Saturday, October 13, 2007

Hill Training for strength

One great strength training method is hill repeats, however to avoid muscle injury these should only be done once you have a well established fitness base. It is also an alternative to gym-based weight training.

Step 1

Warm-up for 15-20 minutes at an aerobic heart-rate with a cadence of 90-100rpm.

Step 2

Find a hill on a road with little traffic with a 7-10% gradient and at least 400m long or one that will take you 1-2 minutes to climb.

Step 3

Start at the bottom of the hill in a gear that will be difficult to sustain all the way to the top with an average cadence of 50-60rpm.

Step 4

Start climbing aggressively to the top of the hill or to the end of your interval. Stay seated.

Step 5

Roll back down and do another rep (repeat) as soon as you arrive at the bottom. Do the planned number of reps.

Step 6

Cool-down for 15-20 minutes.

Tips

Start with 4 reps and increase by 1-2 reps each week until you reach 10 reps. Make the following day a rest day.

Done properly, hill repeats will give your legs incredible cycling-specific strength that will carry over to race day.

Pinched from an article by Troy Jacobsen in Triathlete magazine.


If you know of a good location to do this kind of session, leave a comment below. A few I can think of are:

Bukit Damansara - Jln Beringin, Jalan Setiabistari.
Bukit Tunku - Persiaran Duta (Hockey Stadium), Laman Tunku.

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