Here is a growing collection of real-world workouts that have been completed by a range of pro cyclists, from road, to MTB XCO to CX and gravel athletes.

You can use this list to get our interpretation of the types of sessions the pros are doing, as well as a quick reference to identify athletes who regularly post their power data to Strava.

Some broad patterns that emerge from the training of all the athletes below is that:

They aren’t doing anything overly fancy. The vast majority of their rides are basic endurance rides.
Their overall volume of training is generally very high, with the vast majority of this being done at a low Zone 2 or even Zone 1 intensity (i.e. below ~65% FTP).
The volume of interval training they do is not typically higher than that of most recreational/amateur cyclists.

Egan Bernal’s Endurance with Sustained Tempo

Check out the workout file here: https://www.strava.com/activities/2388996434/overview

Here we see some data from well-known world tour pro Egan Bernal. The ride is from May 2019, during Egan’s build up to his 2019 Tour de France win.

Egan is an excellent case study demonstrating that training really doesn’t need to be fancy and overly complex, and that great things can be achieved through lots of simple, low intensity rides. Most of Egan’s rides are just basic Zone 2 rides, that last between 3-5 hours. That being the case, we found it surprisingly hard to find any sessions from Egan with much in the way of structured efforts (although we suspect he may not alway upload his structured sessions to Strava).

The ride depicted above lasted 5-hours, with the majority of the ride appearing to be spent in Zone 2. However, there is a 35-minute block of riding at what we think was roughly 85% FTP, finishing with a ~20-second hard finish, which we can see more clearly if we zoom in on the effort below:

This tempo effort will have firstly helped to break up what is quite a long ride, and add some interest. In addition, a long tempo effort within an endurance ride can be a good way to further develop resistance to fatigue and target aerobic adaptations within and around higher-power muscle fibres that aren’t ordinarily recruited within a Zone 2 ride until the latter stages of the ride, when primary fibres begin to fatigue.

In addition, we can see that the ride as a whole was performed at a relatively low cadence. Looking at Egan’s other rides, this seems to be Egan’s preferred cadence, so this doesn’t appear to be a special feature of this session per se. Nevertheless, riding at a lower cadence can help to recruit additional muscle fibres and is thought to be a good strategy to help lift threshold power and improve endurance, by training higher-power muscle fibres to become more aerobically efficient.

It’s great to see how well controlled the power is in this (and most) of Egan’s rides, which should help to give him the biggest bang for his buck in terms of ride quality. It will also be helpful in specifically developing his fat oxidation ability, which is a major factor contributing both to threshold power and fatigue-resistance.

Overall, this session was likely intended to:

Improve fat oxidation ability
Develop fatigue-resistance
Lift threshold power
Improve lactate clearance

Another session we saw Egan perform a few times (one of the few intensive sessions we saw) was an over/unders session similar to that performed by Ondrej Cink below. However, Egan appears to favour shorter ‘under’ blocks relative to the length of his ‘overs’.

An example of an over/unders session can be seen here: https://www.strava.com/activities/3131648021/analysis

Annika Langvad’s “40/20s” Workout:

Check out the workout file here: https://www.strava.com/activities/305353224/analysis/1531/3394

This session comes from 2016 MTB World Champion Annika Langvad and is a workout we would refer to as a 40/20 session.

This means the priority portion of the workout is characterised by blocks of short work micro-intervals ridden at a high power output well above threshold, followed by very short micro-recovery intervals, utilising a 2:1 work-recovery ratio.

This workout was used back in May 2015 by Langvad, who then went on to win the MTB XC world champion title the next year in 2016.

The main portion of this ride featured 2 blocks of 40 seconds at roughly 140-150% of threshold power with a meagre 20 seconds of passive recovery at zero watts.

Each of the two blocks in this session were around 9-10 minutes each, and integrated into a ~3H ride. This ride also featured a 20 minute effort later on that was likely close to Annika’s threshold power at the time.

Workouts featuring 40/20 interval blocks like this can help to improve:

VO2max or maximal oxygen uptake, a key ability in MTB cross-country racing, as well as a wide range of other cycling disciplines. The efforts are though to work by driving the HR high very quickly and enabling a drift up towards close to maximum throughout the set of micro-intervals. They are also thought to help improve the efficiency with which the mitochondria can process oxygen.
Anaerobic power - the ability to generate power quickly via the rapid breakdown of glycogen and the activation of the fast-twitch muscle fibres. Such blocks will strongly recruit fast twitch muscle fibres, and deplete the W’ or work capacity above threshold significantly, creating a strong stimulus to improve that area of the physiology.

The 40-second work intervals were performed at a relatively low cadence of between 70-80 RPM, likely reflecting the RPM Langvad would ride at in a MTB race like a world cup.

The average power for the 9-10 minute blocks (roughly 320W) might not seem overly impressive alone when compared to threshold power and what could be sustained in a constant maximal effort over the same duration.

However, the metabolic demand of these huge accelerations and holding such high power outputs is enormous and we can see that the normalised power (around 400W) is much more reflective of the difficulty of the effort.

Langvad followed up the 40/20s with a 20-min effort thats probably close to her threshold power. This effort is probably included to help develop muscular endurance and tolerance to riding at threshold, particularly under the presence of existing fatigue from the 40/20 efforts.

Mathieu Van Der Poel’s Endurance MTB Workout:

Check out the workout file here: https://www.strava.com/activities/7274950116/analysis

This session is by one of the best all-round cyclists in the world, MVDP. It illustrates that basic sessions, like a simple long-duration ride, are still the bedrock of good endurance training, even among highly trained and talented athletes.

This workout is an MTB ride of ~5H in duration, in this case performed off-road by Van Der Poel in June 2022, but which can certainly be ridden on or off-road.

By riding for long durations at a lower intensity, this session works on foundational aerobic fitness and fatigue resistance really well.

In particular, long low-intensity rides like this can help to:

Increase endurance/fatigue resistance, primarily through improving fat oxidation ability, and resistance to muscle damage and central nervous system fatigue.
Develop threshold power or FTP, through improving the aerobic capacity of the muscles, improving lactate shuttling and developing fat oxidation.
Develop VO2max, though improving the aerobic capacity of the muscles, and increasing the oxygen carrying capacity of the blood, and the amount of blood the heart can pump per beat (stroke volume).

As many of these training adaptations are accrued in response to training volume rather than intensity, this ride allows for a high duration of riding and strong adaptive stimulus, without inducing too much overall muscle damage or stress.

Overall, low-intensity rides like these are crucially important to supporting higher-intensity fitness by providing a strong aerobic base upon which to build. They should be the bedrock of your training, pretty much year-round (albeit with shorter rides and less overall volume at certain points in the year).

You will find that these sessions start off easy and get progressively tougher as you tick off the hours. The slow twitch fibres will gradually become more fatigued and glycogen stores will start to run low towards the end of a very long ride.

This ride is a little less controlled in terms of power than Egan Bernal’s endurance ride described above. Good power control in endurance rides can typically give you the biggest bang for your buck in terms of time investment (minimising time spent coasting, and avoiding high power surges that can cause unnecessary fatigue and disrupt the energy systems we’re looking to develop). However, less structured endurance rides are also a very important part of a balanced training plan, as they allow a mental break from structured riding and, in this case, an opportunity to work on MTB-specific skills and fitness. Unstructured rides can also be used as an opportunity to do some social riding.

Nevertheless, we can see that Van Der Poel has certainly controlled his power where the terrain allows, aiming to keep within a Zone 2 range.

Ondrej Cink’s Over-Unders Workout:

Check out the workout file here: https://www.strava.com/activities/7231167524/analysis

This workout was performed by regular MTB XCO world cup podium attendee Ondrej Cink.

Named by Cink as FTP and “criss-cross”, this session includes two styles of intervals. The first sees him performing 10-minute blocks of work very close to his threshold power (we think there were probably very slightly above his threshold power).

These (supra) threshold intervals are typically used to develop:

VO2max (the maximum rate at which oxygen can be taken on a processed by the body)
Lactate clearance (which can contribute to improved threshold power)
Lactate tolerance (i.e. extending the length of time you can spend riding close to threshold power)

The second interval design is one we’re very much fans of, and which we tend to call over-unders. Over-under intervals involve blocks of work where power is alternated between riding just above and just below the threshold power.

Typically over-unders involve alternating power between roughly 110-125% of threshold power, and around 80-95% of threshold power, using between a 1:1 and 1:3 ratio for the length of the overs vs unders.

Cink did two blocks of around 16-minutes, alternating between 3-mins below threshold and 1-min above threshold.

If you want to try out this interval style, you can play around with the work:recovery ratio to see what feels right for you. Overall this session should feel like a 7-8/10 and you should feel lactate levels building during the ‘overs’ and into the first part of the ‘unders’. However, by the end of each ‘under’ you should feel as though lactate levels have dropped significantly, so that you’re ready for the next ‘over’.

Cink’s over-unders have very similar training benefits to his (supra) threshold intervals.

In particular over-under intervals help to:

Develop lactate clearance (which can contribute to improved threshold power)
Lift VO2max (the maximum rate at which oxygen can be taken on a processed by the body)
Improve muscular endurance (due to relatively high volumes of middle/high-intensity riding being accrued overall)

Ben O’Connor’s Hard Finishes:

Check out the workout file here: https://www.strava.com/activities/6542862733/analysis/0/9724

This is a ride completed by World Tour Pro Ben O’Connor in January 2022, during what appears to be a phase of training that predominantly focussed on general aerobic base development, with lots of long (3-5-hour) low-intensity rides. This was one of relatively few intensive sessions O’Connor completed through that phase.

O’Connor included 3 blocks of longer ‘hard finish’ intervals, and three blocks of shorter ‘hard finish’ intervals.

The longer intervals last roughly 7.5-mins and begin with 7-mins at what appears to be around a high Zone 3 intensity (e.g. 90% of FTP), with a 30-second hard finish in Zone 6 (<150% FTP).

These intervals, being largely at middle-intensity, will be good for developing things like:

Muscular strength
Fatigue resistance
Threshold power
Aerobic capacity of muscles

In this context, the addition of the hard finish makes these intervals more challenging in terms of developing muscular strength and fatigue-resistance, as well as helping maintain anaerobic power and the ability to recruit fast twitch muscle fibres.

The second block of shorter hard-finish intervals begin with around 1.5-mins at a high Zone 3 intensity, before spending roughly 3.5-4 mins at a high Zone 5 intensity (probably around 120-125% FTP).

This second style of hard-finish intervals will have had O’Connor working closer to his VO2max.

They will have created a stimulus for:

Increased VO2max
Increased anaerobic power and capacity.

For the types of intensities involved in these two styles of intervals, O’Connor only completed a moderate number of intervals of each type. Overall, we think this session was probably intended to maintain higher-end abilities during a period of training that was predominantly focussed on longer, lower-intensity rides.

Évita Muzic’s ‘Bossi’ VO2max Intervals

Check out the workout file here: https://www.strava.com/activities/7730671211/analysis

This shows a recent training ride from two-time French Road Race National Champion, and World Tour Pro Évita Muzic.

The session was completed in August 2022, 5 weeks after coming 8th in the Tour de France Femmes and in the latter part of the main road racing season.

We think in this session, Muzic is completing a version of what we call ‘Bossi’ intervals, named after the lead author of this scientific paper. The team of researchers working on this paper included the well-renowned Bent Rønnestad, who has produced very influential research on a variety of topics including strength training for cyclists, block periodisation, different styles of VO2max interval, such as hard-start intervals and microburst/tabata intervals.

In the Bossi paper, the researchers compared (i) intervals where power was held at a constant level slightly above threshold power with (ii) intervals where, within each interval, power oscillated between threshold power and short efforts considerably above threshold. The interval length and average power was the same in both sessions.

They found that the intervals with the oscillating power not only allowed more time to be spent riding close to VO2max, but also resulted in a lower perception of effort.

We think that Muzic’s intervals are a version of these oscillating power ‘Bossi’ intervals. In particular, we can see Muzic’s heart rate drifting upward with each block of intervals, which is a nice sign that these efforts are causing Muzic’s oxygen consumption to drift upwards towards VO2max (a phenomenon known as the VO2 slow component).

Muzic’s intervals each last around 8-minutes, beginning with 1-min above threshold (probably roughly 110% FTP), and then settling into an effort that’s probably very slightly below Muzic’s threshold power. Towards the middle and the end of this block of riding, Muzic completes two more 30-second efforts at something around 125% FTP.

Intervals like this are thought to help with:

Developing VO2max
Lifting threshold power
Improving lactate tolerance and clearance

Jenny Rissveds’ Anaerobic Power Efforts

Check out the workout file here: https://www.strava.com/activities/5827449823/analysis

Here we see a workout from women’s cross-country MTB world cup star and 2016 Olympic Champion Jenny Rissveds. The workout was performed in August 2021, shortly before she won the Short Track at Lenzerheide World Cup.

Each effort lasts around 2.5-mins, with around 8-mins recovery between each. We suspect that these efforts were performed at a near-maximal effort for the duration (although we note that in each effort there is a brief drop in power as Rissveds navigates a tight corner).

It looks as though these efforts are done on off-road terrain, making them highly race-specific.

All-out efforts like this have several benefits in that they help to:

Improve mental tolerance to all-out efforts.
Increase anaerobic power and capacity.
Increase VO2max.
Increase fatigue resistance to repeated efforts.
Improve ability to shuttle and buffer lactate and other fatiguing metabilites.

Overall, this session should have helped give Rissveds more ‘punch’ and capacity to ride above her threshold power, which will have been really important in her subsequent short-track race, which lasted a mere 20-minutes in total!

Richard Carapaz’s Tempo Hills and Over/Unders

Check out the workout file here: https://www.strava.com/activities/3142287189/analysis

Carapaz is another athlete where we had to do some serious hunting to find a ride with structured efforts. For the most part, Carapaz’s training includes lots of long endurance rides at a low Zone 2 intensity (although we suspect that some of Carapaz’s interval sessions are not uploaded to Strava).

The session above is from February 2020, in the same year that he won Olympic goals in the Tokyo Olympics.

The ride includes three main efforts. The first and last efforts appear to be steady tempo efforts lasting between 16-19 minutes, at an intensity that we suspect is roughly 80-90% FTP.

The middle effort is a 14-minute block of over/unders, alternating between 40S above threshold and 1M20S slightly below threshold. We can see this block of over/unders in more detail in the screenshot below.

Over/unders are a popular session type among the pro athletes, and we’ve already seen these included in the training of Ondrej Cink and Egan Bernal above. In these instances, they’ve appeared both in the winter ‘base’ development season and in the early racing season.

Over/under intervals are thought to help develop lactate clearance abilities, which in turn contributes to improved:

threshold power,
anaerobic stamina, and
speed of recovery after hard efforts.

Carapaz’s two tempo efforts will have helped to break up this longer ride, providing interest, as well as helping develop muscular endurance and promoting aerobic adaptations within and around higher-power muscle fibres.

Overall the efforts included within this ride make up a very small proportion of Carapaz’s training, and what’s interesting is that the volume of structured interval work is not particularly different from what we’d see in well-trained recreational/amateur level cyclists.

Michael Valgren’s Anaerobic Stamina Intervals

Check out the workout file here: https://www.strava.com/activities/5118775166/analysis

This session was completed by Valgren in the week before he competed in the 2021 Amstel Gold race (a race which he subsequently won the next year).

The main component of this ride includes a block of 5x 60-second efforts at an intensity we’d estimate to be roughly 150% FTP. Recoveries are around 1.5-2-mins each, and ridden at what we’d estimate to be a Zone 2 intensity (roughly 70-75% FTP).

This appears to be an abbreviated version of what we’d usually refer to as ‘anaerobic stamina intervals’. This session would usually include between 8-10 efforts, optionally separated into two blocks, divided by 10-15-minutes of easy riding. We suspect a lower volume of anaerobic stamina efforts was planned in this instance, because Valgren had a race at the weekend.

Anaerobic stamina efforts like these typically involve riding at a 8-9/10 effort for between 30-120 seconds, using something between a 1:1 and a 1:3 work:recovery ratio.

Interestingly, Valgren’s recovery intervals are done at a slightly higher power than is often seen. Riding closer to Zone 2 or even Zone 3 during recovery intervals can help speed up the rate of lactate clearance, so there are benefits from riding at a slightly higher power in terms of accelerating recovery.

Anaerobic stamina intervals have several key benefits, including improving:

Lactate shuttling and buffering abilities
Anaerobic stamina (i.e. the length of time that an effort above threshold can be sustained)
Anaerobic capacity (i.e. the total amount of work that can be done above threshold)
VO2max (i.e. the maximum rate at which oxygen can be taken on and processed by the aerobic system)

Valgren posts quite a few of his structured sessions online. Some others to check out include:

ANOTHER style of over/unders (this time with longer overs than unders): https://www.strava.com/activities/5100738861/analysis
Another example of some hard finish efforts, similar to those profiled above for Ben O’Connor. We can see from Valgren’s heart rate trace, that these efforts were probably above threshold and targeting improvements in VO2max: https://www.strava.com/activities/5089276250/analysis
An example of a pre-race ‘openers’ ride, with some time spent riding above threshold the day before racing: https://www.strava.com/activities/5140799969/analysis

Pro Cyclist Workouts: Real Training Sessions By Real Pros Analysed