A Winter’s Tale

Don’t let the cold, dark months derail your fitness. Try our training plan and come back stronger than ever in spring

Christmas is coming, which means a season of parties, booze, mince pies and general nutrition debauchery. But it can also be a great time for training. The winter months are an opportunity to refocus, plan your goals and lay the foundations for a successful year ahead, whether that includes racing, entering a sportive, setting personal bests or simply enjoying your cycling more than ever by being fitter than ever. And the work you do now is crucial to success.

Back to base

Winter training plans are often built around the concept of ‘base miles’.

‘This means different things to different people depending on their goals and level of fitness,’ says coach Ric Stern. ‘But base miles are the building blocks of training in winter. Riding at a high intensity all year round puts too much stress on the body, while on the other hand losing fitness would be a waste of the work you’ve accomplished thus far. And some people – although not all – can continue to have year-on-year fitness growth.’

The key to maintaining fitness over the winter is endurance, with a small amount of high-intensity work thrown in.

‘Endurance training, which can still include hard efforts up the hills, should account for around 95% of your work at the start of winter, reducing to around 80% by the end,’ says Stern. ‘At that point I’d recommend that the rest is 15% threshold work – the maximum pace you can sustain for an hour – and 5% above threshold, from sprints and intervals.’

The key to a successful 2022 is to be consistent. ‘How you rack up the miles will depend on your personal circumstances,’ says Stern. ‘Steady endurance rides on the turbo trainer are a personal favourite of mine to help me avoid bad weather. Mountain biking or gravel riding are also great ways to maintain fitness, plus they help hone handling skills. And when it’s dry, on-road bike strength training with maximal efforts from a near-standing start helps develop maximal force production in a cycling-specific way.’

Not all of your work should take place on the bike either. Mobility work and strength training will help your athletic development and make you less prone to injury, and you can do these several times a week.

‘Once you’ve done that, the next step is to work out what you need to do to reach your goals,’ says Stern. ‘Some of your work might be skills-based, such as cornering faster in the wet or taking on food on the bike, and some of those targets might be off the bike, such as weight loss. But some of your higher-intensity goals, such as improving your VO2 max or speed endurance, should be done closer to your main goals. These are the things you build towards as winter progresses.’

Even if weight loss isn’t a goal you shouldn’t neglect your diet, especially with Christmas looming. ‘Actually, now is an excellent time to look at your nutrition and see how it can be improved,’ says Stern. ‘Even if you gain some weight during the festivities and need to lose that, starting earlier is much preferable to starting later when you should be focussing on other types of training – high-intensity training is really hard if you’re trying to lose weight.’

It’s all in the planning

The winter off-season is effectively four months, from the beginning of November to the end of February, but months have inconvenient things like a different number of days in them so it makes more sense to think in terms of a 16-week training plan broken into four blocks.

‘Your training plan should cover the three bases: endurance, threshold and above threshold,’ says Stern. ‘Start with long rides, focussing mainly on endurance but with a few sprints and intervals thrown in, and as you increase the volume through the winter you can add more intensity – in terms of both percentage and total volume – so you progress from maintaining to building fitness.’

So are you ready for the New Year? If not, you soon will be.

Block 1: Weeks 1-4

• In Week 1 take a test – 20 or 60 minutes FTP (functional threshold power), or a MAP (maximal aerobic power) test with a coach – to gauge your fitness and set training zones.

• Rather than aiming for a distance, aim to complete so many hours per block – that will be personal to you depending on your goals.

• Do three long rides, upping them by 15 to 30 minutes each time.

• Include some MIET (mediumintensity endurance training) in those rides, starting at 20 minutes and lengthening a little each ride.

• The rest of the training should be short-to-moderate duration endurance work.

• In Week 4 reduce all sessions by 40% to freshen up for the next block.

Block 2: Weeks 5-8

• Increase the total volume from Block 1. Start at 90% of your longest ride in Block 1 and then increase by 15 to 30 minutes.

• Maintain the MIET on a weekly basis, accumulating around 60 minutes per week. You can also ride at threshold pace uphill on long rides to add some intensity.

• You could replace one shorter midweek ride with an interval session: 4-7x 3min at threshold pace with 1min of easy riding between efforts. Add in some easy riding after the intervals to increase volume.

• On one outdoor ride include 3-6x 10sec sprints from a near-standing start to build strength and power.

• In Week 4 reduce all sessions by 40%.

Block 3: Weeks 9-12

• Continue increasing the length of your long rides.

• Add in a second MIET session. Maintain one at the duration you maxed at in Block 2 and the second one starting as per Block 1.

• Maintain the intervals and add sprints to a second session each week. Add some sprints or intervals to long rides.

• In Week 4 reduce all sessions by 40%.

Block 4: Weeks 13-16

• Repeat Block 3, but add in one more day of riding per week to increase total volume.

• Do an interval session on one day each week at near to your VO2 max, ideally uphill. Start at 3x 3min and increase by one interval each week.

• MIET and intervals can be added to each training session. By now you should be doing (roughly) 80% endurance, 15% threshold and 5% above threshold.

• Repeat the test from Block 1, Week 1 to measure your progress.