How to Train Endurance in MTB?

Hello, my name is Natalia Fischer and first of all, I would like to clarify that I am not a coach; everything I write here is based on my experience. I recommend everyone to work with a coach before training. Also, to get a medical check-up to ensure that we will practice the sport safely. That said… let's get to the main question: How to train endurance in MTB?

We know that endurance is one of the key points in cycling, whether road or MTB. It becomes even more important when it comes to long races, that is, races that last more than an hour and a half. Different factors come into play in these races, which we will analyze.

Step by step in our goals to improve endurance

Before training endurance, we need to know the date of our goal(s), so we can plan correctly and achieve our objectives. We can start with smaller challenges and gradually increase the difficulty. This way, we won’t get frustrated if we don’t reach our first goal. I would always advise doing the first competition with the help of a training professional (I reiterate what I said in the first paragraph).

Everyone has in mind that if we want to train endurance, we will have to invest a lot of time, which translates to more training volume (to which the roller for physical preparation can help us), and this is incompatible with most people since we don’t have that much free time (work, family, etc.). There are several training models that help us improve endurance without investing much time; one of them is polarized training.

Polarized Training

What is polarized training? As its name indicates, it refers to the extremes of the effort intensity scale, meaning it combines demanding training sessions with easy training sessions within the same week.

An example of a demanding session is what is known as interval training or series training, where the heart rate increases significantly and stays elevated during rest intervals, which increases endurance as we add intervals, meaning we improve our Vo2max (maximum oxygen consumption) and our FTP (functional threshold power).

An ideal polarized training would combine 15-20% of very high-intensity work with 75-80% of low-intensity work.

To consider what is low or high intensity at an amateur level, we can establish a perceived effort scale from 1 to 10, where low intensity is 1-4, medium intensity is 5-6, and high intensity is 7-10. We can also monitor these intensities with our heart rate, where low intensity would be 56-85%, medium intensity 86-100%, and high intensity 101-120%. Although ideally, this would be done through a lactate test.

But the key to this training is knowing which high-intensity workouts we want to do and with what goal, and managing the time of rest and low and medium intensity training. That’s why it’s important to work with a training professional to manage fatigue and assimilate the workouts.

That’s all my advice on: How to train endurance in MTB? I hope it has been helpful… I remind you that after a training session, sports recovery and sports pressotherapy are vital. Without a doubt, our best tool to recover and be at 200% for the next session is the use of pressotherapy. In my case, a session of about 45 minutes with program 3 of the Sizen 6+ leaves me feeling brand new.