Do you want to improve your cycling results? Find out these 5 easy principles

There are several training rules, that will guarantee success if you stick to them. Find out these rules and start applying them if you want to achieve better results in cycling!

Key takeaways

• The article presents five core training principles for improving cycling performance: individualization, specificity, progressiveness, load variability, and periodization.
• Individualization means that training should be adjusted to the specific athlete rather than copied from another rider.
• The article identifies training volume, intensity, recovery duration, and recovery type as variables that should be individualized.
• Individual planning should also account for training experience, goals, race demands, available time, current fitness, terrain, equipment, and the athlete’s psychological profile.
• Specificity means preparing for the type of race that matters most by reproducing similar effort duration, terrain, equipment, and conditions whenever possible.
• For a flat 20-minute time trial, the most important workouts should resemble a sustained effort of that type rather than unrelated training.
• For a mountainous mass-start race lasting about 3.5 hours with several 10–15-minute climbs, the article recommends first building volume, then adding FTP-oriented work, and finally combining both.
• The article argues that highly specific training becomes increasingly important as the target race approaches.
• Progressiveness means gradually increasing training load so the body receives a stimulus strong enough to adapt to.
• If training loads remain below what the athlete has already adapted to, the article argues that further progress may stagnate or regress.
• Progression does not mean making every workout harder; it means increasing the overall training challenge in a controlled way over time.
• Load variability means including different types of workouts to create multiple adaptation stimuli and reduce mental monotony.
• The article recommends occasionally using less structured sessions based on the athlete’s own preferences to provide psychological relief from a rigid training plan.
• Deliberately breaking from a strict plan from time to time is presented as potentially useful when the training regime becomes mentally demanding.
• Periodization means organizing the training year into structured phases separated by appropriate recovery periods.
• The Way2Champ model described in the article uses six mesocycles: Preparation, Power Foundation, Power Build, Pre-Race, Race, and Transition.
• Each successive training phase should gradually prepare the athlete for the demands of the main event rather than treating the entire season as one continuous block.
• Before the primary race, training volume is reduced and training becomes increasingly focused on the demands of that event.
• The central message is that better cycling results come from combining individualized training, race-specific preparation, gradual overload, varied training stimuli, and structured periodization across the season.

Individualization

What is good for one athlete is not necessarily good for others.

In training, the most critical thing is adjusting the loads (volume and intensity) as well as the length and nature of recovery breaks for each athlete individually.

According to this principle, training is composed depending on:

• training experience
• set goals
• the nature of the target race
• time limitations
• the current level of efficiency
• route and terrain options
• equipment
• athlete’s psyche

Specificity

We train for the type of races that is the most important for us. The best option is to train in similar conditions, on the same equipment and route profile (if possible).

If we are preparing for a 20min time trial with a flat profile, with little technical difficulty, we try to adapt the primary workouts to this type of effort

When our goal is a high position in a mass-start event in the mountains (e.g., 3.5h with four climbs of 10-15 minutes), we must practice as often as possible a similar type of effort. First, we increase the volume at a slow pace, then we add some work on FTP and finally combine these elements.

Only by maintaining specificity can we improve in a given discipline to the maximum of our abilities. Thus, for example, running in the race season in the case of road cycling athlete is a disorder of this principle. Sometimes, of course, we can point out individual examples that break this pattern, but they are somewhat confirmation of the rule.

Progressiveness

Or in other words, a constant increase in loads.

An increase of physical condition takes place when we use bigger/heavier loads, and our body adapts to them correctly.

This principle also assumes the inverse of this scheme. That is, if the load is smaller/lighter than previously, then further adaptation goes back or stagnates the form. Sometimes it is related to the physiological capabilities of the body.

Load variability

It assumes the inclusion of different forms of training sessions in the plan, which prevents the athlete from falling  down on motivation and provides a multitude of adaptive stimuli for the body.

In other words, the training should be varied so as not to be boring. In the training plan, I sometimes include unstructured workouts based on athlete’s discretion, to let the athlete relax mentally and to escape from the training regime for a moment. Breaking even the best plan can work wonders, as it may be too hard mentally otherwise.

Periodization

It is nothing but an arrangement of training preparations in cycles and phases, between which recovery breaks occur.

In the simplest terms, we can divide the training year into six mesocycles, which we use in Way2Champ:

1. Preparation
2. Power Foundation
3. Power Build
4. Pre-Race
5. Race
6. Transition

Each new stage assumes the increase in loads up to the primary race before which the descent from the volume occurs and training is explicitly set for the primary race. Periodization aims at gradually building the athlete’s physical shape, on a stable base as a foundation for the whole season.

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