 So welcome back or welcome to the 20th edition of the RCA training tip show. In today's video, we're going to talk about heel repeats for cyclists. And I know it's a topic we've talked about on the channel in the past, but in this video, we're going to go into more detail, including what does a heel repeat session actually look like? How would you go about implementing heel repeats into your training regime from a beginner to an advanced cyclist? And also what are the benefits you will see from incorporating a heel repeat session into your training regime? Just know that this video is actually from an online course on the Road Cycling Academy called the Up-Level Road Cycling course for road cyclists looking to take their performance to the next level. And I'm sharing this video with you today because in roughly 30 days, so end of August, I'm shutting down the Up-Level Road Cycling course completely with a view to launching a brand new course shortly afterwards. So if you've been sitting on the fence to take your cycling performance to the next level and join the Up-Level Road Cycling course, 10 final spots remain in August. I just do 10 spots at a time due to the one-on-one nature of the onboarding process and the benefit that you get, you get access to the old course and the brand new course at the same rate that you pay for the old course. Now just know that the Road Cycling Academy is going through some refurbishments at the moment. We've got a new course, we're getting a proper brand new website and a few other bits and pieces. So as a result of that, this will be the last Wednesday RCA Training Tips show video on the channel for the next two to three weeks while I sort some things out in the background. But just know we'll be back sort of towards the end of August, hopefully bigger and better than ever. So let's get into this video. So welcome to your hill-repeat session. This is one of my favorite high-intensity interval sessions and perhaps the one you should prioritise. If you had to choose just one high-intensity session to implement on a weekly basis and I'll tell you why I believe that at the very end. In this video I'm going to share with you three big things. Number one, what is hill-repeat training? Number two, how to implement hill-repeat training effectively? And number three, what physiological benefits you will achieve from this type of training, including what you can look out for while doing these sessions to assess your improvements. On the screen from left to right you can see the course, cadence, time of day, speed, power, heart rate which is perched next to power for a reason and the gradient. As we start this hill-repeat session let's talk about the goal which is to work our upper end zones, notably zone 5, 6 and 7 which will inadvertently increase our VO2 max, improve our muscular strength and enable us to become better at tolerating lactate. So it's a bloody good session this one. Now in zones 6 and 7 we are completely anaerobic, meaning our muscles are simply working too hard to use oxygen to create the energy you are demanding. So you will be tapping severely into your muscle glycogen stores and producing high levels of lactate in these sessions. In our zone 5, another zone we're going to be working in this session, that's our VO2 max zone, we're still considered to be aerobic where you can use oxygen to create energy in the working muscle but we're also tapping into that muscle glycogen and forming lactate here so either way we're going to go deep in this session. After a good 20 minute plus warm up the key to this session is that we're predominantly going to work a bigger gear at a lower cadence to work our muscular skeletal system but at times we're also going to tap into our cardiovascular system using a high cadence. Now what I'm climbing here is roughly a one minute effort and I'm actually sitting in my zone 4, even upper end zone 3 at times which is a little contradictory to what I've just said. Reason being if you are just starting out with these hill repeats or you've never even done them before this is how I would want you to start. Just get a feel for what it's like to slow the bike down and pedal in a heavy gear and then we can work towards our upper end zones as we progress. This hill is an average gradient of around 6 to 8 percent which is a good starting point as well and my cadence personally here will vary on this climb. At times it would be below 60 and then at other points it will be above 70 depending on the gradient but if you're just starting out you might target a cadence of between 70 to 80 and then as you start to progress your strength and confidence in hill repeats you can start to bring the cadence down. You'll also start off by not overdoing the volume of repeats maybe start with 6, 7 or even 8 at most and then as we get stronger and as the weeks go by you can add another one, two, three repeats as you progress maybe working towards 15 repeats all up. So let's just say hypothetically speaking you come to this hill for a couple of months. You're starting to feel stronger, you get more confident and you've worked towards 15 repeats and you're wondering what's next. So why don't we in this instance reverse the way we're going. This is just an example. It's going to make things a little tougher. We're now working a slightly shorter climb but it is steeper so we'll be forced to work at a lower cadence and also produce more power. This also adds variation into our workload so our working muscles aren't getting used to the same old hill. Just know that my cadence is very low here. I would probably recommend working towards 60 cadence and only going lower once you really condition yourself with hill repeats over the course of say a three to six month period. Now just a little note here that at times the gradient takes a while to adjust due to GPS signals. Now what you might also do to mix things up, let's just say you were doing nine repeats in this session. On every third repeat so if you're doing nine that would be three all up. Let's get out of the saddle at the bottom of the hill and stay out of the saddle the entire climb. Working our upper end zones five and six. What we'll be doing here is transitioning from a muscular skeletal system to a cardiovascular system. You should note less muscular fatigue and more heavy breathing. Adding that variability that will give us more physiological tools when we need them either come event or race day. What you should also note here is that power is telling us immediately we're working our upper end zones five and six. However heart rate never gets close to its intended destination. We should be circa 170 beats for me here. Reason being the effort is too short for the heart rate to respond in time and thus heart rate becomes an ineffective measure for hill repeat sessions. It's simply just to slow to respond unlike power which is immediate. So let's move scenes now to another hill. You'll see here I have no heart rate but I really don't think you need it for these types of sessions. Once again we're stepping it up a notch to a more challenging hill. Not only is this hill longer roughly two minutes in length, we have some really sharp pinches. I'll be slowing the cadence right down on this hill and as mentioned, you'd only be doing this once you've conditioned the working muscles towards this lower cadence. In addition to putting more stress on the muscle on these sharp pinches, which will of course make us stronger, slowing the bike down like this does require good skill. In some instances I'll be slowing the bike down to say 10 kilometers or 6 miles per hour. If you have too much weight on the handlebars or inefficiencies in your pedal stroke, that will become evident very quickly here. A key focus is to concentrate on holding good form. Pressure the entire way around each pedal stroke, engage your core muscles, keeping the head up, looking forward at all times. One bonus tip that I like about this hill is that it does partially flatten out before lifting again. We talk about using different physiological systems, so the muscular skeletal versus the cardiovascular. And this section of hill will force you to tap into your cardio system, lifting the cadence slightly, revving in the saddle. Then we're back up the incline into a lower cadence, switching back to a muscular skeletal system. Now as discussed, when we were back at the other hill climb, as you start to build confidence and strength on these type of two minute hills, let's mix it up every three. In this instance, we're going to hit our top end zone, our neuromuscular zone for the last 50 meters of this climb. Now you could either do this in the saddle or out, or you might like to mix it up, I'll leave that up to you. But we're going to go as hard as we can with what will be fatigued legs. This type of effort will be very demanding, but working our neuromuscular system is very important for us to build fast twitch muscle fibers. And also neuromuscular efforts will recruit more muscle fibers within the working muscle, making the overall muscle group more capable. So fatiguing, yet very rewarding. So let's summarize these hill repeats with five key points I want you to think about. Number one, never rush into the start of the hill repeat. Let the hill come to you and absorb it without any rush of blood. Number two, don't stress too hard about the exact time in recovery, as long as you've got somewhere between one to two minutes and you feel ready for the next repeat. So as you roll down the hill, just recover. Don't stress about zones one and two or anything like that. Just get your mojo back for the next repeat. Number three, try and do these hill repeats in a quiet area away from traffic, especially consider any sprints you may be doing at the end of the climb. You want to ensure that when you stop sprinting, there's no risk of incident. The beauty of the finish I showed you is that I can see any potential traffic entering that roundabout and the steepness of the climb means that speed isn't going to put me in a vulnerable position. Number four, you can do these sessions on an indoor trainer if you can't find a good enough hill close by. So you could do one minute on, one minute off. You can even slow down the cadence, although the trainer does get a little challenging I find with anything lower than a 70 cadence. You can also elevate the trainer to replicate a hill, either with some books or if you're lucky enough to have the technology like a wahoo climb that does it on demand, that would work nicely too. And the last point is assessing your changes in physiology. This is the fun part. What you will find after doing these hill repeats for say two to three months is you'll get an extra gear. All of a sudden you'll be pushing out more watts and the repeats will feel easier and that is a prime physiological effect you will note from these repeats that will ultimately tell you you're getting a lot stronger. Now at the start of this video, I said that this hill repeat session would be the one you should prioritize if you had to choose just one high intensity session to do on a weekly basis. Why did I say that? Well, there's actually three reasons behind this. Number one, it's effective. So we're working two to even three physiological systems, the cardio and then the muscular or muscular skeletal systems. We're working our VO2 max and our anaerobic and neuromuscular systems and we're teaching our working muscles how to better tolerate lactate. So that's pretty compelling. The second point is that it's doable consistently. Many of us are challenged by time. So finding a hill in a close by area or jumping on an indoor trainer, assuming that you're implementing a good warm up and warm down, this session should be done in roughly an hour or a touch over. And the third one is it's doable mentally. So other sessions like circuit training and sprint training do require the motivation to implement. They'll make you super strong, but keeping them consistent is tough. I know at first hand because they're grinding sessions. Hill repeats, on the other hand, aren't as mentally tough. The on-off scenario makes them feel like the session goes faster and they're also highly rewarding to do. So there is a lot of information I've just shared with you here. I am conscious of that. I would recommend coming back and listening slash watching this video a few times as you start to progress your hill repeat training. Good luck with it. And as always, remember to stay safe out there.