The seventh installment in the Spinervals series of indoor workouts for cyclists is called The Uphill Grind, and as you would imagine, it focuses on hill-climbing skills. Unless you live in a pancake-flat area, you know that hills are particularly challenging: as Coach Troy Jacobson says, you either love them or you hate them! But either way, The Uphill Grind will help you tackle them with more confidence.

What's great about The Uphill Grind is that it accurately captures the full experience of climbing hills, which includes the descent as well as the ascent. The program features multiple repeats of a simulated climb, with four minutes spent climbing and one minute spent descending. During the uphill section, you'll use different gears depending on what Coach Troy directs, and you'll alternate seated low-cadence pedaling with standing up on the pedals, but the one constant is that the gearing will be tough so that you will feel that you're going uphill.

Once you've finished the four-minute uphill section, you have the descent, and if you've been in the habit of just coasting down hills after a tough climb, then The Uphill Grind will show you that there's more to downhills than freewheeling. Coach Troy has you switch to a high-cadence pedaling style on the one-minute descent; this has the effect of switching the effort away from your legs (which did all the hard work on the ascent) toward your cardiovascular system, while keeping your overall speed high.

This is how the program looks overall:

The Uphill Grind is a fairly short intervals workout; it's 45 minutes long in total, but by the time you account for the warm-up and cool-down sections of the program, the intervals section of the workout runs a bit more than 30 minutes. That actually helps make The Uphill Grind very re-watchable, since you can pop it in for a short, intense workout; as part of your Spinervals collection, it also complements the longer workouts like Mental Toughness or Time Trial Special. And if you're feeling strong, you can always add more hill repeats on the fly by skipping back and repeating a chapter.

The DVD

Video

Spinervals 7.0: The Uphill Grind is presented in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio. The image quality, while not perfect, is quite satisfactory for an exercise video. The image is bright and clear, though a bit blurry. Like The Zoot Challenge, The Uphill Grind is filmed in a "studio" setting, with a plain blue background; this makes it a bit easier to see the riders, but it lacks the charm of the more individual settings of the other DVDs. The on-screen graphics for perceived effort, time remaining in the program, and suggested gearing are clear and easy to read.

Audio

The audio quality for Spinervals 7.0 is quite satisfactory, as it has been for the other DVDs in the Spinervals series. Coach Troy is always clear and understandable, though at times it seems like the background music doesn't dip down as far as it should when he's talking. Overall, though, it sounds fine; you'll hear Coach Troy giving you lots of encouragement, and the music will help you keep the right rhythm going.

Extras

There are no special features on the DVD, apart from a detailed description of the workout at the start of the program. The menu is well designed, with a chapter for each section of the workout, so it's easy to skip forward and back as desired.

Final thoughts

As one of the more focused Spinervals workouts, The Uphill Grind is an excellent choice for any serious bicyclist, whether a competitive rider or a serious recreational rider. The short but intense workout with its excellent hill repeats complements the other workouts in the series, and is a great choice if you want to get stronger on the hills. Highly recommended.