EPC Tips – Maui Bike Prep

The XTERRA USA Championship is behind us, Fall (in the northern hemisphere) is upon us, and the XTERRA World Championship in Maui is on the horizon!

The Maui course is a tough one, with a lot of steep climbing and elevation gain on the bike. For this very reason, it is critical to re-establish some bike specific strength so you can not only ride well, but also arrive in T2 with some strength left in the legs to tackle the challenging run. One of the best ways to train bike specific strength is with big gear, low cadence, high tension, intervals on the road or trainer. If you’ve been following along with my XTERRA “workouts of the weeks” over the last many months, you likely are already aware that I’m a big fan of strength work on the bike. You may already be familiar with my strength work protocols, or you can view an earlier post that desricbes the intervals in detail.

Specifically for the Maui course you will want to build up to several repetitions of 10:00 in duration to prepare for the constantly “up and down” nature of the World Championship course. Here’s what I’d recommend to build up to over the next few weeks of training:

On trainer as 90 minute session or MTB on the road as part of longer endurance session…

WARM-UP:

  • 10:00 easy spin
  • 20+ min additional aerobic riding as desired

MAIN SET: If you’re new to high tension intervals, build up to this volume with 2 sessions a week over next 3 weeks.

  • 6x[10:00 big gear, low cadence climbing, 2-4 min recovery (alternate seated & standing)]

WARM-DOWN:

  • 10:00 easy gear spin (or downhill)
  • extra aerobic riding as desired

Written by Cody Waite, professional endurance athlete, endurance sport coach and founder of Endurance Performance Coaching. NEW for 2016, EPC will be transforming to Sessions:6 Sport Performance! Learn more HERE. You can also follow Cody on Instagram and ‘LIKE’ our EPC Facebook Page to keep up with all our 2016 happenings.

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