My thoughts. MTB trail conditions change day to day. Is it hot as 40 Hades like it is here? Same bike setup? Same pressure in the suspension? Too many factors. Maybe you just had an off day on the trails. And yes 10 extra will play a part. Is that +10 on a normal weight of 150, or +10 on 190? Big difference there. You did say you are stronger and faster on flats. Like others not sure the point of your post.
As he opened with a question in the OP, and then clarified via our questions, he was/is interested in being faster on climbs… the place where he feels he is slower now. As such, he was looking to learn what might have lead him astray and ways to alter training and setup in the future.
He’s gotten some great questions, driving good review, and now has some current and pending changes that may be worthwhile to redirect to his goal of being faster on climbs. The point is to learn and improve… which I think this post is achieving quite well.
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I know on some days I’m slower due to the trail conditions, the weather, and how well I’m rested. But I’ve ridden the trails on days when I’m well rested and weather is nice and cool. That’s when I’m fastest. I was at 192 in October. I was cross-country/track runner and high school and college at 135 lbs. At the time, I was a good climber (while running).
FWIW these are the FasCat non-Yoga maintenance exercises for hips/glutes/core:
My coach gave me this one:
And I love it.
Thing is, what works for me might now work as well for you. FWIW here is a master list of exercises I do, its mostly complete and not organized into routines: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoVY_9j19hdpDmIQzkGGdx77IQd_Fd99c
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I am guessing from your profile name, I know your age. There is the problem? J/K, if I am right we are the same age. First congratulations on getting it done. I hope to hit some strength work after my race this weekend. Yep should’ve done that in Feb/March. Weak hips is a thing for me for sure. On the weather point humidity sould also play a factor. I have a segment that I try to use as a measure of fitness. I am kind of giving up on that. Last year I got a PR. I am about 9% slower this year. I have been focused more threshold efforts. The segment requires more short punchy efforts which I have not worked on this season or last. Good luck and keep after your goals. Too easy to sit on the sofa and watch life roll by.
Watts per kg are watts per kg, indoors or outdoors.
Disclaimer: All other things being equal, like same bike, equivalent gearing, same tires, same tire psi, altitude, temperature and humidity etc etc
Aside from a few mechanical differences, if you can do 4w/kg on a trainer for 20min, you can climb a hill outdoors at 4w/kg for 20min (you can likely do x% more watts outdoors, in my n=1 experience).
If you’re climbing slower now than before, your watts/kg is lower now than before, simple as that. It’s got nothing to do with whether you trained on an indoor trainer or you trained outdoors.
I would 90% agree with you but with some folk there is a phycological barrier where they can have a higher w/kg from training indoors but that barrier stops them from fully/ confidently using it outdoors. In that case as another poster suggested, practice is the key.
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An extra 10 lbs will do that with no other changes. I have a mate heavier than both myself and bike combined. I call him hot gravity as he disappears downhill.
Yes that’s true.
Another caveat I forgot from OP’s post is the technical difficulty of off-road climbs. That’s a whole separate issue to a relatively steady state road climb on tarmac.
When I climb a local gravel road occasionally on my road bike, it is almost a surprise every time how different the transfer of power is when you’re slithering over corrugations, ruts and other things that loosen your tire grip.
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Sorry, but that’s bad advice.
While there are things you can only learn when riding outdoors, pacing and cornering comes to mind, fitness on the trainer translates directly to fitness outdoors.
Like the others have said, this makes complete sense and is not contradictory. Of course, it also depends on absolute numbers, i. e. what was and is your FTP and weight (in absolute numbers) before and after? On the flats, your performance is mainly determined by absolute power and aerodynamic drag whereas on climbs it is mostly W/kg.
Also, what exactly were you expecting from training? If you want to be faster on climbs, you need to keep your weight in check in addition to improving your power numbers. (I’m assuming you are not e. g. at 10 % body fat and have gained 5 kg of muscle mass.)
I’d personally ask myself what my goals are and how I best go about them. Here are a few things that I think will improve your quality of life independently of cycling:
- Sleep at least 8 hours per night. Sleeping sufficiently long has a positive impact on your life in so many ways, you tend to make better decisions, including better decisions about nutrition.
- Learn to eat better. Eat more intently, try to form good habits, and fuel your workouts. Don’t go from “eat anything in the snack isle” to vegan, that’s not sustainable. Instead, improve bit-by-bit. Form good habits until they become automatic.
- Take easy days and recovery days seriously.
- Fuel your workouts. Yes, I am repeating that one. It seems counterintuitive, but it is extremely hard to take in more calories than you expend during a workout. Even if you take in a lot and have, say, a 200 W FTP, it is hard to consume as much as you expend during an endurance workout. If you fuel yourself well on the bike, you will likely have less urges and cravings off the bike. (I’m speaking from experience.)
Even here you can train with intent on the trainer that immediately translates. Offroad, you typically use a lower cadence, so I’d train to increase the gamut of cadences I feel comfortable at. Offroad you might want to choose a gear to match the traction you have. E. g. excessive spinning can lead to a loss in traction, especially if your pedal stroke isn’t very smooth. A higher gear will lower the torque at the rear wheel, which reduces the chance of breaking traction.
So overall, you cannot do everything on the trainer, but you can do quite a bit that immediately translates.
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Yeah +1. A trainer is a good tool to improve climbing.
@johngray1965 nice analysis. 10 lbs is more than people think. Especially when you add up all those little micro accelerations needed to keep momentum on a mountain bike. From my mountain bike days I’d say I was more of a weight weenie than on the road.
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You’re not wrong… fitness on the trainer does indeed translate to outside. But we are talking MTB here…
I know I’m not going to convince anyone here but I’m a firm believer that to be a better mountain biker you need to hit the trails as much as possible. The trainer, weight room, diet, sleep… all things that help but nothing beats being out on the trail.
I think back to my college running days. It would be like training on the treadmill exclusively and then expecting to be dominant on the XC course. It is better than nothing but no way would you expect to be in top form.
But that’s me.
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Yeah, but it is not either A or B, but rather A and B. Weight training, diet and sleep are no replacement for time on the trail — and vice versa. Training skills (outdoors, obviously) to me is complementary, and just a necessary part. But e. g. time on the trail is not good at increasing your fitness. Just as practicing pacing and smoothness works counter to what you would do when training your fitness (e. g. exploiting momentum and putting in power at the right moments).
I personally undertraining indoors… i cannot push the same watts and then when I do VO2 workouts I end up with my outdoor treshold…
It is the same as altitude and sleep high but train low because of undertraining…
I do a lot of indoor but mostly in winter and when I can I ride outdoor and agree that you can do base or something on road on a road bike but for speciality phase nothing can substitute riding trails because MTB is much more than the numbers
You can focus much more on skill when you aren’t too tired from riding the trail though… I mean you cannot even train the skills needed for ascending if you lack the power to ascend