3 Game Changing Climbing Tips

3 Game Changing Climbing Tips

Fixating on your power-to-weight ratio is holding you back from improving your climbing. 

Dropping your weight and increasing your power is a long-term process that is very fundamental. 

 

Waiting to have the perfect watts/kilos before you try at climbing is a bad strategy. The reality is there is so much more to climbing that makes a bigger difference than this ratio.

 

I am going to give you three tips that will make you ten times a better climber without losing a pound or gaining a watt of power.

 

1. Develop your own climbing style. Identify your Rider Type. Every “position” in the sport of cycling climbs differently. When I say different, I mean they use different zones, in different ways, with different cadences, with different body positions. When you try to climb like a Rider Type that is not you, you will find yourself struggling to keep up on climbs.

 

2. Improve your ability to clear high amounts of lactate at a pace close to your threshold. Develop a zone in which you ride almost as fast as your threshold, but you can clear lactate when you go over your threshold. This means you are able to “surf” the terrain when you encounter terrain that pushes you over your threshold to get up. Or this is to be able to handle surges from other riders. Most riders do not have this zone and usually end up “drowning” in their own lactate when they flood on a section midway up the climb and have no place to go to clear it.

 

3. Pelvis forward and down, elbows in. Move your pelvis forward. With your bike in a more vertical position, your pelvis is now in a very inefficient position for an effective pedal stroke. Because of this, you are pedaling down into the climb behind the pedals. To overcome this, move forward on your saddle and then rotate your pelvis down. Now you are position over the top of the pedals where you can push down powerfully in front of the first part of the pedal stroke (most efficient place). Finally, bring your elbows in. This “locks” the core and generates needed leverage into your pedal stroke.  Having a noodle for a core and upper body results in you fighting the hill simply going nowhere, hard.

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