my58vw

Alright a question that came to mind tonight.

I am a proponent that no pain no gain is the way to look at things. Now this pain may be breathing hard, spinning fast, etc. Basically not riding 5 mph on your beach cruiser.

I know all riding has some benefits more when you are your training thresholds. Lately I have been doing most of my riding with club riders who are dare I say very fast. Most are Cat5+ racers and they do move. A typical ride can bring us to 21 MPH+ for extended (i.e. long) periods of time. I have no problem running that plus more on the flats. My impovement needs to be in climbing. I always get dropped on the climbs which is a function of the strength of my quads and other muscles.

When I go up a hill (long grade) at speed I quickly go anarobic, breathing hard, quads hurting, building lactic acid fast. Sometimes these hills are 3 - 4 minutes of pure pushing, sometimes more or less. I try and work on hill work also when I am not group riding but most of the time I am riding it is base or muscle endurance.

How much time would be the minimum that I can do to see results from hill climbing in the anarobic zones (zone 4a ,4b, 5, etc). Will the 5 - 10 minutes of true hard anarobic work on a group ride 3 times a week give me results now? I am a little afraid of going to hard on hills while I am working this year on general improvement but I want to get stronger as quick as possible.

I almost never go anarobic to failure like I do with weight training. I usually just push through the pain until we get to the top. My quads do get fatigued after a while and I slow down which means I know they are working.

Will I see results? I know that riding with riders over my head will make me stronger, quicker, etc but I do not know if I am doing enough. I am suplimenting my riding with time in the gym right now also but it is after the ride not before... save it all for the road...

Thanks as always

terrymorse 

The type of climbing you describe is what most races are like: short hills that riders blast up, well above their threshold. The goal is to be able to recover quickly at the top, and to avoid cumulative fatigue.

The "other" type of climbing is on longer grades, where you need to be able to ride near your threshold the whole way. I do pretty well on those, riding away from the guys who can punish me on shorter hills.

Your short anaerobic workouts ought to help with the first type of climbing, but not too much with the second. This article from active.com explains the different types of training:

https://www.active.com/story.cfm?story_id=11139&page=2

my58vw

Thanks for the awsome link. Most of out fast hills are the first type, fast and short, out of the saddle, high above anarobic threshold. While I can do good on the very short 100 yard hills with no problems it is the longer 500 yard ones where I tend to get dropped. The longer climbs if the pace is not redicously high then I can stay with the group.