John Curtis — Mountain Bike Racer

Workout of the week - Hill Repeats

I’m at the point where I need to build two things: strength and endurance.

Instead of hitting the gym and doing leg presses (zzzzz) I chose to do a controlled set of hill climb intervals on my mountain bike.

I rode out to a short trail in Austin at St. Edward’s park that is essentially a big, rough hill that takes 5-7 minutes to climb. If you’ve ever ridden the Hill of Life in Austin, it is a lot like that, but with tree cover. I did a few hard climbs on the road to get out there and then 3 slow climbs on the trail.

The goal for the ride:

* spend at least 30 minutes climbing

* stay seated on the climbs to build hip strength

* keep the cadence low to strain the muscles, not cardio

* keep the hr low

I was pretty successful and completed the workout I had planned. My HR was a bit high, but the temps were in the 90’s so that always drives the HR up by 5-10 beats.

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