Training: Get fit for mountain biking, part 2

16 comments
By Mat Brett, What Mountain Bike | Friday, Mar 19, 2010 1.00pm

To help get you in shape for summer, last week we asked several of the biggest names in British mountain biking what gets them fired up to ride. Hopefully that's helped with the motivation side of things, so now we're looking at ways to get fit.

First off are some tips, followed by an in-depth training plan that's perfect if you're gearing up for a race or other event, but will still be useful if you just want to get faster on a bike.

Get fit tips

Mix it up: If you do the same hour-long loop all the time, you’ll get good at riding for an hour. But if you really want to improve your fitness, surprise your body and challenge yourself by throwing in longer rides too. The duration will depend on your time and fitness; you might do two hours, you might do four, but the key is to keep it varied.

Ride to work: Okay, if it’s just a 10-minute hop you won’t get much benefit but, seeing as you’re on the bike anyway, you can always go the long way home.

Pick up the pace: Ride with people who are faster than you – they’ll drag you out of your comfort zone. You don’t have to turn every ride into a race, but putting everything in to stick on the wheel of someone who flies up the climbs will soon improve your fitness.

Play with speed: Change your pace at random on rides: go as fast as you can to the trees, recover until you reach the bridge, stay seated and spin up the long climb, sprint to the gatepost… you get the idea. You’re challenging your body in different ways in order to boost your fitness.

Play catch-up: When you’re out on the trails with a bunch of mates, take it in turns to go off the front. Give the leader a 30-second headstart and then try to catch them as fast as possible. It’s a fun way of getting in some hard riding.

Set regular ride times: If you and your mates know that Wednesday night is always ride night, you’re far more likely to get out consistently than if you leave it unplanned.

Boost your recovery: Get an early night. Your body does most of its best work when you’re asleep so switch the phone off and hit the hay a couple of hours early once a week.

Prep ahead: Prepare your post-ride food and drink before you go out. You want to kickstart your recovery as soon as possible after getting home – not after you’ve sat on the sofa for half an hour or hit the shower.

Load up the carbs: Take in at least one gram of carbohydrate per kilogram of your bodyweight for every hour that you ride. This can be in the form of carbohydrate/electrolyte drinks, gels, bars, normal food such as bananas and fruit cake, or a combination of these.

Set a challenge: One way to stay motivated is to set yourself a challenge, like taking part in a race – for example, the What Mountain Bike Dirt Crit Champs at this summer's BikeRadar Live festival.

Training: get fit for mountain biking, part 2:

Take it to the next level

Just getting out there and hitting the trails will improve your mountain biking, but if you really want to take your fitness to the next level you need to ride at the right intensity. Investing in a heart rate monitor (HRM) will help you do this by telling you exactly how hard you’re working.

Like most training plans, ours is based on zones calculated from your maximum heart rate (max HR) – although you can also follow them using perceived exertion, which is a matter of judging how hard you feel you’re riding.

You’ll often read that you can work out your max HR by subtracting your age from 220. Forget it. The only accurate way to get your figure is to push yourself to the limit – assuming you’re fit and healthy and have got the okay from the doctor. Make sure you have a friend with you.

It’s best to do this indoors on a turbo trainer because that’s a safe environment. If you don’t have a turbo, find the longest stretch of junction-free road you can with the least amount of traffic, ideally on a slight slope. Strap on your HRM and get cracking…

1 Start steady: Warm up thoroughly for 10-15 minutes. Start in a fairly low gear and gradually increase your effort, pedalling at a comfortable cadence.

2 Go up a level: Change up a gear, maintaining your cadence, and stick at this level for two minutes.

3 All-out sprint: Change up another gear and keep repeating this until you can’t go any harder. Then sprint all-out for 20 seconds, throwing everything you’ve got into your final burst, and take your max HR – it’ll probably be a few seconds after you’ve finished. An HRM that records your max HR is really handy here.

4 Warm down: Get those legs moving again as soon as possible. Spend several minutes spinning the cranks easily, drinking as you go, until you come back down to earth.

Training: get fit for mountain biking, part 2:

If you want a larger version of this plan, simply click on the image in the thumbnail gallery at the top of the page.

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User Comments

There are 16 comments on this post

Showing 1 - 16 of 16 comments

  • Just get and ride!

    This is too fussy for us mountain bikers.

    Plan:

    Ride as often as possible on varied terrain. Rest as litttle as possible during the ride. Give it max every now and again.

    Plan complete.

  • nice - my thoughts exactly! Probably very bad practice but I reckon I do all my riding in "Zone 3" but probably get less time on the bike as a result... Luckily i spend only 1-5% of my riding in Zone 4,

    Zone 4

    100% max heart rate and above (90% and above if your a Chicago home-town pizza fan) This is the nuts, you're breathing like a lesbian in a tuna factory and your muscles are cramping solid. You should do up to 0% of your riding at this level.

    In all seriousness I will be trying some of the above on my Bath - Bristol commute like varying the spinning speeds.. a friend of mine recommended doing a section focussing on the pulling of the SPDs - this could help in getting the maximum effect from each pedal turn?

  • captainian, you've got it spot on mate.

  • Thanks Ben and lwv, but it should have said...

    JUST GET OUT AND RIDE

    Obviously :)

  • You've missed the point by miles. Biking is supposed to be fun, when you get to the stage where you have to do this, you might as well get the jigsaws out. I aim to have a laugh and eat some cake. Stop being so serious, and get the fooking soreen out!

    nuff said

    Bonjour

  • i agree, if i feel like interval training i find sprinting until my bacon sandwich comes up is a good indicator. I ride to empty my brain (doesn't take much) not fill it up with stupid excercises.

    Eat, ride, drink, ride, drink ride, eat, fart usually does it for me

  • Yep, this looks way too much like a roadies routine than a mountain bikers. I know in my local riding spots it's impossible to stay at a set pace or in a "zone", the terrain just doesn't allow it (nor do the dog walkers and equestrians).

    My weekend routine goes like this:

    -Ride during the day

    -Eat crisps, chocolate and anything that can go in the microwave

    -Drink beer during the night

  • this is a load of rubbish all i want to do is get on my bike and thrash it round some trails as much as possible

  • Yeah but if your fitness is good your riding is better and more fun, i think thats the point

  • It seems we are all in agreement then :)

  • I agree with all of the above, at the end of the day we do this for fun, to get a buzz and feel good doing the sport we love. Last summer I put a bit more effort into thinking about how my fitness would affect my riding and found that once I got past the painful stage of lung busting rides, I felt much better, I found that I was not concentrating on breathing and the pain in my legs, my technical riding skills improved no end, clearing technical climbs I had previously dabed on and not only clearing them but blasting away once at the top, downhill sections became more enjoyable as my energy and strength levels were substantially better during the end of my rides.....Result....felt great, confidence and ability shot up. I had no particular plan just riding more frequently and building up the length of rides, eating sensibly. I also found that running (which I hate) helped a great deal, so I would suggest some cross training or to put it less technically do other sports which tone and strengthen the body..........I guarentee once you hit that comfortable level of fitness you will love the ride even more and still be buzzing when your back home!!

  • Yeah plans are too hard to remember, plus the mtbing breaks the routine of work - i don't want to add more planning in the evenings and weekend too, or think about when i should be riding fast or slow etc.

  • I totally agre with the comments.

    If you keep it fun and grounded, you get more out of it!

    The plan is far too regimented!

  • PHEW !!!

    Just had to read the advice twice to see if i was any of the above !

    Erm the answer is NO!

    I was happy as a pig in Sh!t when i scrolled down to see that i,m not the only one that hasnt got a "HRM" bleeping its T!TS off while i,m trying to spin out a technical climb,

    Jeezus christ man can you imagine the sacrifices you would have to make to leave enough time to admin yourself for that !

    I spend the time on my bike to clear my head as someone has already said above !

    The fact that i am hanging out on climbs means i need to ride more not enroll in a science plan of what i should be doing !

    Right i,m off to clean my bike as i,m riding tmrw morning !

  • i thought this was the mountain biking section, not the roadie one

  • Quote:Investing in a heart rate monitor (HRM) will help you do this by telling you exactly how hard you’re working.

    Very good tips on the interval side of things using the land as your markers

    A HR monitor wont tell you how hard your working only how hard your heart pumping you could put a really unfit person on a bike and he/she could get a very high heart rate without even doing much and on the other hand you get a real fit person and because there heart is so economic they could be showing a low hr but working real hard.

    HR monitors are good tools but your heart is so inconsistent through fatigue, tirdness, overtraining etc etc. So the best way to determine your effort is to use a scale of 1-10 and after or during a ride ask yourself how hard was i working, with 1 being nothing and 10 being the highest. Give it a go sometimes i find that if im riding/training and i ask myself this it can make me pick up my speed/effort for example i may say 7 and think to myslef well i could go harder so you do...

    Hope this helps.

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