Posted: March 8, 2005

Multisport: Head for the Hills

From: Jason Gootman, MS, CSCS & Will Kirousis, BS, CSCS
USA Triathlon and USA Cycling Certified Coaches
Tri-Hard Sports Conditioning Systems
www.tri-hard.com

There are few methods of training as potent as climbing a hill when it comes to improving your cycling and running performance. Let’s first take a look at why climbing workouts are so effective, and then at a few types of climbing workouts that you can use to boost your performance this year.

Training to Get Fast, Not to Simply Endure

In considering how you may or may not use climbing workouts, the first thing to take into consideration is why you are training. Many people have a main goal that is based around solely covering distance. For example, “I want to finish my first ½ IM this August.” Other folks have a main goal focused on increasing their performance. For example, “I want to break two hours at St. Anthony’s Olympic Distance Triathlon this spring” or “I want to finish IM USA Lake Placid in under 9:45 this summer.” None of these goals are any less important or valuable. But they do necessitate different training mentalities. If covering distance is your goal, then your training can pretty much focus on learning to produce enough energy to stay the course for a target event(s). If becoming a faster triathlete is the goal, your training has to focus on how skilled your movement is and how much force you can apply through that skilled movement. To do this, an important focus of your training needs to be on the act of applying relatively high amounts of force in the movement patterns of cycling and running. Climbing workouts are a great way to do accomplish this!

Increased Ability to Apply Force = Increased Speed

It is not uncommon for people to think that the production of force (strength/power) is not related to producing high movement speeds. In other words, that strength and power are different from speed. The truth is that strength (the ability to produce force) and power (the ability to rapidly produce force) are directly responsible for speed. Moving fast is the result of applying explosive bursts of force. It would then stand to reason that a person’s speed is in large part determined by their ability to produce force.

Learning to produce more force through your cycling and running (through activities like climbing workouts) provides the potential for you to move at higher absolute speed and sustainable speed. Simply stated, by learning to apply more force you are able to bike and run faster!

Absolute Speed is Directly Proportional to Your Potential Sustainable Speed

Before we provide a few climbing workouts for you to try, let’s take a look at the notion of how your absolute speed (the fastest you can move in a given movement pattern) influences your sustainable speed (the greatest speed of locomotion you can maintain for several hours as in an endurance event).

Your absolute speed helps to determine your sustainable speed (similar to the commonly used term “aerobic speed”) through many physiological variables. Being able to produce high amounts of force enhances the absolute working capacity of your entire neuromuscular system. This allows higher levels of submaximal work to be accomplished with less total physical strain. Every time you move your muscles contract. To allow them to contract, a tremendous cascade of physiological processes occur to provide energy to fuel the mechanical activities occurring within your muscles. The greater the amount of force you can produce, or the faster you can move, the EASIER it is for your body to complete submaximal workloads. Given the same endurance training, a stronger/more powerful/faster athlete will always be able to move at a greater sustainable speed (THE key to enhanced performance in triathlon!).

To explain this idea further, imagine you could squat 350 pounds five times. With that level of strength/power, you could squat 225 pounds 20-25 times according to common load calculation charts used by strength and conditioning coaches. Now imagine you could only squat 250 pounds five times. With that level of strength/power, you could squat 175 pounds 20-25 times. In both cases, you had equal endurance by the classic definition (the ability to keep going regardless of sustained speed). That is to say, you were able to complete the motion for 20-25 repetitions in both cases. But clearly in the former case, you were able to accomplish more work. Translated away from a squatting exercise, and to the locomotion activities of endurance cycling and running, the same principle holds true, just over longer distances. The more force you can produce in the movement patterns of cycling and running, the faster you will be able to go over an extended period of time, just as in our squatting example. Increase your top end strength/power and speed and you increase your “performance endurance” (the ability to continue to hold high rates of speed over an extended distance). In this way strength/power creates endurance, by our definition and the definition anyone seeking to improve their performance should use.

Three Kinds of Hill Workouts to Enhance Performance

Climbing Sprints
Purpose: This workout will maximize your ability to produce forces while riding and running.
Use: This workout is best used during any period of your training when increasing your cycling and running specific strength/power is a priority.
Terrain: Very steep short hill (50-100 meters) in a safe location.
Instructions & Notes:
Warm-up thoroughly with 10-15’ of cycling or running including skill drills. Use your warm-up to travel to the hill where you will do the workout.

Sprint up the hill for 8-12 seconds as fast as you can. Recover by spinning easy or walking down the hill and at the base of the hill for 2-4 minutes. Repeat 6-12 times.

These efforts should be 100% maximal force production efforts. Get as far as you possibly can up the hill in the 8-12 seconds. Then rest completely and repeat. This is NOT endurance training. Don’t allow yourself to think you are “doing nothing” while you are resting. You are allowing yourself to recover so you can do each climb maximally. And that is where the benefit lies. Shortchange the rest intervals, and you are training how to be tired, not fast.

For triathletes, we recommend you do your cycling repeats seated. While cycling and running use the best technique you are capable of on each climb.

Cool down by riding or running home at an easy intensity for 10-15’

Aerobic Climbing Repeats
Purpose: This workout will enhance your ability to produce forces while riding and running, while developing your aerobic endurance.
Use: This workout is best used during any period in your training when developing aerobic endurance is a priority.
Terrain: Moderately steep long hill (1-5 miles) in a safe location.
Instructions & Notes:
Warm-up thoroughly with 10-15’ of cycling or running including skill drills working up into your aerobic training zone. Use your warm-up to travel to the hill where you will do the workout.

Ride/run up the hill for 10-20’ going at the fastest rate you can maintain for the duration set for the climb. The climb should be done at the highest speed you can skillfully sustain for the intervals duration. Recovery by spinning easy or jogging down to the base of the hill. Repeat 3-5 times.

For triathletes, we recommend you do your cycling repeats seated. While cycling and running use the best technique you are capable of on each climb.

Cool down by riding or running home at an easy intensity for 10-15’.

Anaerobic Climbing Repeats
Purpose: This workout will enhance your ability to produce forces while riding and running, while developing your anaerobic endurance.
Use: This workout is best used during any period in your training when developing anaerobic endurance is a priority.
Terrain: Steep to very steep short hill (800 meters to 1 mile) in a safe location.
Instructions & Notes:
Warm-up thoroughly with 10-15’ of cycling or running including skill drills working up into the top end of your aerobic training zone. Use your warm-up to travel to the hill where you will do the workout.

Ride/run up the hill for 1-5’ going at the fastest rate you can maintain for the duration set for the climb. The climb should be done at the highest speed you can skillfully sustain for the intervals duration. Recovery by spinning easy or jogging down to the base of the hill. Repeat 3-8 times.

For triathletes, we recommend you do your cycling repeats seated. While cycling and running use the best technique you are capable of on each climb.

Cool down by riding or running home at an easy intensity for 10-15’.

We hope that these workouts, and the information presented in this article will be able to help you become a better triathlete over the next few years. Enjoy your workouts, rest hard, and keep growing!

Jason Gootman MS, CSCS and Will Kirousis BS, CSCS coach endurance athletes of all levels, write for conditioning related magazines/journals, and provide educational services for private and professional groups about optimizing endurance sports performance through their company Tri-Hard Sports Conditioning Systems. Jason and Will, USA Triathlon and USA Cycling Certified Coaches, can be reached with questions or comments through their website www.tri-hard.com or via email at jason@tri-hard.com and will@tri-hard.com respectively.