Indoor Cycling Workouts To Improve Your Climbing Ability

Author:
Liam Hallam
Updated:
Nov 12, 2012

Cycling Workouts to help you be a better climber

For many cyclists- you can either climb, or you struggle when the road starts to go upwards

For many riders climbing is a natural ability. They are often exceptionally slim and have excellent power to weight ratios to allow them to really power up climbs. However for many of us that ability is not present and we really need to concentrate on our workouts to develop our climbing abilities.

You need the right cycling workouts for when the road goes upwards

A Langdale Cycles rider climbing in the East Midlands Divisional Road Race 2012.
CyclingFitness Photos

Great indoor cycling workouts to improve your climbing

When it gets dark, cold and wet outside it can be de-motivating. By settling up a structured periodized training programme for cycling you can add focus to your cycling year. You can implement cycling workouts to devlop your climbing abilities throughout your whole training year- especially if you consider your climbing to be a weakness.

Below are a selection of indoor cycling workouts to help you develop your climbing abilities for when the road goes upwards.

The great thing about these workouts are that they can be completed on a stationary exercise bike, a spinning bike or a bicycle fitted to an indoor trainer

You need to be able to climb for mountain biking

Mountain biking can involve lots of rolling climbs to prepare for- whether you race or do it for fun at the weekends
CyclingFitness Photos

Indoor Cycling Workout 1- Rolling Climbs. (Pyramid Climbs)

This workout is a great as part of a spinning workout with the right melodic deep base music with a moderately quick beat.

Alternately set up your racing bicycle on an indoor bike trainer with a moderate resistance level.

Work intervals for pyramid climbing

Start in an easy gear at a cadence of 80-90 rpm while sat in the saddle pedalling

Every 15 seconds increase the work load by either increasing the tension on the spin bike or shifting up a gear on your bicycle.

Continue to remain seated until you can no longer maintain a pace of 80 rpm sat in the saddle. Once that becomes difficult- stand up and continue increasing the pace every 15 seconds.

Continue until you can no longer maintain a cycling workout cadence of 80 rpm. When you can no longer do so.

Every 15 seconds take off a little bit of tension off the flywheel of the spinning bike or drop to an easier gear if you're riding your road bike on an indoor bike trainer.

Scroll to Continue

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Return to starting workload

Repeat 5 times in total.

How your pyramid climbing workout should look

An ideal on how your pyramid climbing (rolling climb) workout could look. Based on riding a bicycle trainer with a prgressive level of resistance (Such as a Kurt Kinetic Magnetic Trainer). Values are a guestimation and therefore will depend on the ex
Time (cumulative)	Description	Gear	Cadence	Difficulty
0-10 mins	Warm Up	Progressing from 39x21 through the cassette	90-120 rpm	Easy up to moderate
10:15	Starting climbing seated	53x21	100 rpm	Moderately easy- feels like an easy climb
10:30	Continue seated	53x19	95 rpm	Starting to get a little harder
10:45	Continue seated	53x18	90 rpm	Moderate workload
11:00	Continue seated- getting harder	53x17	85 rpm	Getting harder
11:15	Feeling harder to remain seated	53x16	80 rpm	Difficult maintaining cadence, ready to stand
11:30	Stand up and pedal	53x15	90 rpm stood	Stood up- feels easier than seated
11.45	Continue stood pedalling	53x14	85 rpm stood	Getting harder
12:00	Starting to be difficult to maintain 80 rpm	53x13	80 rpm stood	Really hard
12:15	Drop down a gear and remain stood	53x14	80 rpm stood up	Hard to continue. Difficulty pedalling
12:30	Continue stood pedalling	53x15	85 rpm standing pedalling	Still hard but easing
12:45	Easing off stood up pedalling	53x16	90 rpm pedalling	Easing but hard to keep going
13:00	Drop back into saddle	53x17	80 rpm seated	Easing, now ready to sit
13:15	Starting to feel easier	53x18	85 rpm seated	Easing, can now pedal fluidly
13:30	Easing off seated	53x19	90 rpm seated	Easing
13:45	Easy seated	53x21	95 rpm seated	Easy pedalling
14:00	Restart Interval- 2
18:00	Restart Interval- 3
22:00	Restart Interval- 4
26:00	Restart Interval- 5
30:00- 40:00	Cool down	Drop down through gears 39x 15 and getting lower	100+ rpm	Moderate going down to easy workload

How your pyramid training might look visually

Graphical representation of a pyramid climbing workout

Indoor cycling workout 2- Climbing the big mountain passes

When you watch cyclists in races like the Tour De France or Tour of California- the climbs aren't over in a few minutes like in workout 1. They go on for mile after mile. Therefore when you're in the mountains you have to be able to get in a rhythm as the kilometres tick away.

Whether you're implementing this into a spinning bike workout or a training session on your turbo trainer this is a relatively straightforward workout that needs minimal adjustments to the resistance throughout.

Climbing in the high mountains is a highly aerobic cycling ability to train. Therefore this workout focuses on aerobic threshold to enhance the ability to use oxygen to power your riding as the road heads upwards.

Cycling workout recipe for high mountain climbing success

Warm up for at least 10 minutes. Start relatively easy and build up to a moderately high intensity with your heart rate peaking at the high end of your aerobic zone. Keep cadence high at 100-120 rpm
Complete a 6 minute seated work interval pedalling at around 80 rpm. This may feel un-natural at first, however will becoming more natural during the course of the workout. Heart rate should be mainly aerobic throughout however there's nothing wrong if it pushes slightly into your aerobic zones- simply ease off slightly
Recover for 3 minutes in an easy gear, spinning the legs at around 100-120 rpm. Heart rate should be steadily decreasing throughout your recovery interval
Repeat step 2 a further 5 times, recovering for 3 minutes after each interval.
Cool down for 10 minutes minimum after your final work interval.

How your climbing workout should look

An ideal on how your high mountain climbing workout could look. Based on riding a bicycle trainer with a prgressive level of resistance (Such as a Kurt Kinetic Magnetic Trainer). Values are a guestimation and therefore will depend on the experience a
Time (mins)	Description	Gear	Cadence	Difficulty
0-10:00	Warm Up	Progress from 39x21 through the cassette	100-120 rpm	Easy towards moderate to preapare for hard workout
10:00	1st climbing interval- Seated	53x15	80-90 rpm	Moderately tough yet remain aerobic
16:00	Recovery Interval	39x15	100-120 rpm	Ease off pace and let legs spin to recover
19:00	2nd seated climbing interval	53x15	80-90 rpm	Moderately tough yet remain aerobic
25:00	Recovery Interval	39x15	100-120 rpm	Ease off pace and let legs spin to recover
31:00	3rd seated climbing interval	53x15	80-90 rpm	Moderately tough yet remain aerobic
34:00	Recovery Interval	39x15	100-120 rpm	Ease off pace and let legs spin to recover
40:00	4th climbing interval	53x15	80-90 rpm	Moderately tough yet remain aerobic
43:00	Recovery Interval	39x15	100-120 rpm	Ease off pace and let legs spin to recover
49:00	5th climbing interval	53x15	80-90 rpm	Moderately tough yet remain aerobic
52:00	Recovery Interval	39x15	100-120 rpm	Ease off pace and let legs spin to recover
55:00	6th climbing interval	53x15	80-90 rpm	Moderately tough yet remain aerobic
61:00- 71:00 (and finished)	Cool Down	Slowly lowering gears from 39x15	100-120 rpm	Steady recover back to easy pace