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1. What is Endurance Training in Cycling?

 

This guide is created to help you understand the endurance training in cycling, what ranges you should use, and gives you precise workouts for beginners and advanced cyclists.

Endurance is the second zone right over the recovery zone. It is a relatively easy zone which can be kept for hours. The theory is saying you can keep working out in the endurance zone as long as you deliver the right amount of calories to your body. Of course, it’s more complicated than this but it is an easy workout which can be continued for a long time. The ranges are from 56% to 75% of your Functional Threshold Power. For a well-trained athlete, a short workout in zone 2 can be count as a recovery ride.

Some people call the endurance zone “empty miles” and it can be true if we are getting ready for short events and very intensive racing. But zone 2 can be very beneficial for athletes who want to lose some weight and it is a great zone to “teach” your body how to use fats instead of carbohydrates, to save them when you need them.

For example, if you are getting ready for a 2-3 hours road race, you don’t need a huge aerobic engine but by doing 2-3 hours efforts in the endurance zone you can learn body how to use fats and save more carbohydrates for a more important part of the race like last few kilometers, to be able to accelerate and use your top zones.

“One of the things that I’ve been focusing on these years is what I call the mitochondria function. This is key because this is where we oxidize fuels, where we burn the different fuels. We use our carbohydrates, fats and some protein as well, but the key is to utilize more fatty acids for energy purposes.” – Iñigo San Millán, coach of Tadej Pogačar, 2020 Tour de France winner.

2. Endurance Zone Ranges

 

Duration of workouts in zone 2 starts around 30 min and ends at 6-7 hours for professional athletes.

Base on your goal race you can adjust the length of your training to your needs. If you are beginner cyclist, starting your adventure with more professional training plan we would recommend to start with 45-60 min workouts in the range of 56% – 75% of your Functional Threshold Power or 82% – 88% of your Functional Threshold Heart Rate.

It is recommended to do zone 2 workouts once a week for cyclist at any level, so you can track your Aerobic Decoupling and Pw:Hr, this article shows you the importance of tracking your fatigue and what you should be looking at in TrainingPeaks workout details.

Power and heart rate ranges for endurance zone are:

• 56% – 75% of Functional Threshold Power.
• 82% – 88% of Functional Threshold Heart Rate.

If you don’t know your FTP or FTHR go to this article to set up one for you.

Time range of workout is:

• 30 – 420 minutes.

3. Endurance Workouts and Improvement

 

Examples of endurance workouts, to improve your aerobic threshold. Below you can find 2 workouts for beginners and more advanced cyclists, both of them are available to download, base on power and heart rate zones.

Beginner workout:

• Start with easy 10 min warm-up
• 3 x 1 min – cadence 120
• 90 min active ride – 56% – 75% of FTP
• 15 min recovery

Advance workout:

• Start with easy 10 min warm-up
• 3 x 1 min – cadence 120
• 150 min active ride – 56% – 75% of FTP
• 15 min recovery

Leave a comment below if you have any questions.

Coach Damian

Damian is a head coach and founder of Cyklopedia, which was created with one goal to help everyone be faster cyclists by structured training plans, healthy recipes, and nutrition plans. Damian is racing and coaching for over 10 years, working with athletes all around the world.

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