Training & Nutrition - Another Hill training question

I'm making the jump from someone who goes out to our local trails and rides 12-15 hours a week to someone who is training for an event in 3 months. I've quickly realized that my legs and hill climbing is my weakest part. I picked up Joe Friels Cyclists training Bible, but I'm not sure what to do with it. There aren't any coaches in my area, and I'm either going to have to do this on my own or go online. Anyway: my question:

How many times per week should I do this particular hilly 22 mile course that I've picked out? Or should I just do repeats?

What types of gym exercises should I be doing, or just stay on the bike?

Is it possible to become a solid climber in three months?

Any advice would be appreciated.

I would do the hilly course three to four times a week. Vary your approach between pushing a higher gear to develop power and a lower gear to develop speed and cardo.

I think it is possible to be a pretty good climber in 3 months... I would do the hilly course maybe twice a week.. you definitely want to give your body legs time to adjust, and recover after each ride... if you can't do the course twice a week, then hill repeats seem to do just as well...

gym exercises will help, squats especially, but I personally would do one or the other... either hit the gym, or hit the hills on the bike... if you do both, you could suffer burnout, or injury, and you'll never get any better on hills

Jeff

So, how often is too often when it comes to hill work?

Funny, my advice was going to be an almost exact mixture of the other two responses you got. Twice a week, vary pushing hard gears with spinning easier gears.

I made the mistake of buying into (misunderstanding?) the spinning fad and trying to spin up hills all the time. I wasn't improving very quickly. It wasn't until I mixed in some low gear climbs that I built some strength and really started to improve.

And do some research on technique, it's a bigger factor than you think.

I live in central FL. We do have some hills around here if you look for them. We have a local hill that is 7% for .5 mile and a few near it nearly as large.

I have gone out west several times in the summers and ridden mountain passes each and every day. I have ridden these at a pretty comfortable pace because I did not want to give out with another 500' to climb. After even 2 weeks of this, I have found on getting back to central FL, that my hill climbing had improved markedly. So doing 2-3 hours of just moderate intensity climbing per day for 2 weeks is enough to make a noticeable difference. In my case, it always feels like I am riding a gear lower then I am.

You don't have to go that far, of course, but just go out and do the climbs. Now how fast you improve depends on how fit you are. If you are still in not too great of shape, you should see a pretty big change in a short time. If you are in good shape, it will come slower.

The thing is is that everyone has a certain maximum performance level that their body can hit and you will probably never reach that because to achieve 100% means you have to train with great discipline and skill. But going from say 20% to 60% comes pretty fast. Further gains take more work for less improvement. For most of us, getting close to 100% just is not worth it. It is if you are competing professionally and have a shot to be a world champion. But most of us have no where near that talent. Even at 110% of my possible fitness, I am sure I could not ride in the pro peloton.

Does that bother me? No. I can do things easily on a bike that most people think of as being darn near super human. I just happen to have an appreciation for how much stronger the pros are then I am.

Thanks everyone. I'm sure I'll have more questions, but I stoked about all the info. Climbing is my weakness, and something I can work on. Although I do ride quite often and do leg stuff in the gym, I never made myself do the not-so-fun work.

I love to climb. It is what riding is all about. Ride it as much as you can in the next 3 months. Take a week off before the race and do some easier stuff. I climb some big stuff 3-4 days a week during the spring, summer, fall on my commute. It has made me a strong climber and lowered my HR recovery time a lot.

Hill repeats one day a week, anerobic threshold intervals one day a week, one long ride a week. Try not to do them on consecutive days. There's lots of opinions on specific workouts for these but everyone's different. You can make substantial improvement in 3 months keeping a schedule like this. But remember doing this plus fun rides can become brutal so you need a defined goal that you're serious about, like the event you mentioned. Good luck.