Hunting for Power: How Riders Get Faster This Spring

By Hunter Allen

Spring is here! The first MTB events of the season are always a little tougher, simply because you haven’t gotten into the race rhythm yet, and some of you didn’t do your homework this winter! However, spring races can be enjoyable, challenging and aggressive.

All the mountain bikers who pushed themselves throughout the winter are eager to show off their hard work and hard-won fitness. If you are one of those few, spring races are lots of fun and filled with success.

If you’re a little behind on your fitness or planning on peaking in the summer, then spring races are a little tougher to handle, but don’t worry, as you can bring your fitness back to a high level with smart training.

The spring has always been my favorite time for training, because I get to start doing some of the things I’m good at and really enjoy about riding. Those of you following a training plan have probably been working on endurance (level 2), sweet spot (sub-threshold), threshold (level 4) and working on your weaknesses.

Most of you are going to be doing a variety of events over the next couple of months. Most of them won’t be “A” events, but you still want to do well in each one, so you’re preparing for long, hilly but technically easy courses; muddy and technical courses with tight singletrack; and maybe an early season event with a big climb in it. You may even be doing them all in one race.

You need all your training zones ready to be challenged to train for these random abuses. Now is the time to start putting it all together, focusing on your strengths and practicing your sprints. This month’s training article is full of workouts to ensure you’re performing at your best. These workouts will help you keep the sword sharpened or maybe get it sharp in the first place so you’re competitive.

These four workouts will make you faster and help you ride with more endurance and overall fitness:

1. Hill work: Doing hills of various lengths with a sprint at the top of one section to simulate an uphill finish.
2. Short, non-tech course: Get used to riding right at the limit (FTP) in a semi-tucked position, working on form, and getting the back, hips, and hamstrings accustomed to being aero while working.
3. Kitchen sink: Putting it together and preparing yourself for all the training zones.
4. Group rides: With faster people, learning to suffer and be economical.

For hill work, it’s important to be able to sustain your power through the hill and on different length hills, so when you go and do these intervals, pick a hill that has a steady, consistent grade where you can really push yourself, and technical skills are not a factor. On shorter and steeper hills, the highest absolute power you produce (500W, 650W, 700W, etc.) will be most important, so push yourself and “blow up” at the top of each one. Pacing is a factor on these, of course, but your goal is to dig super deep so that you are going cross-eyed in the last 30 seconds.

The longer the hill, the more your power-to-weight (watts-per-kilogram) ratio becomes a part of the equation, and the higher your watts per kilogram is, the better you excel on the climbs. These are longer and steady climbs and favor riders who are good at keeping the pace at a hard level but very steady. Keeping this in mind, let’s focus on shorter hills in this workout, as you’ll excel in longer hills due to specific FTP work.

 

HILL REPEAT WORKOUT

Warm-up: It’s important to get in a solid warm-up before your hill repeats, so if possible, ride for 30 minutes to an hour before you get to your favorite hill. The hill should be approximately one minute long; a little shorter or longer is fine, but nothing over two minutes since that will become too aerobic.

One trick I’ve found helpful for these is to create a visualization while doing the efforts: in your mind’s eye, picture yourself attacking your competitor on the hill and winning the hill with strength and energy to spare.

Main set: Do 10 repeats total (build to 20) of a one-minute hill. (If you don’t have a hill suitable and want to do it on a longer hill, no problem; make a landmark at about the one-minute distance so you have a goal for each effort.) Glance at your power meter three or four times on the way up to ensure you’re between 130 and 175 percent of your FTP, with a goal of averaging around 140 percent.

If you have incredible anaerobic capacity, your numbers might be higher. You know you’re doing it right when your legs start to burn after 37 seconds, and you must suffer like crazy to keep the wattage up. Hammer all the way, then get out of the saddle and sprint in the last 30 meters.

Completely blow at the crest of the hill or the one-minute mark. Rest plenty (three to four minutes) between each one. As you get increasingly tired towards the last repeats, you’ll have to lengthen your recoveries, which is perfectly acceptable. After you’ve completed all the repeats, ride home at your tempo and sweet-spot zones to get in some solid aerobic work.

Cool-down: 10–15 minutes of easy riding.

When you get home, your job becomes recovering and analyzing your hills with your downloaded power meter data. You’re looking for how much and how quickly you fatigued from effort to effort. Figure 1 below is a comparison of 10 hill repeats. This athlete’s wattage drops from 437 to 418 by the 10th one, which is only a 5-percent drop in power. What this means is that he could have done more efforts. When you have a 10-percent drop in power, that’s when it’s time to go home and call it a day. Look at your data and find your power drop; that will help you determine how many intervals to do in the next session.

The following workout you should incorporate into your training regimen is the “race sim.” This simulation of a race is a great opportunity to work on your VO2 max energy system, get comfortable in that race position while at full gas and build your confidence. The goal is to put you into a simulated race to learn how to focus, develop a rhythm and push your wattage in the VO2 max zone (106–120 percent of FTP).

 

RACE SIMULATION WORKOUT

Warm-up: This is another workout for which your warm-up is important; riding at least 30 minutes is highly recommended. Within the last 10 minutes of your warm-up, complete 5 one-minute fast pedaling efforts with your cadence over 110 rpm and rest for one minute between each at 80 rpm. Don’t worry about your wattage; keep the watts low and focus on the cadence.

Main set: Get psyched and ready for some race efforts! I would suggest you do these on a trail where you can consistently pedal without worrying too much about terrain and tech sections. It does not have to be uphill, and if you can, I would vary these, doing some on the flats and others up hills or on rollers. Do 6×6 minutes, starting hard with your wattage at 120 percent of FTP for the first minute, dropping your watts to 110 percent of FTP for the next four minutes, and in the final minute pushing your wattage back to 120 percent of FTP and finishing strong. Rest for six minutes between each effort.

The beauty of these efforts is that they are miniature races designed to contain the same emotions, intensity and focus that a full-length race would have. Do these in a self-selected cadence—whatever cadence feels best. Focus on using your gluteal muscles and staying as low as possible with the upper body. The best mountain bikers work on their flexibility; if you can’t touch your toes easily, you must start stretching! Finish the ride with 20 minutes of tempo at 80–90 percent of FTP.

Cool-down: 15 minutes at your endurance pace (56–75 percent of FTP).

Remember, the more you practice something, the better you’ll get at it. To become a good racer, you’ll need to do a bunch of race sims. When you analyze your power file, look for how your power dropped over the intervals, but you’ll also want to learn how well you adhered to your pacing strategy. Learning to race well is accomplished by proper pacing strategy and adherence to that strategy.

The “kitchen sink” is my absolute favorite workout and is great for everyone. It works all your energy systems; you get to go for a big ride and come home with that wonderful feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction that only endurance athletes experience. This workout aims to address all the different energy systems needed for successful racing. I also want you to come home fatigued and tired, having pushed yourself harder and farther than before.

KITCHEN SINK WORKOUT

Warm-up: 30 minutes at endurance pace (56–76 percent of your FTP).

Main set: After you’re warmed up, do 2×20 minutes at or just a hair below threshold (93–100 percent of FTP). It’s hard, and you’ll have to push to maintain it. Rest for 10 minutes between each at endurance pace. Next, ride at your endurance pace for 30 minutes and then do six sprints, three in an easier gear for 75 meters (starting from a slow speed and spinning the gear at 140 rpm by the end of the sprint) and three in a bigger gear for 250 meters (starting from 20 mph and getting the gear turning over but resisting the desire to go into your hardest gear). Ride at endurance pace for five minutes between each.

After completing your sprints, cruise for 30 minutes at endurance pace and then do five hill repeats of various hills and lengths along your route, each at your VO2 max pace (110–120 percent of FTP), with good solid rests at endurance pace for 5–10 minutes between each. Again, these are done along the way in the ride. If you don’t have any hills, doing these as attacks into the wind or pretending you’re attacking on the flats is fine.

Your final hard effort is another 30 minutes at endurance pace. While riding at an endurance pace, add in some bursts (eight-second ones) every five minutes or so to simulate the constant movement of a longer event.

Stop at a store with an hour to go (or dig into your backpack) and get your favorite caffeinated, sugary drink. You’ll want a little boost before the final push home. Finish with 45 minutes of sweet spot (88-93 percent of FTP) on the final effort. Push it and try to ramp up your pace as you get closer and closer to home. You should finish tired but feeling satisfied.

Cool-down: 5–10 minutes with a recovery drink and stretching.

When you analyze your power file after this workout, you should first look for your training stress score (TSS). Did you score over 280 TSS? If not, you didn’t go long enough. If you’re closer to the 300–320 TSS range, announce it on Facebook and I’ll “like” it. In all seriousness, the goal is to create big stress so that a solid TSS will confirm that.

The second thing to look at is your normalized power for the last 45 minutes. This will confirm your stamina (the ability to hold a high power after three hours). If you were struggling way below your sweet spot and had nothing left, you know where you need to spend some more time. If you were solidly in your sweet spot, mission accomplished.

Your final mission this spring is to do some group riding. Group rides can be great opportunities to get in some guaranteed intensity when you don’t feel like training or are too fatigued to push yourself but still have more to give.

When you do these group rides, approach them with different mentalities and strategies. For one of the rides, attack with reckless abandon. Don’t attack so much that you get dropped, of course, but come close! Your attitude should be one of pushing yourself to the limit and digging deep to just get in the work.

The next time you do the group ride, do the exact opposite and try to be as absolutely economical as possible. That means sitting in, riding on wheels, not pedaling, saving energy, away from the front, and making sure that you can easily make a move when you do have to ride hard. Group rides are perfect places for you to learn economy through energy conservation.

When you analyze your power file after your ride, it’s important to count precisely how many efforts you were able to do before nearly getting dropped. Look at the time each attack lasted and memorize the wattages you averaged in the attacks for later use in races. For the “conservation” group ride, look at your cadence distribution chart and see how much time you spent not pedaling because that is a great indicator of your ability to conserve energy.

These four workouts each address different areas of fitness that are needed for those spring events. You might be really challenged by them and therefore get a great fitness boost from each accomplishment. If you’re already super fit and peaking for the spring races, these workouts will only help you more to push yourself to the next level and ensure success.

Plan these into your weekly schedule. You might do all four of them in the same week, but I wouldn’t recommend it every week. Another plan might be to do the hill repeats twice a week if you need help improving your anaerobic capacity. Use your best judgment and give each of them your best. When you crack that 300 TSS for the kitchen sink workout, message me on Facebook or X, and I’ll surely “like” it!

Editor’s note: Subscribe to Hunter’s weekly power newsletter to quickly learn the ins and outs of power training and gain some great insights into the best riders in the world. Hunter Allen is a USA Cycling Level 1 coach and former professional cyclist. He is the co-author of “Training and Racing With a Power Meter,” co-developer of the TrainingPeaks WKO+ software, and CEO and founder of Peaks Coaching Group. He has online MTB training programs available at www.shoppeaks.com. You can contact Hunter directly through www.peakscoachinggroup.com and follow him on X @HunterPeaks.”