Every October, the same thing happens. You finish the season, take a couple of weeks off, and start thinking about winter training. You read a few articles. You watch a few YouTube videos. You cobble together a loose plan that amounts to "ride zone 2 and maybe go to the gym." Then you execute that plan for about three weeks before a mate convinces you to do a hilly group ride, you smash it because you're feeling fresh, and suddenly you're doing intensity five weeks before you should be. By February, you're tired. By March, you're ill. By April, you're starting from scratch.
I've coached enough riders through this cycle to know it isn't a willpower problem. It's a programming problem. Most amateurs don't waste the winter because they're lazy — they waste it because they don't have a structure that progresses. They have a collection of sessions. They don't have a plan.
This is the plan.
Why Random Sessions Don't Build a Base
A base phase is not a collection of zone 2 rides scattered across twelve weeks. It's a progressive overload programme with specific targets for each phase, deliberate recovery built in, and measurable checkpoints that tell you whether the adaptation is happening or not.
The riders I see wasting winters fall into three camps. The first group rides too hard from week one — fresh legs, cool weather, group rides that turn into races. They accumulate fatigue without purpose. The second group rides too easy for too long — pure zone 2, no progression in volume or intensity, no S&C, and they arrive in spring with decent fat oxidation but no top-end capacity and no muscular resilience. The third group has no structure at all — they ride when they feel like it, skip weeks when they don't, and never accumulate enough consistent load to force adaptation.
All three groups end up in the same place: rebuilding in April what they should have built by February.
The fix is a phased approach. Three blocks of four to five weeks, each with a different objective, layered on top of each other so that the fitness you build in Phase 1 becomes the platform for Phase 2, and Phase 2 becomes the platform for Phase 3. This is basic periodisation — Seiler, Friel, Issurin, every serious exercise scientist agrees on the principle. The disagreement is only about the details.
How Long Should Your Base Block Be?
Twelve to sixteen weeks. That range covers most amateurs. Where you land within it depends on three things.
How much fitness did you maintain? If you kept riding through autumn — even casually, three or four hours a week — and only took two to three weeks fully off the bike, twelve weeks is enough. Your aerobic system hasn't fully detrained. It needs reactivation, not reconstruction. If you stopped completely for six weeks or longer, plan for sixteen. The first four weeks will be spent just reintroducing your body to structured load, and you need the runway.
When is your first target event? Count backwards. Four weeks for a taper and race-specific sharpening. Six to eight weeks for a build phase. Whatever remains is your base block. If your first event is in late April, that gives you roughly twenty weeks from early November — plenty of room for a sixteen-week base. If your first event is early March, you're tighter, and a twelve-week base starting in early December makes more sense.
How old are you? This matters more than most coaches admit. A 25-year-old can absorb load faster, recover quicker, and progress in shorter blocks. A 45-year-old needs more time for tissue adaptation, more recovery between hard weeks, and more patience in Phase 1. If you're in the 35-55 bracket — which most of our community is — err towards the longer end of the range. Fourteen to sixteen weeks. The extra time isn't wasted. It's insurance.
Phase 1: Adaptation (Weeks 1-4)
The objective here is reintroduction. Not fitness. Reintroduction.
Your body has been off structured training. Your connective tissue has softened slightly. Your muscular endurance has eroded. Your neuromuscular coordination on the bike has dulled. Phase 1 exists to reverse those things gently, without creating the fatigue debt that will collapse the block later.
On the bike
Four to six hours per week. All zone 2. No exceptions. I don't care how fresh your legs feel. I don't care that your power numbers look good on Tuesday. The goal is to re-establish the habit of consistent daily movement and allow your body to readapt to the sustained effort of cycling without triggering a stress response that requires significant recovery.
A typical Phase 1 week:
- Monday: Rest
- Tuesday: 60-75 minutes zone 2, indoors or outdoors
- Wednesday: S&C session (45-50 minutes) + optional 30-minute easy spin
- Thursday: 60-75 minutes zone 2
- Friday: Rest or S&C session
- Saturday: 90 minutes to 2 hours zone 2, outdoors if possible
- Sunday: Easy 45-60 minutes zone 2 or full rest
Total bike time: roughly five to six hours. Total training stress is low. You should finish every session feeling like you could have done more. That feeling is the point.
In the gym
This is where Phase 1 matters most. You're building the movement patterns and tissue resilience that will allow you to load the gym properly in Phase 2 and sustain power on the bike in Phase 3.
Two sessions per week. Moderate load, higher reps (12-15), focus on quality of movement rather than weight on the bar. The exercises:
- Bulgarian split squats — 3 sets of 12 per leg. The single-leg stability demand transfers directly to the pedal stroke and builds the hip and knee stabilisers that prevent injury during long rides.
- Step-ups — 3 sets of 10 per leg onto a 30-40cm box. Hold dumbbells. Slow and controlled on the descent.
- Glute bridges — 3 sets of 15. Bodyweight first, then add a dumbbell across the hips. Your glutes are the prime movers in cycling and most riders' glutes are chronically underactive from sitting at a desk.
- Nordic hamstring curls — 3 sets of 5-6 (eccentric focus). These are hard. Use a partner or anchor your feet under a loaded barbell. The eccentric hamstring strength they build is your best insurance against knee and hamstring injuries.
- Planks — 3 sets of 30-45 seconds. Front and side. A stable core transfers power to the pedals instead of leaking it through lateral movement.
- Pallof press — 3 sets of 10 per side. Anti-rotation core work that directly addresses the asymmetric forces of pedalling.
No barbell squats. No deadlifts. No barbell rows. I know they're effective movements in the abstract, but for a 35-55-year-old cyclist whose primary goal is to ride faster and stay healthy, the injury risk doesn't justify the reward. Single-leg work, bodyweight loading, and dumbbells give you everything you need with a fraction of the risk.
Recovery week
Week 4 is a recovery week. Reduce bike volume by 30-40%. Drop the gym to one light session. Sleep more. This isn't optional — it's where the adaptation from weeks 1-3 consolidates. Skip recovery weeks and you're stacking fatigue on fatigue. By week 8, the bill comes due.
Phase 2: Building (Weeks 5-8)
Phase 1 laid the foundation. Phase 2 builds on it.
The bike volume increases. You introduce your first structured intensity — one sweet spot session per week, exactly as Seiler's polarised model prescribes. The S&C work shifts from general preparatory strength to cycling-specific force production, with lower reps and higher loads.
On the bike
Seven to nine hours per week. The increase from Phase 1 should be 10-15% per week — not more. Gradual loading is what allows tissue to adapt without breaking.
The big addition is sweet spot. One session per week, mid-week, structured as 2x20 minutes at 88-93% of your FTP with five minutes of easy spinning between efforts. If you don't know your current FTP, use the FTP zone calculator to set your ranges. If you haven't tested since last season, retest in week 5 — a 20-minute test or a ramp test will do. Your FTP has probably dropped 5-10% during the off-season, and training to old numbers is training too hard.
A typical Phase 2 week:
- Monday: Rest
- Tuesday: 90-minute sweet spot session — 15 minutes warm-up with openers, 2x20 minutes at 88-93% FTP, 5 minutes easy between efforts, 15 minutes cool-down
- Wednesday: S&C session (50-60 minutes)
- Thursday: 75-90 minutes zone 2
- Friday: Rest or easy 30-minute spin
- Saturday: 2.5-3 hours zone 2, outdoors
- Sunday: 60-90 minutes zone 2 + optional second S&C session
Total bike time: roughly eight hours. The intensity distribution lands around 85% easy, 15% hard — within Seiler's polarised framework. You're not doing race-specific work. You're maintaining the muscular endurance and metabolic capacity that pure zone 2 would let erode.
In the gym
The exercises stay largely the same. The loading changes. Drop the reps to 8-10 and increase the weight. You should be working at an RPE of 7-8 — hard but not grinding. The movement quality should remain clean. The moment form deteriorates, reduce the weight.
Add:
- Single-leg press — 3 sets of 8 per leg. Heavier loading than the split squats, targeting raw force production through the full pedal stroke range.
- Cable pull-throughs or hip hinges with a dumbbell — 3 sets of 10. Posterior chain loading without the spinal compression of a heavy barbell.
- Weighted step-ups — increase the box height to 40-50cm and add load. 3 sets of 8 per leg.
Keep the Nordic curls, the planks, the pallof press. These stay in the programme year-round.
Recovery week
Week 8 is your second recovery week. Same protocol — 30-40% volume reduction, one light gym session, extra sleep. You should feel properly restored by the end of it.
This is also a good checkpoint. Compare your metrics to week 1. Heart rate at a fixed sub-threshold power should have dropped. Power at your zone 2 heart rate ceiling should have climbed. If neither has moved, something is wrong — usually insufficient sleep, poor fuelling, or too much unstructured intensity creeping in via group rides. Fix it before Phase 3.
Phase 3: Consolidation (Weeks 9-12/16)
This is peak volume. This is where the base gets built — or where it collapses if the first two phases were rushed.
You're now adding a second intensity stimulus: a short VO2max maintenance dose every 10-14 days, alongside the weekly sweet spot session. The S&C work reduces in frequency as the bike volume peaks — your body has limited recovery capacity, and the bike work takes priority now.
On the bike
Nine to twelve hours per week, depending on what you can sustain. The long ride is the centrepiece — three to four hours on the weekend, fuelled properly, at a pace you could hold a conversation.
The VO2max touch is not a full VO2max block. It's a maintenance stimulus. Every second week, replace your Thursday zone 2 ride with a VO2max session: 8-10 sets of 30 seconds on/30 seconds off at 120-130% FTP, or 3x3 minutes at 110-115% FTP with 3 minutes rest between efforts. Short. Controlled. Over in 20 minutes of actual work. The purpose is to keep the ceiling from dropping — Seiler's data shows that athletes who maintain some high-intensity stimulus year-round preserve their VO2max better than those who eliminate it during base phase.
A typical Phase 3 week (intensity week):
- Monday: Rest
- Tuesday: 90-minute sweet spot session — 2x20 or 3x15 minutes at 88-93% FTP
- Wednesday: S&C session (45 minutes, maintenance load)
- Thursday: VO2max touch — warm up 15 minutes, 8x30/30 at 120-130% FTP, cool down 15 minutes (total 60 minutes)
- Friday: Rest
- Saturday: 3-3.5 hours zone 2, outdoors
- Sunday: 60-90 minutes zone 2
A typical Phase 3 week (no VO2max):
- Monday: Rest
- Tuesday: 90-minute sweet spot session
- Wednesday: S&C session (45 minutes)
- Thursday: 75-90 minutes zone 2
- Friday: Rest
- Saturday: 3-3.5 hours zone 2, outdoors
- Sunday: 60-90 minutes zone 2 + optional light S&C
Total bike time: roughly ten hours. Intensity distribution: 80-85% zone 2, one sweet spot session, one VO2max touch every other week. Textbook polarised.
Recovery weeks
Take a recovery week every third or fourth week through Phase 3. If Phase 3 is eight weeks (for a sixteen-week block), that means recovery in week 11 or 12, with the final push in weeks 13-16. Listen to your body. If resting heart rate is elevated, if sleep quality is deteriorating, if motivation is dropping — take the recovery week early. Fatigue is not a badge. It's a signal.
In the gym
Drop to one session per week. Maintain the exercises but at maintenance volume — 2 sets instead of 3, same weight or slightly reduced. The goal is to hold the strength you built in Phases 1-2, not to make further gains. Your body's adaptive capacity is directed at the bike now. Asking it to simultaneously peak in the gym and on the bike is asking for staleness or injury.
How to Know When Base Is Done
Three markers.
Heart rate at a fixed power. Pick a sub-threshold power — say, 180 watts — and ride it for 20 minutes on the turbo once per week, always the same warm-up, same time of day. Track your average heart rate for those 20 minutes across the block. When it stops dropping for two consecutive weeks, the aerobic adaptation at that intensity has plateaued. Your base is built at that level.
Aerobic decoupling. On your long rides, compare the ratio of heart rate to power in the first half of the ride versus the second half. If the heart rate drift is less than 5% over a three-hour ride, your aerobic system is efficiently sustaining the load. If it's drifting 8-10%, you're still building. The training load calculator helps you track this progression across weeks.
Subjective readiness. This sounds vague but it isn't. When your base is properly built, zone 2 feels easy. Not manageable. Easy. The effort that felt like work in week 2 feels like a recovery spin in week 12. You have headroom. You're itching for something harder. That restlessness — the feeling that you're ready for more — is the signal. Trust it.
When all three markers converge, transition to your build phase. Start adding structured threshold and VO2max blocks. The base is the foundation. Now you put the furniture in.
Indoor vs Outdoor: When Each One Wins
The turbo-or-road question isn't about preference. It's about purpose.
When the turbo is better
Structured intervals. Sweet spot and VO2max sessions are more effective indoors. No junctions. No descents. No traffic lights. You hit the power target, hold it, and the training stimulus is precise. A 2x20 sweet spot session indoors delivers exactly the dose you prescribed. The same session outdoors, with a junction at minute 14 and a headwind that forces you 10 watts over target on the return, delivers something approximating it.
Time efficiency. An indoor hour is an hour of pedalling. An outdoor hour includes kit faffing, freewheel descents, and cafe stops. When you're working to a schedule — and most amateurs are — the turbo gives you more training per hour of your life.
Zone control. If your goal is to stay in zone 2, the turbo makes it easy. Outside, every hill pushes you into zone 3. Every group ride pushes you into zone 4. Every headwind adds 15 watts you didn't plan for. For the discipline-challenged (most of us), the turbo is a guardrail.
When outdoor riding is better
The long ride. Your Saturday three-hour ride is better outdoors. The variable terrain — gradients, wind, surfaces — recruits a wider range of muscle fibres than a flat turbo session. The mental endurance of three hours outside is qualitatively different from three hours staring at a screen. And the vitamin D, the fresh air, the social element if you ride with others — all of that matters for long-term adherence. Training you can't sustain for twelve weeks is training that doesn't work.
Mental health. Nobody burns out from too many outdoor rides in winter. Plenty of people burn out from seven weeks of consecutive turbo sessions. If you're doing ten hours a week and all of it is indoors, your compliance will crater before your fitness peaks. Get outside at least once a week, even if it's cold, even if it's raining, even if the ride is shorter than planned.
Neuromuscular variety. Pedalling on a turbo is a metronomically consistent movement. Pedalling outdoors involves micro-adjustments — changes in cadence on gradients, out-of-saddle efforts on short kicks, handling through corners, braking and accelerating. That neuromuscular diversity keeps your movement patterns sharp in ways the turbo cannot replicate.
The practical split
For a ten-hour week in winter, I'd programme three indoor sessions (two structured, one easy) and two outdoor rides (the long ride and a mid-week zone 2 spin if daylight allows). That's the balance that gives you precision where it matters and outdoor time where it matters.
Common Mistakes That Waste the Winter
Going too hard too early
The single biggest killer. Fresh legs in November feel like fitness. They aren't. They're the absence of fatigue. You ride hard because you can, you feel great for three weeks, and then the accumulated load catches up. Motivation drops. Niggles appear. You get ill in week 6 and miss ten days, which destroys the progressive overload that the whole block depends on.
Phase 1 should feel boring. If it doesn't, you're doing it wrong.
Skipping S&C
Every winter, the same excuse: "I'll add gym work when I have time." You have the most time now. Your bike load is at its lowest. Your body has the most capacity to absorb a new stimulus. If you don't build the muscular foundation in Phase 1-2, you won't have it in Phase 3 when the volume peaks. And you definitely won't have it in the build phase when intensity is high and the last thing your body wants is a new gym programme.
Two sessions a week in Phase 1-2. One session a week in Phase 3. Non-negotiable.
No recovery weeks
Training works by stress and recovery. Stress without recovery is just stress. Your body doesn't adapt during the hard weeks — it adapts during the recovery weeks. A four-week cycle of three load weeks and one recovery week is the minimum structure. Some riders over 40 do better with two load weeks and one recovery week. Either way, the recovery weeks stay in the programme. Permanently. Every time.
Abandoning the plan when form feels flat
Weeks 3-5 of any new training block often feel terrible. You're accumulating load, your body hasn't adapted yet, and every ride feels harder than it should. This is normal. This is the process. The adaptation happens after the load, not during it. Riders who bail on the plan at this point — switching to random rides, skipping sessions, "listening to my body" as a euphemism for doing whatever they feel like — never reach the payoff that comes in weeks 8-12.
Stick with it. The flat patch is temporary. The fitness is permanent.
No progression
Doing the same five-hour week of zone 2 from November to February is not base training. It's maintaining a low level of fitness for four months. Base training requires progressive overload — either volume or intensity must increase across the block. That's why the phased approach matters. Phase 1 is lighter than Phase 2. Phase 2 is lighter than Phase 3. Each phase asks more of you than the last, and each phase gives you a recovery week to absorb the increase before the next one arrives.
If week 12 looks identical to week 1, you haven't trained. You've just ridden.
Putting It Together
Twelve to sixteen weeks. Three phases. Progressive overload. Structured S&C. Strategic use of indoor and outdoor riding. Recovery weeks every third or fourth week. One sweet spot session per week from Phase 2 onwards. A VO2max touch every 10-14 days in Phase 3.
That's it. It's not complicated. But it requires discipline — the discipline to start easy in Phase 1, to progress gradually in Phase 2, and to sustain the load in Phase 3 without blowing up. Most of all, it requires the discipline to follow the plan on the days when you don't feel like it and to back off on the days when you feel too good.
Seiler's research is clear: the athletes who maintain a disciplined training intensity distribution — 80% easy, 20% hard — across the full year outperform those who swing between extremes. Your winter base block is where that distribution starts. Get the structure right, respect the progression, and you'll arrive in spring with an aerobic engine, a muscular foundation, and the capacity to absorb the hard work that turns base fitness into race fitness.
Spring is where it gets fast. Winter is where you earn the right to get fast.
The Not Done Yet community on Skool is where we programme this for real — structured plans, weekly coaching calls, and a group of cyclists who are serious about getting faster. Not guessing. Not winging it. Programming.