#1: No Easy Days
Simply put, you want to make your hard days hard, and your easy days easy.
Zwift can be addicting, that’s for sure. And it’s a healthy addiction to have… until it’s not! (I know this from personal experience–I hit Zwift hard in my first 3 months before I noticed my power numbers dropping in races. Taking a week off helped me get back on my feet.)
Be sure to give your body time to recover between hard rides; otherwise your training efforts will become mediocre and thus less effective. And if you keep pushing long enough, you’ll overtrain and be forced to take extended time off! Remember: you don’t get stronger during the workout. You get stronger during the recovery.
If your riding schedule includes racing on Zwift, consider racing no more than three times per week, with recovery rides, days off, and lighter training in between. And even if your training load is more steady (with few “race day efforts”) taking a day or two for recovery per week is smart.
Lastly, taking an “easy week” every ~4 weeks is a common practice in many structured programs.
#2: Miscalibrated Power
Serious Zwift training requires the use of a power meter. On Zwift you can get accurate power numbers by using a standard power meter or a smart trainer which calculates your power output. Either way, make sure your power meter or smart trainer is calibrated properly so your power numbers are accurate!
Even something as small as calibrating with a cold tire can make a difference of 20-30w, which can mess up your training intervals and reduce the effectiveness of your workouts.
Tacx Vortex or other wheel-on users: check out the “Calibrating your Tacx Vortex Smart” page.
#3: Not Replacing Your Sweat
You typically sweat more on indoor rides than outdoor due to reduced air movement and increased effort (which reminds me: get a fan). That pool of sweat beneath your bike and that condensation on your windows is all fluid from your body that you need to replace before bad things happen.
So make sure you drink plenty of water–but not just water. Make sure whatever you drink also replaces the electrolytes you’re losing.
How much you need to drink depends on your physiology and effort level, but 25-45 ounces per hour is a typical range.
Here are a few popular electrolyte drink mixes for cyclists:
#4: Skipping Your Warmup or Cooldown
It is tempting to hop on the trainer and go hard, then hop off once you’re done. But a proper warmup helps your body prepare for a solid effort, and a nice cooldown is the first step towards recovering from the ride you just finished. So don’t skip either of these portions of your workout!
Warmups and cooldowns should last at least 5 minutes, but 10-20 minutes or more may work even better for you.
Get tips for pre-race warmups on Zwift >
#5: Junk Miles
If you are truly wanting to train on Zwift, and not just ride for pleasure, you need to go into each ride with a plan. Otherwise, you risk riding too hard (or not hard enough) or too long (or not long enough). When your miles aren’t doing anything to help meet your fitness goals they are just junk miles.
When you have a training plan in place, each ride you take is done with a specific goal in mind: building sprint power, increasing aerobic endurance, recovering, etc. If you have a hard time avoiding junk miles, consider jumping into one of Zwift’s training plans, or paying a coach to plan your training.
New to training and want a good resource? Look no further than these two books:
What About You?
Which training mistake(s) above do you tend to make? Did we miss any other big ones? Comment below!
Absolutely number 4. I rarely warm up for more than 5 min for a race and for every “I’m gonna stay on an get miles after the race” I never actually do it. One of the ways I make myself do IRL miles is making it a really long out and back. Chances are I’m going to feel pumped in the out. Once there, it’s not like I can quit. In the garage, I can always quit.
I’m guilty on number 4. I find that if I pick a route that has a good sized climb about 10 km before the end, the climb can be the end of my workout and I can cool down over those last ten clicks for a proper cool down.
I’m a notorious over-trainer.
no such thing as junk miles in zwift… its all collecting drops my friend!
Tailor your training to your age. I’m 71 and I found out during the 2018 Zwift Academy that I REALLY needed more rest than some of the plans were ready to give
I’m 64 and I’ve learned to ride a hard 30+ miles one day, rest the next, then ride 30+ flat miles, rest, and repeat. I never forget to warm up and never go out hard for the first few miles.
I highly recommend “Fast after 50” by Joe Friel (he wrote it when he was 70). It has lots of nuggets for masters athletes (e.g. moving to a 9 day training cycle, diet recommendations). It is a little bit repetitive in areas, but well worth the investment, particularly if you want to build your own training plan. I have taken to the habit of giving it to my friends as holiday/birthday gifts.
I don’t think I did a zone 2 ride for 5 months at the start of 2019. Had to make a 1hr workout that was just one 65% interval (Greg Leo inspired training = 1 easy session for every 2 hard). Looking at the TrainerRoad base workouts also gave me a much better idea of what I should be doing. I’m not cured… today I was going to get some tempo intervals in ToL but instantly started racing and didn’t see any green for 30minutes… and was basically all out for a 60min race. Looking for Z2 motivation; pick a… Read more »
It would be great if there were training plans that took into account the needs of older riders. Now, we just have to guess how much additional rest we need, if any, or whether we should adjust the intensity of the workouts. I’d like to get stronger, but I’d also like to not overtrain and get injured as a result.
It’s really easy. Just feel how your legs are, check your resting heart rate and you will know if you are to tired to do a hard training session and should do some recovery or Z2 work instead. When I was in my 20ies I road bike races on C level, and often took 2 days off the bike before a race. It worked great for me. But feeling the state your body is in are the most important aspect of training since all the training plans on training platforms are often standard programs which will be too hard to… Read more »
Try Training Peaks as it provides numerical values to your state of tiredness / fitness workload etc and its very easy to get to know how the numbers work for you. The hard bit is getting your FTP set at the correct level as that drives all the other numbers. I am a long term older user and I find it invaluable. I do not have a vested interest!
I’m a huge fan of TrainingPeaks (and it’s what my coach uses). I think its quantification of fitness and fatigue is spot on, as I usually feel fairly worn out at high levels of cumulative TSS, and much better after a recovery ride and rest day (and a massage!). Training by the numbers lines up with how I feel most of the time, and I trust the numbers when I “feel like” I can do extra… I end up with too much fatigue or soreness when I add in extra workouts.
Have a look at “Fast after 50” by Joe Friel (see another of my comments), and try building your own training plan that works for you.
Intensity is still important for an older athlete, but probably at lower frequency. I aim for 1 aerobic capacity workout (Z6 intervals), 1 threshold workout (Z4 intervals or 1 hour race), 1 long endurance (Z2) workout per week, and 2 short endurance/recovery workouts (Z1/Z2) + 2 rest days. Every 6th week is an easy week. In normal situations I switch out some of the Z1/Z2 with swimming.
I am in the middle of a structured program, but need to be a way for 9 days. I would like to pick up where I leave off. Is there a way to do that?
i have same issue…. missed a couple of days and want to restart
If it’s a Zwift training plan you can’t do it and they absolutely refuse to change that. Your only hope is that you can find those workouts as stand alone workouts in Zwift. That still doesn’t solve the problem of being able to pause the whole training. It just allows you to make up individual workouts you might have missed.
Have a look at a website called trainerday. They have all the Zwift workouts individually including the ones you only get in plans, which you can import as a custom workout back into Zwift. I’ve used it to play catch up when I miss one and also to start one a couple of hours earlier than it would allow.
if you want to be perverse you can also import Sufferfest plans into Zwift and vice versa.
Very diligently finished the 12 week build me up with a starting FTP 180
Ended up with a FTP of 167 worked hard for a loss?
Alan it sounds like you were over training, it is very easy to do. The main sign is that for the same feeling of exertion or fatigue as before, you performance is going down. When I raced it took me over a year of training with national team members to realize how easy you really need to go on rest days, and how often.
Good luck
Mistakes? Like wearing those super short socks? Oh, you mean *training* mistakes, sorry
It’s true. My long Swiftwick 7 inch socks absorb so much sweat that it never makes it to my shoes. I wore short socks only one time and had swamp feet half way through an hour long ride.
And even though my sock game is strong, sometimes Zwift steals my avatar’s socks. Ain’t nobody able to train without virtual long socks
3 years and in and #1 gets me. Joined 3R True 2.0 for recovery after a race on Monday and they had a sprint competition…. still sore.
And for anyone Zwifting outside the US 😉 25-45 ounces can be roughly equated with 750ml to 1.33 litres. Great
What are these “litres” you speak of? 😉
So I checked wikipedia to see what an ounce is. Seems no one can really agree if it is a unit of mass, weight or volume. It is 1/16 of something, usually a pound, unless when it’s not.
Then there are different ounces for different countries and Maria Theresa ounce and international ounce..
Also there are fluid ounces which can be either 1/20 or 1/16 of a pint, but there are different pint sizes also…
I give up.
It’s 1/16th of the lock of a fair maidens hair
On that subject – everyone is different, and really the best advice is to find out *your* sweat rate – weigh yourself naked with two full water bottles, do a hard hour long ride (drinking as much water as you like), shower and dry yourself and weight yourself again naked holding whatever’s left in the bottles. Whatever weight has ‘disappeared’ is how much you actually need to drink.
Good stuff Eric and very true. I ran into the same overtraining issue.
The problem with easy days on Zwift is that if feels like you’re inside riding a trainer. There’s something to be said for structured training versus racing. I’ve been using racing on Zwift for the last few months as my training. Was hoping I’d come out of the winter a monster. Not so much. I basically maintained my summer shape, though subjectively hard efforts feel much easier now. If you really want to improve, structured training is still probably the way to go. For me, it’s boring and not worth the 0.1 w/kg it’s going to give someone that has… Read more »
Both books are great suggestions and neither is particularly expensive to purchase. If you read them carefully you’ll get a very good grounding in the principles most professional coaches use. Zwift does make it far easier to conduct a serious training plan and (speaking from somewhat painful personal experience) your comments regarding training mistakes are spot on.
But there is no break in cool events and fun races to take part in 😉
Don’t forget to mop the floor if a surface that needs it and have a shower and get some natural protein like a banana
there’s protein in bananas?!
1.3 whopping grams, says Google!
As a 5week old Zwifter, I’ve learned that a HeartRate monitor is essential to gauge and throttle my efforts and recoveries.
Also, with all the onScreen metrics, enticing visual stimuli, I’ve learned the importance of not looking at the screen sometimes— rather focusing inward to observe my breathing and pedalling rhythm especially during V02 interval workouts. Thanks GCN 4wk Challenge leaders! So how apt are newbies to pay attention to their breathing?
Thanks for this post and all the comments. I’ve referenced this page a few times already— much appreciated!
Sounds like you’ve learned a lot in your 5 weeks. Ride on!
Hi Eric
When I first saw the photo for #1 “Zwifters chasings KOMs” I thought it was my photo.
This was taken in SOHO London April 2011 during the royal wedding. I think it captures the same idea.
The before momment
Hello Eric, do you do online training? Like ride with someone via zwift and assesing someone and train to get better and stronger?
I do not!
Stretch after every hard event. It will make a huge difference in your recovery and will give you the opportunity to train harder sooner. I take 15-20 minutes with static and foam roller activity. When I skip it, I really feel it for the next coupla days.
We are all different. I’m 62 and I started zwifting on the bike a few moths when having running trouble because of achilles tendonitis. I looked at Training Peaks, but I didn’t know how to use that, as I have no “events” or races coming up. I really just ride to stay healthy and because I like it. There are no junk miles for me, jjust miles. I zwift 6 days a week with Monday off (because of a harder weekend). I go for maybe 2 harder rides in a week and the rest endurance or recovery level. And I… Read more »
I have a different riding philosophy I’m 66 years of age. I just want to enjoy riding the bike. I’m not looking for training I’m just looking for riding. I love Zwift because depending on the day I can pick a route and just go for a ride. I’m a firm believer that if you like something you will want to do more of it and that’s what I do. So rather than riding in a structured way I am getting fit in what I would call a more natural and sustainable way. No pain no gain doesn’t work for… Read more »
Can we hear more from some of the guys who did Le Tour ?
Hi Eric,
i like stephen seilers approach of polarized training.
Am i right, that the closest (there is no real plan for that) plan in Zwift is the Active Offseason?
All other aim for tempo and Sweet spot mostly
thx