Guides
Training guides
Practical writing on how training actually works — metrics, intervals, indoor riding, strength and fuelling. Written by Shayne, the same coach who wrote the plans.
37 guides
Power and metrics
What is TSS, and why do I have a problem with it?
Training Stress Score explained — how TSS is calculated, how the Performance Management Chart uses it, and where the metric misleads riders.
Ramp testing: yea or nay?
Ramp tests are quick and repeatable, but they suit some riders far better than others. When a ramp test gives you a usable FTP.
Understanding FTP: VLaMax vs VO2 max
Two riders with the same FTP can need opposite training. How VLaMax and VO2 max shape threshold, and what that means for your plan.
How to actually raise your anaerobic threshold
The physiology behind a higher FTP — mitochondrial density, capillary growth, and why work close to threshold and HIIT both earn a place in a plan.
FTP: why does it matter?
What functional threshold power actually represents, why it anchors every training zone, and what it does and does not tell you.
The pitfalls of FTP testing
Twenty-minute tests, ramp tests and software modelling all give different numbers. Where each protocol misleads, and how to test well.
Why does cadence matter?
What changes in the muscle at 70, 90 and 110 rpm, why riders self-select different cadences, and what that means for how you train.
What is lactate?
Lactate is not what causes the burn, and it is not a waste product. What it actually is, and why that changes how you read a threshold test.
What are the power training zones?
A plain guide to cycling power zones — what each one trains, how they are set from FTP, and what a session in each should feel like.
What is power, and why do we train with it?
Why watts became the reference measure in cycling, and what power tells you about a ride that heart rate and perceived effort cannot.
How training is structured
HIIT vs LSD training
What the research says about high-intensity intervals versus long slow distance — and how to keep the training effect when you do not have hours to ride.
Sweet spot vs zone 2 for aerobic capacity
Which builds aerobic capacity better — sweet spot work or long zone 2 riding? What the research shows, and how to choose between them.
The time-crunched athlete: what is the best way to train?
How to train when you do not have the hours — what to cut, what to protect, and how to keep progressing on a limited weekly budget.
What is the transition phase, and why does it matter?
The off-season block most riders skip. What the transition phase does, how long it runs, and why base training works better after it.
Is traditional base training dead?
Long slow base miles versus a shorter, harder build. What the evidence says about traditional base training for time-limited riders.
Indoor and Zwift
Indoor training and hyperthermia
Why you overheat on the trainer, what it does to your power, and how to set up an indoor space so heat stops limiting the session.
Inside Zwift's Build Me Up training plan
A walk through Build Me Up — how the plan is structured, who it suits, and what it is trying to build — from the coach who wrote it.
Why does Zwift feel harder than riding outside?
The same watts feel harder indoors, and it is not in your head. Cooling, coasting, cadence and terrain — what actually changes.
Strength and recovery
Blood flow restriction training for endurance gains
What occlusion training does to a working muscle, what the endurance research shows, and why it interests the time-crunched athlete in particular.
Inter-set stretching: gaming hypertrophy
Loaded stretching between sets, the signalling pathways behind it, and the trade-off it forces between acute performance and long-term muscle growth.
Strength training programming for endurance athletes
How to periodise gym work around a cycling season — when to lift heavy, when to back off, and how strength turns into force on the pedals.
Does strength training improve endurance performance?
What the research says about lifting for cyclists — the effect on economy, threshold and time to exhaustion, and what it does not do.
Everything you need to know about a broken collarbone
Surgical and non-surgical treatment, a range-of-motion and strengthening progression, and how to judge when you can ride again — from a licensed PTA.
Should cyclists strength train?
Whether gym work belongs in an endurance program, what it is actually for, and when in the season to do it without wrecking your riding.
Fuelling and nutrition
Keto or carb loading before a long event?
Fat adaptation against traditional carb loading for endurance events — what the research supports, and the ceiling a high-fat diet runs into.
Supplements for endurance athletes: what has evidence
Beta-alanine, creatine, caffeine and sodium phosphate — the four with real endurance evidence behind them, and what each is actually worth.
Post-workout nutrition: what and when
What to eat after a session, how much the timing window really matters, and practical food options that are not a recovery shake.
Is intermittent fasting useful for endurance athletes?
What fasting does for general health, what it does to aerobic performance, and why those two answers point in different directions.
The ketogenic diet and endurance performance
What keto does to body composition, what it does to the ability to go hard, and whether it is worth it for an endurance athlete.
Nutrient timing for endurance athletes
When to eat around training — pre-ride, on the bike and in recovery — and why timing changes what the same food does for you.
Developing an intuitive eating plan for weight loss
Eating by hunger rather than by arithmetic — how to start, why food volume beats food density, and the one issue that gets left out of the conversation.
Why counting calories usually fails
Energy balance is real, but calorie counting is a poor tool for it. What dieting does to the body, and what to use instead.
7 nutrition guidelines for endurance athletes
Seven practical fuelling rules for cyclists and triathletes — what to eat, how much, and how to stop nutrition undoing the training.
Hydration and electrolytes for cyclists
How to tell whether you are hydrated, how to run a sweat-rate test, and how to build a drinking strategy you can hold in the heat.
Events and racing
Training for a century ride
How to build to 100 miles — the volume that matters, the long ride progression, and the fuelling that decides how hour six feels.
Three areas to improve for your next gravel grinder
Gravel racing asks different things of a rider than road. The three areas worth training specifically before your next gravel event.
What is aero, and how much time does it save?
Where aerodynamic drag comes from, which factors you can actually change, and the time savings each is worth over a real course.
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Training guides
New training guides, as they go up
Shayne writes about how training actually works — thresholds, intervals, fuelling, strength. Get each new guide when it is published.
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