March : Key Workouts For Off-Road Racing

Last month I discussed the importance of training on both trails and roads to excel at off-road racing. This month, I am going to take this a step further and detail some key workouts that every mountain biker should employ to race his best. These workouts will focus on physiological rather than technical gains though the latter is an essential foundation to any physiological focus and should be emphasized in any training program.

It is important that you have some background information to start. There are a variety of physiological targets in the human body - fitness pools that require training attention to fill and perform optimally. Typically, we have shallow pools in some areas and brimming pools in others which become evident in our strengths and weaknesses. It is important that the athlete pay attention to each of these pools, but depending on the demands of your race, focus more attention towards some more than others. As mountain bikers, it is essential that you focus on some key pools.

At Endorphin Fitness, we refer to these pools as seven training zones which are expressed in the chart below:

ZONE	PURPOSE	FEELS LIKE	HEART RATE	MAX TIME HELD	INTERVAL DURATION	REST INTERVAL
Recovery (1)	Recovery b/w Workouts	Super easy - Can Sing	<60% of Max HR	Forever	N/A	N/A
Endurance (2)	Aerobic System Devo	Comfortable – Can Talk Easily	65-75% of Max HR	3-5 Hrs	N/A	N/A
Tempo (3)	Intense Aerobic Devo	Semi-Comfortable – Can Talk	75-85% of Max HR	2-3 Hrs	30-60 Min	Short
Threshold (4)	Endurance at Anaerobic Threshold (AT)	Hard/Controllable – Short Phrases	80-90% of Max HR	40-60 Min	5-20 Min	2-5 Min
VO2 Max (5)	Increase AT, VO2 Max Devo	Hard – 1 Word Responses	95% of Max HR	10-15 Min	3-5 Min	Equal to Bout
Anaerobic Endurance (6)	Learn to Deal with Lactate	This Hurts – No Talking	Not Useful	2.5-3 Min	30-90 Sec	2-3x Bout
Max (7)	Power/Speed Devo	All Out – Explosive & Short	Not Useful	90-120 Sec	Sub 30 Sec	Full Recovery

Many people use different names and classifications for these zones, but the characteristics of the zones remain the same. As you move from Zone 1 to Zone 6, you move from predominately aerobic to predominately anaerobic energy sources. This transition does not work like a light switch as many people believe, but rather a dimmer with your energy being fueled partially by both aerobic and anaerobic means in all zones. Zone 7 is fueled by creatine-phosphate and is limited to short, explosive movements as this energy system is short lived.

As a mountain biker, you need to spend time in all of the above zones. With that said, mountain biking demands something different from the body than road cycling and thus one must key one’s training to these demands.

In most races, you will be predominately in zones 3-4. If the race is less than an hour, zone 4. If the race is between 2-3 hours, zone 3. Therefore, this is your base and special attention must be paid here first. You can introduce this training into your endurance/long ride or dedicate a quality workout to it, especially early season. I suggest long intervals of 30-60 minutes in zone 3 or 5-20 minutes in zone 4 building to a total of 1.5-2 hours in zone 3 or 40-60 minutes in zone 4 during one training session. These sessions are best done on the road or a flat, predictable fire-road.

Once you have a solid base of tempo/threshold work, it is time to look deeper into what happens on a smaller level within a mountain bike race. If you look at a power file from a mountain bike race, you will notice that there is a ton of variability during the ride. The trail forces you to constantly slam on and release the gas pedal to negotiate the technical sections, clear tough climbs, and make sharp turns. Though road racing has some of this variability due to group dynamics, nothing is like the trail, and your training must simulate this on and off the trail.

Due to this variability, anaerobic training becomes much more important than any other type of racing. When racing off-road, you are essentially stringing together a series of anaerobic efforts with recoveries in zone 3-4 between. This is trying on your body and will force it to shut down faster and often cause your muscles to cramp as they are forced to utilize Type II muscle fibers. To combat this and allow your body to perform optimally longer, you need to prepare your body for this in training by including anaerobic training in your program. These workouts consist of intervals between 30-90 seconds long at near max intensity. You should take 2-3 times the interval in rest to be able to do each at the desired intensity. You can do this on the road or a hill on a predictable trail – regardless; you need to be able to be on the gas pedal the entire time.

The third key workout are VO2 Max intervals. You will see above that these are typically 3-5 minute intervals with equal rest between. The mountain biker should include some classic VO2 intervals in his program, but I encourage you to do some non-traditional intervals as well that more closely simulate the trail. These intervals consist of 5-15 minutes alternating all out zone 6 pedaling with zone 2-3 pedaling with 5-10 minutes rest between each total rep. You can alternate the hard and easier segments every 15-30 seconds. It is important that you really push the hard segments super hard and the recoveries no easier than zone 2. This workout is very important at developing the ability to push the first few minutes of the race to secure a good position, when needing to push long hill climbs slightly above average race pace, when trying to put space between you and another racer by lifting the pace for a few minutes, or when you are trying to being it home with a hard closing effort. All of these take a VO2 Max effort, and typically, the trail demands that this effort fluctuate in the hard/easier pattern described above.

These are the key workouts that every mountain biker should have in his arsenal if he is seeking better race results. Enjoy the process and the results – hope to see you on the trails soon!



Michael Harlow is the founder and head coach of Endorphin Fitness (www.endorphinfitness.com) where expert coaches get some to their first finish line and others to their finish line first. You can contact him at michael@endorphinfitness.com.