How to Climb Faster Without Increasing FTP

Climbing faster isn’t always about increasing FTP or producing bigger power numbers. In this episode, CTS Coach Adam Pulford breaks down the pacing strategies, tactics, fueling, and key workouts that help cyclists climb faster with the fitness they already have.

HOST

Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.

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Transcript

Why Climbs Feel So Hard

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Do you feel like gravity is sometimes working against you on the hill climbs? Or maybe you have really good power, but it's not translating to speed going uphill. I've never heard anyone say no to the question, do you want the ability to climb faster? So I'll just assume that if you're still listening, you're here for it. I'm Adam Polford, head coach of cycling at CTS. I'm part of a big group of coaches around the world that focus on increasing performance for endurance athletes like you. Pros, Joes, and everyone in between. Climbing faster is usually on everyone's wish list. So let's make a plan on how to do that today. Where best to start? I think most coaches would launch into how an 8 to 10 week training program focused on volume and zone 4 to 5 efforts to increase FTP is the answer. They aren't wrong, and I could give you that. But what if you don't have 10 weeks to train? What if you need to climb fast in like two weeks? Or what if you've done programs like that in the past, the power is good, but you're still missing something? Let's talk about that. Because there

Pacing With RPE And Zones

SPEAKER_00 1:06

are some very simple tactics that you can use today and over the next few training sessions to make your climbing faster with the watts that you already have now. So let's dive in. My first advice is about pacing. Not knowing how to pace a hill climb is the biggest mistake I see athletes making. This is for various reasons, including just starting way too hard. So the the first tip to go fast is don't blow up. Start easier than you think and build into the effort. The key to all of this is knowing your internal pace guide, which we call perceived effort. I've got a whole video dedicated to this, so check it out in the links below if you missed it. But knowing your rate of perceived effort or how hard you're going on a scale of one to ten is very valuable for going uphill fast. So, how do you do that? You can use power or heart rate data to guide you here. You need to practice different perceived efforts in training, but hopefully you've been doing that already. Just remind yourself that RPE is probably the best guide on long climbs or days with multiple climbs throughout the day. Here's a reminder of training zones and this RPE scale. I've shown this several times now. All I want to point out here is that the corresponding RPE with the intensity zones. Most hard climbs or climbs you're aiming for to go fast will be at zone four and above. If it's a long climb, and assuming training zones are set up properly, the low end of zone four or roughly 91 to 100% of FTP. For most people, that would be about a 30 to 45 minute steady heel climb. That may start off feeling easier than you think, like a seven out of 10, assuming 10 is a max effort. But that's the point. Start easier than you think you should on a long climb and build into the effort. That will give you the best success over time for the internal strain and fatigue that adds up, and the RPE goes from seven to eight, maybe finishes at a nine. The upper end of zone four might be like 15 to 20 minute hill climb. RPE will be at eight at first, and then grow to a nine out of 10. We're talking about some pretty hard efforts here. And really, what I'm encouraging you is to use this past historical data to understand how long and how hard these hill climbs are going to be for you. One of my favorite quotes from Andy Coggin is this the best predictor of future performance is past performance. So you can use your training zones in your highest average power numbers of the past historical data, such as peak 10 minute, 15-minute, 20-minute hill climbs or longer to do this. And you're at least in the ballpark of what a long climb should be in terms of average power to guide you on something like this. For short climbs, go to zone five. The low end of zone five should be around five to ten minute efforts. Upper end of zone five, so we're talking, you know, 110 to 120% of FTP. This is probably closer to three to five minute uh hill climb efforts. And the RPE is pretty hard here. It's like a nine to ten out of ten. Next,

Use Past Data To Set Targets

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you want to know what kind of hill climb battle you're getting yourself into here. A little foresight can go a long way. The key thing to ask, research, or figure out before you clip in on race day or before you get into the actual effort itself is things like this. How long is a hill climb? How many feet of elevation gain? Any steep pitches, any downhills, will it be windy out there? All of these questions can help wrap your brain around what major hill climbs or climbs will look like on the day, how long they may take you and how hard they're gonna feel. And knowing is half the battle because then you can start planning your tactics.

Terrain And Wind Tactics For Speed

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Let's talk about tactics for hill climbing. This is the kind of stuff I'm talking about that you can apply today to a hill climb to go faster. So pay attention here. The goal is to climb something fast, not just hard. So you're not aiming for your highest power necessarily on this. We're aiming for the fastest time up. That'll require effort, but it'll also require some smarts along the way. Once you've done the research on the climbs, identify the key aspects of the hill climb. So where is it the steepest? Where are the flatter sections? Maybe there's some downhill sections. Where is the headwind, crosswind, tailwind? Generally speaking, here is what I advise my athletes to do when they want to climb fast. Number one, push harder into the steeper sections. Two, float or slightly go easier on the flatter sections. Three, carry momentum over the top of a riser through the downhill and into the next pitch up. Four, if there's a headwind, push slightly harder here than in the tailwind. Let the tailwind push you while you take the pressure off the pedals slightly to keep the speed up with less effort. All of this will give you the best return of speed on your effort given. Floating or what I call it just kind of going easier on those flatter sections and the downhills, letting off the gas slightly on the tailwind sections will give you little bits of recovery. You'll need when the grade gets steep again, it goes back up, and you'll need to get after it again. And all of those little micro recoveries are gold when it comes to being able to climb fast and agile when using solid tactics like these. Don't forget to get out of the saddle on the steep sections because you'll be able to use some of your body weight to make the power here. Plus, this changes up the muscle groups and helps to consume some of the lactate that you're building up in the legs. Now, it may sound counterintuitive to push on the steep sections and the headwinds, because that's like the hardest part of all of this. But think of it the opposite way. If you let off the gas on the steep sections or headwind versus downhill and tailwind, where are you going to slow down more? Yeah. I mean, you take your foot off the gas pedal on the steep sections or the headwind sections, and you'll go backwards real fast. So here is where you want to push if you want speed. Now, if it's a steady heel climb like what we see in Colorado, California, or in the Alps, something like three to four percent grade for 10 miles or more, then go back to your training zones for specific power durations or look at past history to estimate what steady effort you can produce and slug it out. However, there's still some tactics here that you can deploy. Draft if you have a wheel to follow and know where the wind is at, especially if you have switchbacks, because it's the wind will change and you'll need to tune into that amidst the fog of war that could be happening out there while you're doing your hill climb. For real though, even at slower speeds, drafting adds a benefit that can take a little pressure off the legs when you do it right, or ride the tailwind with less tension on your pedals, letting the wind do the work. You don't let off the gas completely, but bring it down five to ten watts, and it'll help immensely. One final tactic, I guess, is I guess you could just be the strongest one out there, right? That would be nice, wouldn't it? But most of us don't have the luxury of that as a real tactic. But if you practice the advice I'm giving you here today, you'll get faster for sure. Even on the next hill climb that you do. And maybe you have a few weeks to prep for the next hilly event. So I'll go over some of the key workouts for that.

Fueling For Hilly Performance

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But first, one quick word on fueling. Let's not overlook maybe the most simple aspects of all. On a hard hilly day, you should be fueling for performance. What I mean by that is aiming for at least 60 grams, if not up to 90 grams of carbohydrate per hour to keep the energy out. That can come from sports drink, gels, chews, bars, or whole food, if you can tolerate that on these days. In my experience, it's best to hit the drinks and the gels while climbing. And if you want a bar or whole food, something with more sustenance, eat that on the downhills or flat sections between the climbs. I've got another much more detailed and robust video about fueling for all types of efforts, so I'll link to that below. Finally,

Three Workouts To Climb Faster

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let's talk about training tips and key workouts. If you have time, like a full six to eight, maybe ten weeks to prepare, you can organize some proper training sessions to increase your FTP, as well as dial in pacing and repeatable power for the tactics that I talked about here today. My general recipe for something like this is you want to be aiming for two to three times per week of hard zone four to five efforts with a long ride on the weekend. Since I typically find that people have a harder time pacing for the long efforts, I'll give you three workouts or intervals that you can incorporate to practice pacing and increase your FTP. I think that's more valuable for most people listening and watching here, because I know most people can nuke a five-minute hill climb just fine. Alright, so here are those key intervals and workouts. First one is backloaded threshold efforts. Here's how you learn proper hill climb etiquette of starting lower than you think you should so you don't blow up, but then you feel it in the final push. Start with 15 minutes at the low end of zone four or around 91 to 100% of FTP. Keep it nice and steady throughout. The final five minute builds from middle of zone four to middle of zone five, or about 100 to 110% of your FTP. That should feel like a 7 out of 10 to start for the first 15 minutes, then finish at an 8, or maybe it touches 9 out of 10 at the very end. The next one, under overs. Everyone loves a good underover workout. This is where you start on the low end of zone 4 for a few minutes, surge up to zone 5 for 30 seconds or maybe a minute, then bring it back to zone four with no rest, steady power production, and then finish back at zone five. I've got a good example of that here, showing efforts starting under and going over threshold throughout the whole interval. You can do any weave you want, but make these long. So, like four minutes under with one minute over, four times through, would get you a nice long 20-minute effort with high repeatable power over threshold to teach your body to deal with the accumulation of lactate and exercise byproduct that's building up with all the surgy efforts and zero rest throughout the interval. Third workout, front loaded threshold efforts. Speaking of flooding your system with high amounts of lactate and exercise byproduct, that's exactly what a front-loaded threshold interval will do. Start at the upper end of zone five, so pretty darn hard here. Maybe like 115 to 120% of FTP for a minute or two, then step it down to the low end of zone five, so 106 to 110% of FTP for a few minutes, then settle in to zone four threshold for the final 15 minutes. This effort sucks. For the exact reason I opened with. It floods your system with all the stuff indicating fatigue, including some pretty acidic muscles by the end of it. But this is a great effort for racing, group rides, and events because most people are silly and they just jam into the start of the hill climb, going full gas until they die. But if you train for that, you will die less and be able to carry on after the first two-minute blast off and you climb yourself to the top. Hell, maybe you don't even get dropped this time because you did some of the cool workouts I gave you. If that's how it goes, please let me know. Drop it in the comments section below once you give a few of these workouts a try. I'll ask too, what are some of your favorite underover weaves? Because at CTS, when we present training programs, I hear a whole host of different ways to come to the same thing. So curious what you got out there for your underovers. But remember, the whole concept is teaching pacing, repeatable high power with no recovery. Make it squiggly, make it long, and you'll climb heck of a lot faster when the hill makes you go hard, then steady, then go hard again.

Recap And Your Next Step

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So finally, a quick recap and summary from today is you can find speed on a hill climb without having to increase your FTP. All you need to do is some homework about the key aspects of the climb so you know a little bit more of what you're getting yourself into. This will help you pace and have a plan for the longer climbs. Use past training history to help get you there. Or the tips I gave you about the power ranges in rate of perceived efforts of zone four and five for the long to short climbs. Really lean into the tactics I described because this will help you feel the climb, feel where to push, where not to, and where you can grab some recovery so that you can spend your matches where it actually matters. Remember, this may not give you your highest power for the climb, but it'll set you up for your best speed. And there's a big difference there. Races aren't won by the biggest power. Well, sometimes. But oftentimes, they are won by those who know how to use their power to be the fastest to the line. Sometimes that's everything they got. But sometimes it's just being a little smarter than the other rider next to you. That's it. Hope you liked it. See you back here for the next one soon.