The thought of hill reps may make your legs groan, but if you want to improve your climbing then they’re a necessary evil.

From the humble amateur to the WorldTour’s leading pros, hill reps are tried and tested method to boost your ability when the roads head skywards and ensure you don’t get dropped on the club run, in a sportive or during a road race. Hill reps also allow you to condense a lot of climbing, at a high intensity, into a relatively short training session.

But how can you make the most of a session in the hills, and how can you tailor your training to suit your goals? We asked Dan Fleeman, a two-time British hill climb champion who knows plenty about tackling the lumpy stuff.

Fleeman, now a director at Dig Deep Coaching, won the national title in 2009 and 2010, riding with the Cervelo Test Team and Raleigh respectively. We asked Fleeman for his advice on how to become a better climber.