitting, part of your body weight is supported by the seat. I don't know the answer, I just playing devils advocate. But I still say it has more to do with gearing than sit/stand (But I know I use smaller gears while sitting...)

L

 

[frenchyge]

BUT, Standing your knees are taking the ENTIRE weight of your body. When sitting, part of your body weight is supported by the seat. I don't know the answer, I just playing devils advocate. But I still say it has more to do with gearing than sit/stand (But I know I use smaller gears while sitting...)

They're technically supporting the resistance that is provided by the inertia of the bike, rather than your body weight. If the bike resisted with the force equal to your weight then the pedal wouldn't go down.

It's true that the force is higher while standing (assuming climbing at the same speed, with bigger gear and lower cadence), but this is still lower than the force required to stand on one leg. The bigger effect is the fact that while seated the force is being applied while the leg is bent at 60+ degrees, which reduces the mechanical advantage of the joint and puts all the stress on the joint connectors rather than the bones themselves.

As an experiment, stand on one leg. No knee problems right? Now slowly squat down on that one leg and see if your knee doesn't start to protest as it bends.

 

[Lonnie Utah]

As an experiment, stand on one leg. No knee problems right? Now slowly squat down on that one leg and see if your knee doesn't start to protest as it bends.

Can I sit while doing it?

 

[Carrera]

The official version is Jan injured his knees doing heavy leg-presses and it was the stress of his oncoming operation that caused him to freak out and drink/drive. He had an inclination his cycling career could be over as the surgery offered no guarantee. Fortunately, it turned out O.K.
You're probably right that sitting and spinning in lower gears should be safe and I take your other points as valid. But myself, I've always had dodgy knees and I found that standing while climbing (in a reasonably low gear) is fine for my knees. I used to get tendon trouble when I pushed big gears but bear in mind I'm 40 years old and my knees have been hammered through squatting over the years.
They're much improved now. I sometimes imagine I climb a little bit like Armstrong and Ivan Basso in the last tour (not as fast of course). But I'm always out of the seat, spinning away rapidly and accelerating ahead when I have to.

So Carrera, don't you think Jan's issues come from big gears and not if his sitting or standing? I think he would have had the same problems if he stood while climbing. Personally, I think it's primarlly gearing (He uses 180+ crank arms for goodness sakes!). Just looking for opinions....