TRAINING

16 Week Training Plan

October 2023

Whether you’re signed up for one of our multi-day events, or have another goal in mind this 16 week plan will help you on your way.

The plan focuses on three key sessions each week, perfect for time starved cyclists and great for all levels of rider.

There are 16 fully built and scripted workouts that have been created by our in-house coach Nikalas Cook - former coaching consultant at British Cycling, and author of the Road Cycling Performance Manual.

Hotchillee Premium members and multi-day event registered riders are invited to start the programme on w/c 6 November, and can support each other via the Hotchillee companion app, with full access to the support on the #training_plans group - so dust off your turbo, and get the pain cave ready!

How is it structured?

The training plan is structured around three rides a week:

1 x scripted indoor workout

1 x quality weekday indoor session

1 x longer flexible endurance ride at the weekend

The training plan is separated into 4 x 4 week blocks. Each block has a different focus. The workouts can be downloaded by clicking the links below:

Weeks 1 - 4 - The first four weeks is Big Gear/Low Cadence Work.

Weeks 5 - 8 - The focus of this four week block is building endurance at Sweet-Spot and Threshold intensity.

Weeks 9 - 12 - The focus of this four week block is developing your ability to hold a VO2/Zone 5 effort.

Weeks 13 - 16 - The focus of this four week block is developing your Anaerobic Capacity and Sprint Endurance.

The simplest way to complete your scripted workouts is to join WOT (Watts on Tuesday) at 1830 every Tuesday on Zwift. This group workout session is an official Zwift Event and can be found and joined via the Zwift Event Calendar. We’ll be starting with week 1 workout on Tuesday 7 November.

The second weekday session is the Hotchillee Gain Train. Rolling from 1830 every Thursday on Zwift, it’s a paced/led Hare and Hounds ride that’s a proven fitness booster. This is also an official Zwift Event and, with B, C and D groups and a spicy finish, it’s suitable for all levels.

The weekend endurance ride is flexible and what you do exactly depends on your level, riding whim - gravel, road, MTB or indoor and, of course, the weather. There will be outdoor Hotchillee group rides starting again in January, so keep an eye on the Rides and Activities calendar. In the meantime we’re running our Sunday Race, Ride or Conquer Endurance Series on Zwift this winter, with at least one led/paced group and offering a 90-150 minute “virtual sportive” style ride every Sunday at 07:30.

For all three Zwift rides, Hotchillee Premium members can access our Discord channel via the Hotchillee Companion App for motivation chat and banter.

What if I can’t make these times, or I don't use Zwift?

If you’re a Hotchillee Premium member, or you’re registered for a Hotchillee event in 2024, you can simply download the .zwo workout files from the links below, and use as a custom workout at any time on Zwift or any training platform where you can upload .zwo files.

For your second weekday ride, you can either repeat this workout (with a rest day in-between) or find a suitable ride/event/race that delivers a solid 45-60 minute session.

Are three rides enough?

For the vast majority of riders, this sort of structure done consistently will deliver significant training gains - quality definitely trumps quantity for training smart and staying healthy and motivated through the winter.

If you do consider yourself to be a more advanced rider, you could repeat that week’s workout on a Friday or a Saturday or add in extra rides/events/races. Just make sure that whatever extra you do aren’t “junk miles” and don’t impact on the quality of or your recovery from the key sessions.

As we move into autumn/winter, there will be more Hotchillee rides emerging from hibernation on Zwift and so, if you do want more, watch this space.