Building MTB fitness quick. Hill reps?

My local trails are a total mess. Worst I can ever remember them at this time of year. It’s been like this for months apart from it maybe got to slightly tacky a few weeks ago. Then it got worse again.

I’ve got a very low mojo for riding through the mud at the moment TBH, after having battled through the winter on the gravel bike mainly.

To be honest I’m mostly just enjoying going for a walk locally as it is no faff and relaxing.

I’m still loving MTB at other non local locations where it rides better in the wet and I have more time, but it means at least half a day out what with travel etc and only doable once a week really.

I’m not totally unfit. Endurance is actually reasonable. I’m too fat though. At this time of the year I would usually be ramping up MTB for summer, particularly on more punchy MTB short/sharp up/down type riding.

I’ve also got a big MTB holiday coming up in July, and some enduro races in May/June to train for.

I need to do something about it. Wondering what to do.

Would hill reps on the road bike help me out here? There’s a decent hill on a quiet road locally to me which is not super steep but rises about 50m over 500m.  I could go and do a few laps of that in the morning a few times a week, trying to break myself up the climb. Could also do this hill on a singlespeed MTB if that would be betterer.

Does this work? Any tips for how to structure training around it to get the best bang for buck in terms of time efficiency?

Other options:

I could go running, which I really enjoy even in the mud, but I’m not too sure this really translates to MTB fitness. Also I’ve had a few problems with my right ankle lately so took a break.

I could go road riding. Got some fairly nice 1-2 hour local routes. Good for endurance but agin I’m not sure it really totally translates to MTB for punchy stuff. Also uses more time.

I’m not going on a **** turbo trainer….That is, unless someone can really, really convince me it will be significantly better to doing hill reps. I far, far prefer being outside.

My experience was that going out and attacking hills on my road bike was fantastic for cardio fitness on the MTB.

Better than running (though I do struggle with varying my pace when running).

Do you do any strength and/or flexibility stuff as well? That’s the other element of MTB obvs.

Can you commute by bike at all? Interval training on the commute (as long as you have shower/changing space at work), and running, it’s great for losing a bit of weight, improve fitness and is very time efficient, while its true it’s not entirely transferable, it also true that it’s still aerobic fitness and yet to meet a good runner who isn’t half decently fit enough to ride a bike well.  Then; good sleep/recovery, good food, and a bit of off the bike flexibility

I could have written that.

I’ve just signed up to this, will let you know how I get on.

https://mtb.fitness/

I didn’t find a better way than just going out there and riding in the bad weather unfortunately.

I was riding on Zwift quite a bit during the bad weather a year or two ago and did  loads of hills on there, even  managed Alpe du Zwift in under an hour on the first attempt but when I actually went out and did a real hill it was a completely different story. I think I’d conditioned my self to ride quickly on zwift and my real world fitness was nowhere near as good.

I went out and did hill reps on a local small steep hill which was good for a quick 20 minute workout and picked a route with a long hill which was good for a longer 2 hour ride under and the combination of these helped.

I was going to add ‘commute’ by bike. Adds a really good fitness base and you’ll be automatically getting cardio and ‘intervals’ by sprinting away from traffic lights etc. By far the best way to build fitness without hammering other time. Road fitness does translate to MTB very well, especially for climbing.

Cheers,

I do 4*30 min wendler 5-3-1 per week strength.

I should do flexibility but always forget. I need to get that going really!

I WFH mainly but when in the office (once per week usually) I commute. Only 5km in but I can and do extend it to 20km one way, either gravel or road at the moment. (I’d MTB if dry!)

If you are structured then hill reps can work. Just got to be careful on a road bike that you don’t get drawn into an easy spin. I find the main difference is most roads tend to have a gradual and / or consistent incline. You then go somewhere mtb where you have constantly changing gradient and terrain and it tests your body’s ability to adapt to constant change.

Road biking when pressing on is more of a constant high level work load. Still useful but different.

The biggest change to my fitness the last few years has been through turbo training……

In short yes. I find Z2-ish plus hard hill reps gets me most of the way there for MTB (& CX) fitness.

A local chain gang that you can hold on to (just about, ideally) works for me too.

Add in some strength and conditioning off the bike and it will all be fine.

Hill reps on a road bike will work. Best way to get fast is ride hard ime. If you want to ride 50 miles slowly, endurance road rides work at zone 2, but they wont make you ‘fast’

I know you say you hate the turbo, which is understandable, but I’ve had most bang for buck doing sustained efforts around ftp on something like Alp d’zwift. 50 min of pain a few times a week built fitness far quicker than riding miles and miles at a comfortable pace

Ride as much as you can, hill reps on a road bike would certainly help. Weight training to build up legs and core strength. Calisthenics for mobility and agility.

I’m trying to ride min twice a week to get miles into legs and lungs and I do 5 gym classes per week (mixture of strength and HIIT). Noticed a decent difference after a month or two, been doing it for a year now and feel loads better. Currently trying to find a way to get 30 mins calisthenics in each morning. Also need to sort out my diet once and for all.

I think it depends a bit on what you mean by ‘fitness’. A lot of mountain biking for me involves short, hard efforts way above threshold, recover-ish, and repeat. I find 30/30s good for this. Find a gradual hill, sprint all out up it for 30 seconds, recover/roll back down for 30, repeat six times. Recover for 5 mins. Repeat. And repeat. Twice a week with a gentle day afterwards.

Quite ouchy but very effective.

I’m not going on a **** turbo trainer….That is, unless someone can really, really convince me it will be significantly better to doing hill reps. I far, far prefer being outside.

I absolutely love Zwift and have been doing little else for the last 4 months or so. I don’t think there’s anything better for bike fitness for the “casual” rider (i.e. outside of proper structured training). That said, I’m not going to try to convince you – even I’m outside now the weather’s finally got a bit better so I think you’ve missed the boat for this year 😂

From your OP actually sounds like doing Slimming World or something for 3-4 months, as well as just getting out & riding, would give you best bang-for-buck 🤔😉

my commute (9miles each way in London, shower at work) used to be all I needed to do to be fit enough.  Working from home switched to a fake commute – 60-90 minutes before work. That keeps some of the time pressure that made me push it a bit to get to work as I need to be back.

I was riding on Zwift quite a bit during the bad weather a year or two ago and did loads of hills on there, even managed Alpe du Zwift in under an hour on the first attempt but when I actually went out and did a real hill it was a completely different story. I think I’d conditioned my self to ride quickly on zwift and my real world fitness was nowhere near as good.

Puzzled by this.  Zwift/Rouvy whatever workouts are more targeted and push harder than a commute. If the weathers not nice I do that at home rather than going out for fake commute now.  If anything fitness has been higher through winter than before.  I’ve always done an ‘ftp’ builder programme but not followed it strictly (ie I’m not doing x hours a week, just doing one of the training sessions from it when I’m not riding outside)

I’ve two fake commute routes – one is largely flat, the other has 450m of climbing (with steep climbs) so they’re not formally structured but have enough variation to keep fitness up. I can’t get enthusiastic about riding inside if it’s dry out…

Zwift is very “flattering” in that you’ll never see the same speeds/times in the real world due to not having perfect conditions at all times! But yeah it’s absolutely my experience that Zwift fitness directly translates to IRL fitness. Why wouldn’t it?

I can see why a steep, real hill might’ve come as a shock though, if you’ve got the Zwift difficulty dialled down to 50% (which I believe is the default now?) 😂

Puzzled by this.

Zwift is basically indoor road riding, lots of steady efforts. Mountain biking is kind of the opposite. Fitness beyond a certain point gets quite specific and mountain biking is basically hard.

My super ‘fit’ iron man buddy was a useless mountain biker because all he’d ever done was ride at a steady, endurance level. Short, kicky anaerobic climbs killed him because it wasn’t something he ever trained. On the road it was a different story.

It all depends on what you mean by fitness.

Hill reps are good. They don’t have to be on a road bike.

It helps to break them down into different zones/cadences too. If you have a ten minute hill, break it into two five minute chunks with no break in between. I often do four reps of 5 minutes zone 3-4 (so working fairly hard – I don’t use a heart rate monitor or power meter, just go by feel and whether I can talk or not) at 50-60rpm, then immediately another five minutes in the same zones at 90-95rpm. This is all seated, pushing down hard with your thighs. 5-10 minutes recovery in between.

It gets your glutes, ankles, hips and thighs much stronger. The change in cadence gets your cardiovascular system working well too.

BUT do that more than once a week and you’ll be wrecked. So combine it with some regular rides just getting some mileage in. Commuting is good for that. Turbo training is a no-no for me too.

250 watts on the turbo is the same as 250 outside (assuming the power readings are accurate). I ride puig major on the tacx app and it takes me  within a minute of what it takes in real life, based on similar power numbers

having said that you need to train on turbo for what you want to achieve outside. If you are racing on an mtb you’ll have lots of short sharp climbs where you’ll be well above ftp for short periods of time. An hr at threashold power won’t be the best training for that.

if however you plan to ride long steady road or fire road climbs then something like alp d’zwift is ideal

Zwift is basically indoor road riding, lots of steady efforts. Mountain biking is kind of the opposite. Fitness beyond a certain point gets quite specific and mountain biking is basically hard.

That’s true (and theres a lot of upper body work mtb too) but there are training programmes that have a lot of variation in target watts. (these graphs are mislabelled – it’s %age of FTP) – and it does push you in the short sharp efforts in a way that ‘just going out and riding’ doesn’t tend to.

Anything of a decent intensity and then consistency will do the job.

I was crap in December so signed up for 2x spin classes a week at the gym, and do one zwift session a week.

Spin is obviously very instructor dependent (half of them have clearly never ridden a bike and aren’t following their own instructions when they tell you to add another four turns and maintain 90RPM when everyone’s wheels are basically locked up). But if you find a decent one then it’s as good a way as any to get some consistent structured training in.  I still add in my own variations, e.g. the instructor does 30on/20off intervals at 100-110-120rpm upto 180, that’s pointless if you can hold 180 then everything <160 isn’t intense enough. So I add enough turns to make the 100-150rpm intervals equally hard work.

I’ve done 5 MTB rides this year, and probably on 10 hours on the road bike but still started track accreditation last night which aside from being a terrifying baptism of fire when my first experience of riding without brakes was in the ‘not beginners’ group doing an 8km TTT @22-24mph 😂.  I know my fitness is rubbish over anything longer than an hour, and that conventional wisdom is start with endurance, but IME it’s easier to get motivated for a hard 45-60min 3x per week, then use that fitness to make longer rides fun. Than it is to do longer rides when you’re not fit enough to make the hills seem easy-ish.

Zwift is basically indoor road riding, lots of steady efforts. Mountain biking is kind of the opposite. Fitness beyond a certain point gets quite specific and mountain biking is basically hard.

Whatever you do it needs variety.

The few MTB rides I’ve done I’ve felt OK in terms of not getting humiliatingly dropped, but struggled to sprint between corners and climbs feel odd, like I’m spinning with no torque, but shifting up a gear feels like a brick wall.  One is because none of my “training” has been that sort of high gear repetitive standing starts, and the other I suspect is because the number of hours I’ve ridden with a freewheel outdoors is in single digits so climbing cadence just feels weird.

I love that someone specifically doesn’t want to ride indoors and half the replies suggest Zwift. Shall we have a whip round to buy the OP a smart trainer and an annual subscription? 😉

Zwift is basically indoor road riding, lots of steady efforts.

the beauty of Zwift is that you can ride in whatever way you want, no-one is forcing you to ride steady efforts!! I do a sprint race every week (points for being first under each arch of which there are between 5-12 over a race) which is no different to this:

A lot of mountain biking for me involves short, hard efforts way above threshold, recover-ish, and repeat.

The downside of Zwift is you’re stuck indoors, not getting any fresh air and daylight, experiencing the sights and sounds of nature, and not everyone likes that.

I love that someone specifically doesn’t want to ride indoors and half the replies suggest Zwift. Shall we have a whip round to buy the OP a smart trainer and an annual subscription?

And an extension lead to set it up in the garden.

Zwift races I think are quite good for mtb rather than longer rides (assuming you don’t do long gentle mtb rides). Crit racing on the bell lap means you’re constantly battling other people with short sharp gradients at very high intensity, and then some of the hillier races (e.g mountain massif) mean you’re pushing against other people but on longer more drawn out climbs.

I find these translate quite well to say the Cwmcarn red loops where the climbs are either constantly changing gradient (Cafell) or need you to be pushing along and then have to respond with quick bursts of power to get over tech obstacles (Twrch).

The biggest things turbo training have given me are more leg speed and the ability to cruise along at a higher output with the capacity for short sharp bursts of power. I did a few years initially on trainer road doing structured training plans – although more recently I’m doing my own thing in Zwift. Mixture of zone 2 erg training and racing / group rides. Trying to vary up the types of rides so I don’t go either too easy or equally burn out with too much intensity.

The downside of Zwift is you’re stuck indoors, not getting any fresh air and daylight, experiencing the sights and sounds of nature, and not everyone likes that.

My problem is that all the nature stuff distracts me and I can’t concentrate on any sort of “training”. 😂

the beauty of Zwift is that you can ride in whatever way you want, no-one is forcing you to ride steady efforts!! I do a sprint race every week (points for being first under each arch of which there are between 5-12 over a race) which is no different to this:

It’s still hard to properly replicated real world off-road riding, however much you spend on the trainer.  But even if all you do is the cadence drill workout (A couple of short FTP intervals followed by 90rpm @ 80% FTP for 2min then 30s @110% FTP for 30s, repeat 15 times) over the winter then it makes the going out into the real world so much easier and more fun if you can actually make it up the hills without collapsing or pushing the bike.

Variety is important, but it’s a long way behind just being consistent week in week out.

I love that someone specifically doesn’t want to ride indoors and half the replies suggest Zwift. Shall we have a whip round to buy the OP a smart trainer and an annual subscription? 😉

There’s a reason for that, indoor training is far easier to do consistently several times a week if you’re struggling with the motivation to go out in the real worlds weather.

The OP’s said they don’t like the real world (and evidenced that) and they don’t like indoors (with no evidence beyond an opinion).

Doesn’t even need a whip round, I couldn’t give away my old wheel-on Zwift compatible trainer last winter. The market for 2nd hand turbo trainers is bordering on dumping them in a charity shop and zwift will run on a modern smartphone.

But even if all you do is the cadence drill workout (A couple of short FTP intervals followed by 90rpm @ 80% FTP for 2min then 30s @110% FTP for 30s, repeat 15 times) over the winter

I mean to me, that just sounds joyless and utterly miserable, I’d rather just jump on and give it 100% racing against randos from all over the world. Takes all sorts though I guess 🤷‍♂️😂

the beauty of Zwift is that you can ride in whatever way you want, no-one is forcing you to ride steady efforts!!

Yeah sorry, of course, my fault for being vague. I suspect though, that quite a lot of folk just ride around or focus on ftp-type sessions because short, brutal efforts hurt and take a certain mind-set to inflict on yourself.

I love that someone specifically doesn’t want to ride indoors and half the replies suggest Zwift. Shall we have a whip round to buy the OP a smart trainer and an annual subscription

@BadlyWiredDog – this is STW after all –  I expect nothing less 👌

Seriously though it is interesting to hear experiences zwift Vs real world.

We do actually have a smart turbo in the house (my wife bought it in the sales…used once! 🤣)

But even if it is the quickest way to Uber fit, I still can’t see it working for me TBH.

Like @munrobiker I’d just hugely rather be outside. I spend enough time inside working as it is.

Thanks for all the responses – it’s really helpful.

Hill reps on a fixed wheel bike in a slightly uncomfortable gear. You get to recover on the way down. Gears make you weak 😉 . For a decent hill I like a ratio of 3:1 to get some serious leg workout. If you don’t want to ride fixed, then stay  in the big ring on your road bike and make it uncomfortable.

Two hour Zone 2 group rides on Zwift (hello Coco 2.6W/kg see you later this evening) are great for base training, but they won’t build leg strength in the way that grunting up hills with no prospect of changing down will.

For a more left-field fun suggestion, I’d add SQT training on the track. Nothing makes my legs ache the day after like a serious group training session on the track. Russian steps is basically short sharp sprint intervals with recovery. The absence of gears and coasting makes it more intense. Gaining laps is flat out sprint efforts with recovery. Is there a velodrome near you?

Can certainly help.

Full gas effort to summit, or even just early or late part of climb while taking other part steady, before very easy recovery back to hill base. Anywhere from 20mins to a couple of hours.

For those in Southampton area (must be more than @Nixie ,  @WorldClassAccident and myself), there’s something like 6+ ways to get to the Witts Hill plateau in Midanbury, including Dell Road that hits ~20%. Used these loads in autumn ’17, less so since getting a turbo, but every now and again I still pop over there. Mixing it up between my fat bike, hybrid and road bike.

If you have a turbo, use the 25km calendar month trial on Zwift to do intervals on Ven Top to make most of free trial, or try the completely free MyWhoosh.

Hill Reps + overgearing is for you.

2 min efforts, roll back down to recover & repeat 3 or 4 times.

Increase reps over a few weeks.

Edit –  you probably dont want to do it it more than a couple of times a week depending on other excercise.

I mean to me, that just sounds joyless and utterly miserable, I’d rather just jump on and give it 100% racing against randos from all over the world. Takes all sorts though I guess 🤷‍♂️😂

It is, but it’s also why I signed up for track racing.  The idea of sweating against random strangers in my shed three nights a week appealed less than going out and racing real bikes three nights a week.

There’s probably a joke to be had in there somewhere about one requiring no skill as there’s no braking or corners, and the other is virtual reality.

Either way my point was still do whatever you like as long as it’s:

A) Sufficient training to have an impact.

B) Consistent.

And it’s consistency that’s critical. If you do something that meets the first criteria 3x a week for a couple of months you’ll see a positive change.  for one person that might be Zwift racing, for me it was finding a decent spin class, for the OP it might be those 1minute hill reps.  To me hill reps sounds like hell, who has the mental fortitude to ride the same small hill ~30 times to get a decent ride in? But if he does it a few times a week for a few months then he’ll get fit at doing 1minute hills and recovering quickly.

Bit unfortunate that ‘indoor’ now seems to mean ‘Zwift’.

It doesn’t take much adaptation (or money) to enjoy indoor sessions on a dumb trainer, just stick on a GCN video of choice, pick some tunes (Takkyu Ishino for proper euphoric techno beats 😎) and get it done in 45 minutes. I got a pretty top end Kinetics fluid turbo for £70 I think, will be all I ever need.

Or buy spikier tyres for the CX bike and go smash some flat muddy bits. Good skills workout and damn fun to boot.

It is, but it’s also why I signed up for track racing.  The idea of sweating against random strangers in my shed three nights a week appealed less than going out and racing real bikes three nights a week.

You’re track racing 3 nights a week? Every week? Fair play, I wouldn’t have the energy (or the time!) for that!

I absolutely love Zwift and have been doing little else for the last 4 months or so. I don’t think there’s anything better for bike fitness for the “casual” rider (i.e. outside of proper structured training). That said, I’m not going to try to convince you – even I’m outside now the weather’s finally got a bit better so I think you’ve missed the boat for this year 😂

Ditto, I’ve been using Zwift since January, I was intending to cancel the Sub from April on but I got out on the Gravel bike on Sunday and the ground round here is pretty saturated still, so I might just keep using zwift for the remainder of April and on into May.

It’s definitely helped my fitness a bit, I’m feeling stronger than I did last spring, I’ve been doing the “FTP builder” workout plan as well as some general spinning about imaginary places and the odd Robo-paced group ride.

You’re track racing 3 nights a week? Every week?

Reading track league Monday, SQT Thursday and Vets SQT at LVV Friday. Rinse and repeat with 80-100km club ride on Tuesdays and Saturdays until races get serious!

Might even ride off road soon! 😉

Yeah, I ride my bike 3-5 times a week, 11 hours a week. Regardless of the weather I enjoy it all more than riding indoors. Hill reps and all.

I suspect though, that quite a lot of folk just ride around or focus on ftp-type sessions because short, brutal efforts hurt and take a certain mind-set to inflict on yourself.

When I first tried Zwift this is exactly what I did, usually with football on the tellybox. If I’m forced indoors I prefer Wahoo SYSTM (Sufferfest) for the brutality and find it far more engaging. I do keep meaning to try Zwift racing though as a few friends do it and seem to enjoy it.