What Build Phase Training Plan is right for me?

Cyclists draw on fundamentals from the Base phase of training by expanding on three main areas of their capabilities: Muscular Endurance, Aerobic Endurance, and a mixture of Form/Speed/Power — the same three areas of your abilities established in the Base Phase.

Through a blend of workouts in various power zones (Tempo, Threshold, Sweet Spot, VO2Max, Anaerobic), Build phase training is intended to elevate your Functional Threshold Power and general cycling capabilities before refining them in the next training phase that follows. I recommend athletes spend 8 weeks in Build training.

I recommend three different approaches to Build phase training depending on the type of rider you are: Short Power, General Power, or Sustained Power Build Phase training plans:

• Short Power Build includes a healthy balance of muscular endurance work but trades an increased emphasis on VO2Max and Anaerobic efforts with a reduction in sustainable power focus. Less muscular endurance, more repeatable aerobic power. This approach suits a rider who needs more explosive, short-punchy power capabilities. Criterium racers, cyclocross competitors, and nearly all MTB & track riders fall into this category.
• General Power Build is geared more towards the athlete who’s discipline doesn’t require any more focus on short punchy power than it does sustainable power. Therefore, the General Power Build phase training plan fits a rider looking to capitalize on a well-rounded blend of abilities in both areas.
• Sustained Power Build is focused on developing greater sustained power through the use of strength endurance work (Sweet Spot), lactate tolerance workouts (Threshold), and a healthy dose of maximum aerobic power intervals (VO2max). These areas of focus translate to the ability to sustain high percentages of FTP for increasingly long durations.
• Where the Short Power Build plan saw a swap out for VO2Max intervals, Sustained Power Build phase plans will see the inclusion of more Sweet Spot, Threshold, and Over-Under type workouts. Multisport athletes, time trial specialists, century & gran fondo riders, and climbing road racers all fall into this category.

Examples of Build phase workouts: Below I’ve listed one workout from each of the Build phase training plans I recommend that you can try for yourself:

Spanish Needle: is a workout I’ve created that targets the Aerobic energy system but does so via short, closely-stacked anaerobic repeats. The format is 6×8-minute sets of microbursts consisting of 15 seconds at 150% of FTP, followed directly by 15 seconds at 40% FTP. With 5-minute recovery valleys between each set, Spanish Needle begins with a 6-minute ramping warm up from 50%-90% of FTP, and ends with a 5-minute ramping cooldown from 40%-30% of FTP.

Palisade: is a workout that falls into the Threshold and Sweet Spot category. Through 5×9-minute intervals alternating slightly above or slightly below FTP combining efforts of 1-minute at 95% FTP followed by 2-minute efforts at 105% FTP, this over-under workout includes 6-minute recovery valleys between each set of intervals. Palisade begins with a 10-minute ramping warm up from 50%-95% of FTP, and ends with 6-minutes of ramping cooldown from 40%-30% of FTP.

Mount Goode +2: is a workout that targets the Threshold power zone through 3×18-minute intervals at 97-99% FTP with short, 3-minute recoveries between intervals. Mount Goode begins with 20-minutes of ramping warm up from 50%-95% of FTP, and ends with a 5-minute ramping cooldown from 40%-30% of FTP.

How Important is Build Training?

Build Phase training is a critical step in developing cycling-specific performance capabilities and increasing your FTP which I do not recommend skipping. Should you find yourself confined to a restrictive training schedule that pressures you to skip the recommended 8 weeks in a Build phase of training, prioritize your training phases to make sure you have a solid foundation of Base fitness before deciding to shorten your time in the Build phase.

Summary of Build Phase training

Elevating your discipline-specific performance capabilities and increasing your Functional Threshold Power is the next step toward achieving your fastest season. This is done in the Build phase of training by drawing on elements of the fundamental forms of fitness established during Base training and is capitalized on the training phases that follow.

Specialty Phase Training: Everything You Need to Know

To refine our cycling abilities and achieve peak fitness, making both highly specific to our cycling discipline and racing demands, we will progress through the third (and potentially final) training phase: the Specialty Phase.

Specialty Phase training plans integrate the principle of specificity into training. Each training plan in this training phase strives to be as specific to your target events or riding discipline as possible. So the workouts you’ll find in this training phase focus on the specific cycling goals/efforts that you’ll be faced with on the road, mud, gravel, or whatever tickles your fancy.

What You’ll Gain from Optimal Specialty Training

Athletes will achieve their fitness “peak” by emphasizing the refinement of cycling specific activities during Specialty training. This is not exclusive to anatomical and physiological adaptations; specialization applies to psychological, technical and tactical features as well. No matter what cycling specific activities you take part in, these are the skills you’ll sharpen to “peak” for important competitions (or rides you want to be flat out fast in).

Time trialing, sprinting, attacking, climbing, descending, team tactics, individual strategy — each are examples of cycling-specific capabilities that we want to perform within our highest capacity at. Research demonstrates, integrating specialization into a dedicated training phase spurs the human body to adapt specifically to the activities the individual participates in.

How to Approach Specialty Training to Peak At the Right Time

Moving into a focus on progressively increasing competition intensity and volume to specific performance capabilities, optimal Specialty training transitions out of Base and Build Phase training. I suggest athletes spend 8 weeks in this training phase. By keeping workout intensity high, and by transitioning training volume to be relatively moderate, conditioning is maintained and a layer of “freshness” for the athlete is revealed.

Integrating a progressive training load throughout the season, ultimately leading up to achieving a “peak” in abilities, operates on the basis that your body’s capacity for work gradually increases over an extended period. In other words, there’s a direct relationship between your individual rate of improvements in performance and the rate and manner you increase your training load. The point is, you’re shortchanging yourself on the fitness peak you can actually achieve by cutting your time short in Base and Build Phase training.

My recommendations for Specialty Phase training depend on a rider’s racing and/or riding discipline. Here’s a few examples of the workouts you’d find in time trial-, criterium-, and triathlon-specific Specialty Phase training plans:

Full-Distance Triathlon Specialty Phase workout:

Polar Bear: is a workout I’ve created that is composed of 120 minutes of continuous riding where you’ll spend 105 of those minutes between 80-85% of FTP (Tempo and Sweet Spot power zones). The workout begins with a ramping 12-minute warmup ranging from 50-82% FTP and ends with a 3-minute cooldown ranging from 40-30% FTP.

With no recovery intervals built into the workout, this extended period of aerobic endurance may be uncomfortable, but this is the intensity you’ll find yourself during competition or during a similar duration triathlon effort. We recommend riding in your time trial position to continue dialing in the proper balance between your aerodynamic positioning and power output, and also your nutrition/hydration/pacing strategy.

Time Trial Specialty Specialty Phase workout example:

Unicorn +1: is a workout that predominantly falls into the Threshold power zone with a 60-minute continuous interval ranging from 95-102% FTP. The workout begins with a 13-minute ramping warmup ranging from 50-120% FTP, and ends with a 8.5-minute cooldown ranging from 40-30% FTP. There are also 3 short “clearing efforts” at 160%, 130%, and 200% FTP to clear muscle glycogen prior to this hour-long effort. This helps tax the aerobic system and reduce reliance on maintaining nutrition during extended rides.

This is classified as a “practice time trial workout” during the Specialty Phase of training to simulate the demands of the time trial efforts these riders will face. We recommend riders perform these practice TT efforts in their aero positioning for the same reasons we’d recommend it for the triathlon-specific workouts.

Criterium Specialty Specialty Phase workout example:

Nevada City Classic +2: is a workout with 25 lap-like intervals that each begin at 71% FTP, move to 111%, then include minimized “recovery” periods at 91% FTP before repeating efforts back at 111% and 71% FTP … yes, all in the same interval. The workout begins with a ramping 6-minute warmup ranging from 40-100% FTP, and ends with a 4.5-minute cooldown ranging from 40-30% FTP. The recovery valleys between each interval are an unrelenting 45-seconds.

This is classified as a “practice criterium workout” during the Specialty Phase to simulate criterium racing’s repeating, brutally intense efforts. I recommend these workouts to train the highly specific power delivery required in crits—anaerobic sprinting power coupled with a robust aerobic engine to repeat these efforts over and over again.