Training for XC mountainbiking

Training
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1

Hi all!

I started racing 2023 and this year I took it more seriously. I did participate in quite some XC races this season and did some XCM races as well. Unfortunately, in the beginning of the season I suffered an injury which is still not recovered. Now season has ended, I take some weeks of the bike, getting fully recovered.

During this season, I found that I was lacking in the things listed below:

  • repeated hard efforts. I have good 30s power, but do lack repeated hard efforts.
  • Longer hill climbs. I found during racing that I do suffer a lot when having longer hill clims. Like climbs duration of 1 - 3 min
  • During XCM, I found out that I couldn’t overcome a ‘hard start’. So at the first couple of climbs, I did suffer too much, which dropped me off and costs me a lot of time.

After the resting period, I am looking into my trainingsplan from then on. I will catch up training likely halfway November. Currently, I have in mind a solid 6 weeks of z2 riding, maybe with some Sweetspot trainings some now and then. As well, I would like to add one gym session per week for strenght. End of december, beginning January I will be in Spain where I can do a solid trainingweek, so I wanted to start more specific trainings from that moment. End of March I have to be in race shape.

With this information, what would you advice as trainingsplan? I have looked into some trainingsplan, but I am not sure what fits best for my situation. I am really curious about trainings, nutrition and so on.

Any information is much appreciated!

Thanks!

2

I would use Plan Builder and tell it that your goal is XC mountain biking. It will then suggest a custom plan based on your training history. You can customize it by e. g. telling it how strongly you want to push yourself this season. If you add your races and mark one or two as your A event(s), it’ll make sure you are in good shape for those races. The only thing it won’t be able to do is include a training week (= training camp?) where you up your volume and intensity. But you can manually do that.

A few thoughts on your suggestions:

  • 6 weeks of Z2 is not a good idea, unless you volume is really high. If you want to emphasize your base, manually add a polarized block before you begin the training plan that you have built with Plan Builder. (That’s what I have been doing for several years.)
  • Can you include two gym sessions per week instead of just one? One > none, but I think you’d get more out of it if you did two.
3

Dear OreoCookie,

Thanks for reaching out! I will definitely look into Plan Builder, thanks. Replies/questions on your points, see below.

  • 6 weeks of Z2 is not a good idea, unless you volume is really high. If you want to emphasize your base, manually add a polarized block before you begin the training plan that you have built with Plan Builder. (That’s what I have been doing for several years.) What is the background reasoning for adding a polorized block? How should a polorized block look like for XC mountainbiking?
  • Can you include two gym sessions per week instead of just one? One > none, but I think you’d get more out of it if you did two. Yes I can make it two gym sessions. Would those sessions replace the interval trainings?
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There is a thread about elements of the training that Steve Neal uses with XCM racers.

https://www.trainerroad.com/forum/t/recent-flo-podcast-with-steve-neal

Forum member @batwood14 writes of their experience in using the methodology and helpfully answers other members questions.

Interesting stuff imo.

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Pure Z2 work makes most sense for people whose volume is very high. And even then, a Z2-only approach is quite outdated. Polarized includes threshold work (in their base block), but places more emphasis on Z2 work than the equivalent sweet spot block.

The thread that @ivegotabike linked to is going in the wrong direction IMHO. The value of fat adaptation is not as clear as people make it out to be, even for ultra endurance events. Whether XCM qualifies as ultra endurance is debatable (I would say no).

Depends on how much time you have and whether you can have double days. For mountain biking proper strength work really makes sense even if you have to pare down some of the work on the bike.

Since I spend 6 hours on the bike commuting (in Z2), I have decided to axe one endurance workout on the trainer for a strength workout and double up one day. I struggle sticking to a schedule on double days, so this works better for me.

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I agree with @oreocookie that using the plan builder is never a bad idea and I disagree on the “fatmax” workouts.

The benefits of stacking those back to back, extending interval, low sweetspot intensity workouts are very significant IME and, for a rider coming back to the bike after a month or more off, can be a useful part of the base training period of their plan.

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Hey there and welcome to the TR community!

We’d recommend what @OreoCookie mentioned above. Check out our Plan Builder if you haven’t already – it takes out the guesswork for you and leaves you with a plan built out all the way to your goal event(s)!

We also agree that doing Sweet Spot/Tempo in your Base Phase would be beneficial. Z2 is great, but on its own, it requires a lot of hours to move your fitness forward (~20+ hours per week of training). Incorporating Sweet Spot and Tempo into your Base training would help improve your fitness more on less overall training time. This is something that Plan Builder would take care of for you!

Then, of course, as you get closer to your race(s), you’ll begin to focus more on those harder efforts.

Feel free to let us know if you need any help getting a new plan sorted out. :slight_smile:

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I am really curious about such a polarized training block. Just to check if I have understand you correct. This Polorized training block, you would add this part of the ‘base’ phase? How long should this block last? With 8 - 10 hours a week, and two gym sessions, how this polorized block look like? Any examples for this?

Do you mean that you are doing two gym sessions on the same day?

I appreciate your insights!

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One general question, maybe not the place to be asked. But what’s the reason choose the Plan Builder of TrainerRoad over e.g. Join, TrainingsPeaks Plan, Trainerday, Atletica AI ect…?

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That’s a fair question. It isn’t difficult to find fans of each. Most have a free trial to help you get a look at what it is going to be like in the longer term.

FWIW I’ve been with TR for just over six years now. Whilst I do look at other platforms from time to time, I haven’t seen anything that seems so much better (for my needs) that I should move.

I think TR is, at least, keeping up with its competitors in the areas that matter to me. A question I ask myself is “Would I have achieved better results from my available training time on a different platform?” Whilst I can never know for certain, I am sure enough that the answer is no, that I have no reason to change.

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All of this is handled automatically. A single block is typically four weeks long, but each training phase consists of several blocks. But you need not worry about any of this, Plan Builder will do this automatically.

I am in the middle of a mid-volume polarized base block. My training consists of 2 threshold workouts and two longer endurance workouts. However, I do a lot of commutes at the moment (about 6 hours per week), so I have shortened my indoor workouts to one hour to accommodate my schedule. Of the two threshold workouts, the first one is harder, the second one is easier.

If I were you, I’d use Plan Builder and stick closely to the defaults. Resist the temptation to up the training time, for example. Plan Builder will ask you what discipline you are training for, how long, you strongly you want to push yourself and suggest workout durations.

I had to adapt the durations to suit my schedule, for example, and to take the commutes into account.

TrainerRoad is quite a liberal company in that they allow discussion of competitors on this forum. We discuss other options periodically, but the gist is that if you are serious about training and you cannot/don’t want to hire a coach, TrainerRoad is the best product out there. Of course, feel free to browse some of the threads yourself:

I’ve been on TR since 2017, I think, and it jives with my brain. I feel I understand the app, understand what it does and have begun to trust it. And I know when I can/should override some recommendations. At this point, TR is a very mature product, e. g. it has Plan Builder (an automated training plan generator, which bases its recommendations on your past performance), plans for lots of different genres of cycling, versions for Master’s athletes for all/most of these, TrainNow for people who don’t want a training plan, a huge workout library, three different approaches to base training (traditional, sweet spot and polarized), etc.

Keep in mind that it isn’t just about what you do on the bike, good sleep and nutrition are essential to good training.

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Try having a harder warm up. What works for one, might not worth for another but it’s worth experimenting with this.

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The XC specialty phase has hard starts workouts specifically for that reason. They are quite fun, but hard. :upside_down_face:

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14

Thank you all!!

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15

Yup have some great advice already so rather than advising I will share what I like to do during my off-season/base phase (or whatever label you put on it).

After a season break I would take a couple weeks of just riding. Don’t worry about the effort or intensity or TSS. Just ride. After getting the rust off begin to insert 30-30s, a tempo day, and a long endurance ride for 4-6 weeks. Again, intensity should not be important here, you are just getting back in the grove of training and building fitness. At this point you are ready to do some real training and start building toward your goal.

Granted this is considering a long term approach and goal that is multiple months out. Well, this is what has worked for me anyways. Best of luck to you!