Training for downhill mountain biking requires a combination of strength, power and technique to handle the intense demands of racing at any level. Whether you’re a beginner or looking to sharpen your skills, focusing on building speed and maintaining control is key to improving performance on the trails. In this guide, we’ll explore five essential tips and proven strategies so you can train effectively and improve your race results.
1. Get Strong
Strength is the foundations of your riding position as well as being the base upon which you can build a powerful sprint. Stronger riders can hold better riding positions over rougher trails and for longer periods than weaker riders. When DH racers lack strength, their body position suffers, often resulting in poor posture and limited ability to look up down the trail – a key factor in fast riding.
Strength training for downhill doesn’t need to be complicated. Simply aim to tick off the main movements each week, training the whole body 2-3 times per week. The main movements are the hinge, squat, upper push, upper pull, and core training. We can then further split that by doing bilateral training (on two legs or with both arms) and also unilateral training (single leg or single arm) each week.
For a more in depth break down of the movements, you should check out this video:
2. Develop Your Endurance
I know that DH is a short duration & explosive sport, but the demands of repeated, intense practice runs along with multiple timed runs in a race weekend, mean that a level of endurance fitness is hugely valuable to any DH racer, allowing quicker recovery between efforts and between runs.
There are two main ways to go about improving your fitness for downhill. The first is to simply do a long trail or enduro ride most weeks throughout the winter and then on weekends when you aren’t racing in the spring/summer. This is pretty easy for most riders to get done as well as being a great opportunity to work on skills development.
The second option is to be more specific with the training by doing focused aerobic training sessions on the road, indoors, or on your MTB on flatter terrain. This is the sort of training you will see pro DH racers doing in the winter, often in sunny climates. The key is to build up a large volume of low intensity riding. This would be a 3-4 out of 10 intensity (where 10 is max) or Zone 2 effort in most HR training zone models. The rides need to be very easy and preferably long, although little and often can be effective, especially for new riders.
3. Power Training
Being more powerful lets DH MTB racers sprint faster, pump harder and recover from bigger hits. Power training is best layered on top of a solid foundation of MTB specific strength training. The stronger you are, the more potential you have to be powerful.
Power is the ability to apply force quickly, whether it is to the cranks for a big Watt sprint or to the whole bike, pressing and pumping it through the terrain. To train power for MTB, you need to move quickly in your training too.
In the gym this might mean exercises like jumping, or moving lighter loads more quickly. For instance if your maximum 3 rep squat is 100kg, (strength training) you might do 3 reps with 40kg (40%) but you would move faster, therefore training power rather than strength.
On the bike, you should include sprint training sessions with sprints from 3-10 seconds. Between the sprints you should initially have long recovery periods of about 5 minutes so you can maintain maximal power output for the whole set of sprints.
4. Work on Bike Handling Skills
It is easy to talk about squats, sets and reps and forget about the most important thing…… skills! There is no point having a 2000 Watt sprint if you can’t ride wet roots or if you always crash when things get a bit technical. During the winter months in particular, you should focus on improving your MTB skills, either through coaching or by doing specific sessions to work on your weaknesses.
The key is to go out and focus on one part of your riding to work on. This is where sessioning comes in really useful. By breaking down a track into shorter parts, you can do many repeated laps in a short amount of time, working on technique, speed and style.
Some of this work needs to be on your DH race bike, but you can also get a lot of benefit from riding other bikes like BMX or pump track bikes, as well as trail bikes. Different travel and capabilities make you ride in different ways, broadening your MTB skillset.
Finally, you can’t beat uplifted (shuttle) laps on gnarly tracks with the DH bike. Just follow any top DH World Cup racer these days and you will see them getting in the laps week in week out, over a wide variety of terrain.
5. Race Conditioning.
Race conditioning is a type of training that specifically prepares you for the intensity and duration of DH racing. It is a mixture of strength, power and cardio training arranged in a circuit type setup. It will challenge muscular endurance, resistance to fatigue and is effective for developing mental toughness as these sessions are hard.
As a general rule you are best off choosing low skilled exercises (sorry Crossfit!) that are easier to maintain good form whilst you are tired. You can also use kit like the rowing machine, ski erg or assault bike to ramp up the amount of work and intensity of the conditioning work.
Further out from the race season you might do longer conditioning elements as part of your training, and then as the season approaches you can cut them down whilst increasing the intensity. This will mimic the demands of a 2-4 minute DH race run, preparing you to race hard and fast.
When you put these 5 DH training tips together and train consistently over a period of time you can expect to get stronger, more powerful and more skillful. Put that together with good pre-race prep and tactics and you will be bagging podiums in no time.
The Complete DH Programme
Want me to do all the programming so you just have to turn up and do the work? Want to use the same training approach that helped Joe Smith to 2nd place at Red Bull Hardline? Start your free trial TODAY:
