Sweetspot work:
Most pro’s are riding 25-35 hours a week with the majority of training time spent in Zone 1. If however you can’t allocate this much time (which let’s be fair is generally reserved only for the pro’s), then strength and sweetspot intervals will be your ally. Moving your cadence around within sweetspot and Z3 ranges will do wonders in building fitness on lower hours. Training should always be progressive so like a pro builds hours and volume, you should build the time spent doing strength, sweet spot and Z3 work. For example, If you start by doing 4 x 8mins at sweetspot, you might progress to 4 x 10mins etc etc.
For me a great 1hr session is as follows;
- 12min progressive warmup
- 4 x 8min sweetspot with cadence changes (2min @ 60rpm 2min @110rpm) OR (2min TT position, 2min relaxed position)
- 2min spinning rest intervals between 8 min blocks.
- 8min cool down
Neuromuscular work:
As a pro rider it was common for me to include neuromuscular work in my base rides. This is something I would recommend you do, it’s an easy winter training win! A relatively easy session to complete that will pay huge dividends when your race season kicks off is as follows;
- 20min warmup
- 4 x 8s stomps (seated, starting from low speed, 53×12 gearing) 7m52s rest
- 4 x 8s sprints (rolling in from 50rpm 53×12, 60rpm 53×13, 70rpm 53×14, 80rpm 53×15) 7m52s rest.
- 4 x 4min spin-ups (z1 120rpm in Race Position) 8min rest.
- 10min cool down.
To get you started I have created .zwo & .fit files which you can import and try on Zwift or outdoors.
Download the files HERE.
Remember your WINning is done in the summer months, but the clue is in the name, the real WINning is made in WINter. So get stuck into those WINtervals.
Very interesting & helpful – thank you