How to improve your climbing on short punchy climbs and long ascents

In this column, we give you tips and tricks to improve your climbing skills, including short, powerful climbs and long mountain passes.

Climbing is synonymous with cycling – pictures of Alpe d’Huez, switchbacks, switchbacks, 12% climbs, goat path climbs and much more. But cycling climbing isn’t just about the long stuff. Anything above a one percent incline could be considered an ascent. For novice cyclists, a 500-meter ramp at three percent is a full-fledged climb.

Regardless of your FTP, climbs can be intimidating. I bet even Jonas Vingegaard is intimidated by the 20.8km climb up Mont Ventoux. Whether it’s an alpine pass or the hill right in front of your house, climbs can be painful and demoralizing.

We are here to help. In this article we want to tell you how you can improve your climbing. These include performance-based training, climbing form, and your power-to-weight ratio. Let’s get straight to how to train for climbs.

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How do I train for climbing?

Climbing ability is all about the power to weight ratio. We’ll explain more about this formula towards the end of this article, but for now let’s focus on the first part of the occasion: power.

In order to improve your climbing skills, you need to get stronger. That’s boring advice, isn’t it?

Instead of telling you to improve your FTP, we’re going to be a lot more specific. If you’re training to improve your climbing, you need to train in the right zone.

Your power-based training zones are typically broken down into five different zones, ranging from easy to hard. Zone 1 is reserved for coffee rides, while Zone 5 is for VO2max efforts and racing. If you’re training to improve your climbing, you need to know which strength zones to target.

Zone training is applicable to both heart rate-based and effort-based training. Heart rate is usually divided into five zones, just like power, while you can measure your exertion using RPE (rate of perceived exertion when riding by feel).

So which zone should you target?

The answer lies in the length and intensity of the climbs you train for. For longer climbs you should aim for a lower power zone and therefore a lower intensity. Conversely, if you’re training for short climbs, you should focus on high-impact, high-intensity efforts. Here are some examples.

Let’s say you’re training for a Gran Fondo that’s 100 miles long and you have to climb 10,000 feet. There are three main climbs throughout the course, each lasting around 20-40 minutes. For climbs of this duration, you should focus on improving your performance in Zone 3 and Zone 4, or your Tempo and FTP zones. Try this workout to improve your 30-minute tempo performance:

• 10 minutes warm up
• 3×10 minute pace (76-83% FTP) with 5 minute rest (45-55% FTP)
• 10 minutes cool down

Start here and as your fitness improves, increase the length of each pace interval while maintaining the 5-minute rest period. Eventually, you should be able to do three 30-minute tempo repetitions with just a few minutes rest in between.

Now let’s say you’re training for a 60-mile road race with a handful of punchy three- to five-minute climbs. To do this, you need to work on your VO2max output, or the maximum power output that you can sustain for about five minutes. Here is an example of a VO2max training session:

• 10 minutes warm up
• 3×4 minutes VO2max (110-120% FTP) with 5 minutes rest (45-55% FTP)
• 10 minutes cool down

Related post:How to improve your VO2max

After doing this workout a few times, you can start adding reps or intensity to the VO2max intervals. Don’t increase the duration of each interval beyond five minutes, as you’ll be training a different system than your VO2max. Finally, you can work your way up to say 5×5 minutes at 115% FTP.

Remember that specificity is key. Don’t overcomplicate it and train specifically for the needs of your target event.

Is there a best form of climbing for cycling?

It’s no secret that riding on a hill feels different than riding on the flat. As the hill gets steeper, your body weight shifts back onto the saddle. This is one of the reasons we stand up on steep inclines (>10%) because rising out of the saddle helps shift our body weight forward and maintain balance.

There is no “best climbing position” that we know of at least from some studies. Just look at any mountain stage in the Tour de France and you’ll see pretty much every form of climbing imaginable. Riders are in the drops, on the hoods, strictly in the saddle, constantly out of the saddle; metronomic like Remco Evenepoel or fighting the bike like Romain Bardet.

Instead of rethinking your climbing form, focus on maintaining your most comfortable cadence and your climbing form will form naturally. You can certainly experiment with different climbing styles to see how they affect your heart rate, power output, and RPE (rate of perceived exertion).

Train your climbing muscles

When climbing, you probably use different muscles than when driving on the flat. Depending on your climbing position (in or out of the saddle, on the hoods or the peaks), you can more or less recruit your glutes, quads and calves. If you haven’t trained on climbs, you’ll start to feel soreness after just a few minutes.

The best way to improve your climbing form – to get your muscles used to the effort – is to climb more. But if you live in the flatlands, you can still train your climbing skills by riding out of the saddle, increasing your flexibility and range of motion (ROM), and strengthening your lower body muscles with strength training.

Here is our list of the best strength training exercises for cyclists.

This is also a warning for cyclists who train almost exclusively indoors. No matter how much you increase your FTP through ERG mode workouts, it’s another beast to tackle a real-life climb. If you’re training for a mountain climb, a mountainous fondo, or anything in between, make sure you get outside and climb as much as possible before the event.

power-to-weight ratio

Of course, power-to-weight ratio is made up of two components: power and weight. Power-to-weight ratio is perhaps the closest metric to a gold standard for measuring cycling power. With very few exceptions, the higher your power-to-weight ratio, the better you are at cycling.

So far we’ve focused on improving the performance part of the equation. But there is also your weight. Trying to lose weight can get you down the wrong path, but you can also lose weight in a healthy way.

If you want to lose some weight, here are some tips for healthy and sustainable weight loss:

• cut out excess calories (soda, candy, pastries), non-essential nutrients
• Fuel each of your training sessions with sufficient carbohydrates for energy
• aim up not more than a calorie deficit of 200-300 calories (burning more calories than you expend) per day
• At most, aim to lose a pound of excess weight per week

Most importantly, remember that you cannot gain strength and lose weight indefinitely. There comes a tipping point where your weight is too low and you no longer have the energy to exercise and get stronger. Many cyclists have reached this point and it is not fun to be there.

Focus on driving your workout and maintaining healthy eating habits. Weight loss should come naturally, not from starvation. And in most cases when cycling, it is better to have more power than less weight.

Conclusion

As you can see, there is a lot more to improving your climbing than getting stronger or losing weight. Specificity is key in your training – focus on the specific zones of power you will use in your goal event. And if you’re just training to improve your overall climbing ability, train your climbing weaknesses first.

While more climbing improves your climbing, there is no need to overdo it and start climbing every day. Remember to get enough rest and aim for no more than two hard workouts per week. These rest periods and recovery rides are when you get stronger.

Lastly, remember that rock climbing is literally an uphill struggle, both physically and mentally. Don’t be too hard on yourself if you don’t finish a hill rep on the first try. We’ve all had to get off a climb, whether it was Alpe d’Huez or the ascent. Focus on the things you can control and soon you’ll be climbing faster than ever.