Power Climbing

[Carrera]

This is my latest discovery. I decided that due to my current body mass (overweight for a serious climber), I'd eliminate the very steep climbs from my rides and settle for moderate climbs. The difference being on the moderate climbs you sort of sit back on the seat, grab the middle of the hoods on the bars and then drive a big gear with as much power as you can muster.
I find I can choose whether to navigate a hill by mixing that piston style of climbing with simply selecting a slightly bigger gear and standing out of the seat.
Anyway the result was pretty stressful but not going beyond sensible levels.
I'm not really so good at spinning and am not training in the pure endurance field of cycling so this is why I'm experimenting with fairly brief, sprint like efforts up regular hills. I guess the aim is to develop explosive climbing ability for short periods but also a certain degree of fitness to sustain the effort.

 

[Sikhandar]

Hey englishman, down here we've been practicing training on moderate climbs for 2-3 decades... I'm thinking about the SFR methods, for instance, that almost every italian U23 or elite (or also amateur racer) practice... as far as I know, at last. The method was born in tuscany for the benefits of Francesco Moser, and now it's a milestone of the training methods... quite different from yours anyway. Originally the SFR method was: from 1 to 5 minutes of run (depends on your shape and on what you want to do), to be repeated 6/8 times, with 5/6% of climb. The gear? adequate to mantain 50 rpm NOT MORE and you must not be over 85% of you max card. freq... (the phisiological motivation anyway are long to be explained here... well there are some books around if you search well)

(And remember: if you wanna do an SFR training *don't pull on the handlebar*, the leg must do all the work! so no danseuse, just sit back and suffer )

 

[Steve_B]

http://home.earthlink.net/~acoggan/misc/id4.html

http://home.earthlink.net/~acoggan/setraining/

 

[Emp]

Hey englishman, down here we've been practicing training on moderate climbs for 2-3 decades... I'm thinking about the SFR methods, for instance, that almost every italian U23 or elite (or also amateur racer) practice... as far as I know, at last. The method was born in tuscany for the benefits of Francesco Moser, and now it's a milestone of the training methods... quite different from yours anyway. Originally the SFR method was: from 1 to 5 minutes of run (depends on your shape and on what you want to do), to be repeated 6/8 times, with 5/6% of climb. The gear? adequate to mantain 50 rpm NOT MORE and you must not be over 85% of you max card. freq... (the phisiological motivation anyway are long to be explained here... well there are some books around if you search well)

(And remember: if you wanna do an SFR training *don't pull on the handlebar*, the leg must do all the work! so no danseuse, just sit back and suffer )

Man! Then I am training the wrong style too! I always stand up and pull the handlebar when climbing until I reach the top of the lil hill. I realise that the speed is not as nice as sitting down and press. So let the leg do all the work is the fastest way to improve??

 

[Sikhandar]

I mean, if you want to do sprints (i.e. track training) it has some sense to do several sprints on short climbs, but (read the first link our friend posted) the raw force is not desirable when racing. The thing you have to improve is the "aerobic force", that is not the sprinting ability ("anaerobic force" we may call). the strenght level you use when climbing, even if you are at your heart threshold for instance, seldom goes to more than 20-25% of you maximal "anaerobic force", *but* it's enough to generate intramusuclar pressures between fiber and blood and it renderd difficult the complete irroration of blood. The idea of using a low rpm is: during a training we reproduce (and maximize) these "pressure" conditions, and the training effect in these conditions is higher when the time of application is longer (-> low rpm) and harder (-> steeper climbs). Of course nobody is able to do a 15% climb with a 53x12, so using a soft hill is ideal!

 

[Sikhandar]

So let the leg do all the work is the fastest way to improve?

W8! One thing is the SFR (or SE as I see) method of training, and it's a particular method, they're particular training sessions; another thing is the effectiveness of the "athletic move", it depends on the gear you use, it depends if you want to respond to climbing attacks during a race... and don't look for "the fastest" way to improve your abilities, cycling needs time of training, and time, and time...

 

[Carrera]

My tactics are deliberate - pretty much wrong, in fact, for a racing specialist. For example, on these climbs I try to push as big a gear as comfortably possible which makes me far less efficient aerobically than someone who's spinning the pedals. That is, I'm far closer to threshold than the guy who spins.
However, my goal does favour more power than endurance as I'm not training to compete in long distance road races. I train for recreational purposes but have reasonably high expectations in short-term performance.
One of the sportsmen who influenced me was Roger Bannister who used to train very intensively but for only 40 minutes in order to break his sub 4 minute mile goal (he was a middle distance runner). My own training sessions last a bit longer than that - around 1 hour 20 minutes. I like to use intensity, though, but try to stagger it so as not to burn out.
As for climbing style, I think it was Jose Maria Jimenez who was known to occasionally sit far back on the seat, lean a little back and drive with the legs, seated in this way. Whereas Pantani used to like to stand, sometimes even going into the drops which you don't see so often.
I feel I'm faster while seated but like to stand to build endurance.

 

[frenchyge]

Heh. The philosophical equivalent of this.