Following on from Morzine Virgins

With just over a month to go, can anyone suggest a training programme to get my old legs ready for the long descents?

Ta,

Bludgeon.

Ride down lots of hills.

HTH.

Wow, I thought someone else might post something more insightful and useful. Have to admit I had more problem with arm pump than tired legs in the Alps, although they did tend to go a bit jelly like by the end of the last run of the day…

You also need to train your forearms to avoid arm pump from long braking.

Now what activity could we suggest in support of that……

You can get squeezy grips for this kind of thing on Amazon.

I also find squatting like a ski racer (or more crudely as if you’re taking a dump) helps. Get into a proper painful squat with your feet quite close together and your arms stretched out for 1minute 15s, have a break for 30s, and repeat 3 further times. Less if you’re an old guy, you’ll have a heart attack. It really hurts, burns your quads to a cinder, and you’ll get quite out of breath but improvements for riding will be noticeable within days.

You have to make sure to train both arms equally though…

The squeezy ring things (FNAR!) do help a bit with arm pump, as does making sure your controls are set up well and not deathgripping all the way down the hill.

As said above, arm pump is more of a killer than tired legs, when I went a few years ago I had only ridden a few times in the 6 months before going and my legs were fine (alright I wasn’t setting the trails alight with my blinding speed) but my arms were destroyed after 6 days riding over there, in fact I struggled to hold a pen at work for a couple of weeks after coming back!