How to Build Real Climbing Strength After 40 when You Live Somewhere Flat

If you live somewhere flat and you’re training for a hilly or alpine event, it’s easy to assume you’re at a disadvantage. No long climbs or sustained gradients to train on. No obvious way to practice what’s coming. Then there is the additional hurdle of hitting the age when fitness gets harder to gain and maintain. 

But after coaching endurance cyclists who are over 40 for many years, I can say this with confidence:

Climbing performance is far more about how you train than where you train.

The Common Misunderstanding

Most cyclists believe climbing fitness comes from climbing itself. In reality, successful climbing depends on:

• Muscular endurance under sustained load
• The ability to apply consistent torque through the pedals at lower cadences
• Controlled breathing when effort doesn’t let up
• Good posture and stability when fatigue starts to compromise your form
• Calm, disciplined pacing when fatigue builds

Those demands don’t require hills, they require specific, well-structured training.

This matters even more after 40, when unnecessary fatigue costs more and recovery takes longer.

What the Evidence and Coaching Experience Agree On

Both research and real-world coaching consistently show that:

• Low-cadence, high-torque intervals improve strength endurance
• Sustained sub-threshold* efforts closely replicate long climbs
• Controlled intensity reduces muscle damage while improving fatigue resistance

When these training sessions are fueled properly and placed intelligently within a training week, flat-road and indoor training can be exceptionally effective for climbing preparation. The problem isn’t flat terrain but rather  unstructured effort.

* (just below your functional threshold - demanding enough to drive real aerobic and muscular adaptation, but controlled enough to maintain form, breathing, and pacing for extended periods)

A Real-World case: Paul Brum

Paul Brum came to Njinga Cycling with a frustration I hear often.

He lives in a flat part of Canada. Most of his training was done indoors or on rolling roads. And he was preparing for the Maratona dles Dolomites, a major alpine event that genuinely concerned him.

His fitness was a slight issue but his bigger worry was he lacked confidence in how to prepare.

Our main training focus was not to chase elevation but rather to focus on specificity so his training centered around:

• Low-cadence strength-endurance intervals
• Sustained, controlled efforts at climbing-relevant intensities
• Calm, repeatable indoor sessions that mimicked long climbs
• Proper fueling so hard sessions actually built strength

When Paul arrived at his event, he felt well-conditioned and ready. He didn’t panic when gradients increased. He rode steadily, pacing well and passing riders who went out too hard. He finished feeling strong rather than depleted.

Paul later said:

“I’m now riding 300–400km a week, feeling amazing, and already dreaming about my next European challenge.”

You can read Paul’s full story: https://www.njingacycling.com/success-stories/paul-brum

Why Masters Cyclists Need a Smarter Approach

After 40, climbing success comes less from bravado and more from restraint and smart pacing. Cyclists who climb well consistently:

• Settle into a rhythm early - and find a steady power they can sustain for the whole climb. One thing I always remind my riders is to ensure they run through the Njinga On Bike Checklist in your head: relax your fingers, soften your elbows, drop your shoulders, little activation of your core and focus more on driving the toes forward across the top of the pedal stroke. Repeat this checklist to yourself several times on the climb.
• Hold steady power - this is where you need to avoid power surges or big fluctuations in power when climbing. You want to ideally be able to ride at sweetspot 90-95% FTP and feel comfortable at sub threshold efforts. This comes from the right training in preparation for your event and longer periods of sweetspot control. You know you have your power under control when it's only fluctuating by +- 10 watts of your target power i.e. if you are aiming for 250 watts at 90% FTP then you must stay between 245-255 watts. When you can do this regularly you then aim for the gold standard which is keeping your power to a 5 watt fluctuation.

• Breathe calmly under load - one tip I recommend to riders is to practice breathing in for three seconds and out for three seconds and repeating this when climbing. Once you begin to master this then move to four seconds in and 4 seconds out and repeat this multiple times. You know this strategy is working when your heart rate stops creeping up or drops or moves up a lot slower.
• Avoid emotional surges like someone passing you and you forcing yourself to ride at their pace. I often see this with men who get ‘chicked’ (passed by a lady) and they can't handle it and ego (and ill discipline) takes over and they push harder trying to keep up or pass them as opposed to controlling their own pace. Also getting too excited too early on a climb and pushing way too hard and paying the price later and faltering. Or chasing a Strava segment on a long climb and blowing up before the top.

The goal isn’t to feel heroic in training but rather capable and composed on event day. That’s exactly what structured flat-road and indoor training can deliver.

My Climbing Framework

When preparing riders for climbs without hills to train on, I coach two simple but powerful rules:

1. The Pressure Test Rule – If you can’t keep pressure on the pedals without your breathing becoming chaotic, you’re riding too hard. This is not always a fitness issue but rather a pacing issue.
2. The Pacing Rule – A climb should feel harder in the second half, not faster in the first, so don’t go out too hard at the start of the climb.

These two principles alone will save most masters cyclists from blowing up on long climbs. Train with control, and strength follows.

A Bonus for CyclingHero Readers

CyclingHero readers can access a free climbing-specific training session that I designed specifically for cyclists who live in flat areas or are time pressed and want to replicate the physical and mental demands of long climbs indoors or on flat roads.

It’s the exact style of session we use with riders like Paul to build climbing strength without needing mountains.

Simply enter your details below to get access to the session:

Form not showing above? Click HERE!

Want to Take This Further?

If you want to seriously improve your climbing power, Njinga’s Accelerate Programme is a focused 9-week online climbing block for endurance cyclists over 40.The next block starts 16 March and is designed to build sustainable climbing strength with structure and coaching. Although it is structured, the specific training days and times are still flexible to adapt to your schedule.

Coming Up this Month

Togo will also be doing a cycling workshop on how to fuel smart on the bike on the 28^th February at 12 noon EST (9 am PST, 5 pm GMT) Sign up HERE!