Congratulations on being a summit seeker! You have an unmatched talent for tackling the steepest, most treacherous roads with style and fluidity. You know that pacing and lactate clearance are key to a successful climb, and you dance your way to the top with ease. Keep on scaling new heights!

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It’s your unique approach that will bring you success in your performance, training, and events without focusing on the wrong things. 

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Measure your progress with:

• Power - 8-minutes, 10 minute and Critical Power w/kg
• Capacity - V02max

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But with any rider type, there are key strengths and weaknesses to be aware of…

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Strengths

• Strong power around threshold, strong endurance, favours out of-the-saddle riding to develop power, prefers explosive riding, can change rhythm quickly, strong on all types of climbs especially greater than 8% gradients, and strong multi-day recovery. 
• Your large aerobic capacity and sizable w/kg represent your "more slow-twitch" muscle fiber typology. Spending time working on stead-state and accelerations to find your strength in the 5-minute to 30-minute power range is your key to your cycling success. 
• Your smaller and thin frame with minimal muscle mass and low muscle definition means you don’t have any wasted energy when climbing.

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Potential Weaknesses

• Your smaller and thin frame with minimal muscle mass and low muscle definition but you are sensitive to muscle gain if energy intake is not managed correctly.
• It has been shown that athletes with more slow-twitch fibers can recover from sprint-interval sessions faster than athletes with more fast-twitch fibers and when muscle fibre typology was factored in, athletes with a higher estimated proportion of slow-twitch fibres can handle more volume.
• A lower VLamax is desirable for climbers which allows for higher anaerobic threshold but a lower VLamax means lower glycolytic energy production, which compromises the performance in high power bursts like sprints. Therefore, in events which include sprinting or short intense bouts, there should be attention paid to achieving a balance of a sufficient VLamax and a high anaerobic threshold as both relate to performance in your chosen events, where these markers need to be "fine-tuned" before the highest priority competitions.
• Watts / kg is an important factor for you and managing weight loss around key events is important to your success. It needs to be managed carefully considering intake of macronutrients that are still within the recommended daily energy availability (kcal/kg FFM). This will ensure you are providing your body with adequate energy for all physiological functions.

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Practical applications

• ⬆️ Increase total training volume (hours or TSS per week)
• ⬇️ Decrease recovery duration in between intense training sessions
• ⬇️ Decrease duration between intense exercises within training sessions

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Training session best-suited for your type

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Lactate Clearance: Over Under

WU: 20 minutes from 40-65% CP, including a 1 minute hard effort @ 105-110% CP. This short initial effort is used to spike the blood lactate levels before the forthcoming intervals, meaning the first key block is started with elevated blood lactate levels.

MS: 3 x 9 minute blocks alternating between intensities above the lactate threshold (103-108% CP) for 1 minute, and just below the lactate threshold (80-90% CP) for 2 minutes. Each block is followed by a 4 minutes recovery (e.g. a 3:1 work-rest ratio).

After the 3 x main set blocks are complete, ride steadily for ~25 minutes and then cool down gradually from 70-50% CP.

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PURPOSE: The lactate threshold is a result of the balance between aerobic energy system strength and your anaerobic energy system strength. This means, it is a product of your VO2max (your maximal ability to take in, deliver and use oxygen for energy production), your VLamax (maximal ability to produce lactate, which is a byproduct of being able to combust more carbohydrate in the form of glycogen) and then the clearance of accumulated lactate when the aerobic system is saturated with pyruvate and cannot process any more lactate/pyruvate. Thus, training to improve the lactate threshold (fractional utilisation of the VO2) is building as strong a VO2max as possible, an appropriately strong VLamax (where appropriate, a very low VLamax depending on the demands of competition), and the ability to shuttle the excess lactate away. This workout targets the latter, by accumulating lactate during the over-threshold portions of each block, and then training the body to clear them by dropping just below the lactate threshold for short periods. This workout is also effective for aerobic capacity training, given that the heart rate quickly rises and stays elevated throughout.

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These intervals work on the principle that maximal rates of lactate clearance typically occur around 80-90% FTP. To read more on this, check out these papers:

• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20544484/
• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24739289/

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Ideal Races/Events

Mountaintop finishes during stage races, mountainous one-day events, and hill climbs.

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How you can ride events better / win races

Attack! Climbers embrace pain and love to attack. They are the first to attack in the most difficult spot on a climb and then solo away. If that doesn’t work, they attack, follow, and attack until the elastic snaps.

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Check out your toolkit below

Podcast 1

Podcast 2

Podcast 3

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What do you think? Does this rider type match you and your events? What type of rider do you want to be? What type of events do you want to ride? Find out more about rider types by clicking here: RIDER TYPE RESULTS