Elite athletic performance involves the integration of muscular, cardiovascular, and neurological factors that function together to efficiently transfer the energy from aerobic and anaerobic ATP turnover into velocity and power. This means that your training plan needs a multifaceted approach to building your fitness, focusing not only on your cardiovascular capabilities, but also on developing your metabolic and muscular systems and improving your fatigue resistance.

Click here to watch Coach Tim's video introduction to this plan.

What does multifaceted mean? Basically, this plan integrates a science-based approach to progressive overload focused on improving your cardiovascular and metabolic fitness while integrating specific training protocols to simultaneously improve your neuromuscular capabilities and fatigue resistance. The whole-athlete approach will allow you to establish a high aerobic fitness, which is crucial for pushing through your build training phase.

Why is this important? Well, your base training should be focused on training to train with the output goal of being better prepared to train harder in your build/peak training phases, which will push your ultimate peak. Think about it as being able to do “one more interval” every hard workout.

About this plan

This 16-week winter foundation plan has been developed by BaseCamp head coach Tim Cusick and is designed to follow the schedule and format of our popular BaseCamp Community training. The core focus of this plan is to focus on the core principles of better base building and build consistency in training through an optimized training rhythm while progressively building training load and intensity throughout the plan. The goal is not complex secret training tricks or hacks, but rather science-based, principle-driven training that will set you up for success in your season: mastering the art of simple.

The plan is designed using a general three-days-on, three-days-off progressive format. A typical week has Monday, Wednesday, and Friday off, while Tuesday and Thursday are shorter workouts, with longer workouts on the weekends. Performance testing and zone setting occurs at the start and then in four-week increments throughout the plan.

We've got more plans!

Tim Cusick has written dozens of training plans for many different areas of cycling: road, gravel, time trial, mountain bike, cyclocross, indoor training, and more. Click here for a full list of his current plans by sport type.

In addition to his coaching experience, Tim is the TrainingPeaks WKO product leader and the founder of BaseCamp.

Questions?

Click here to view a list of frequently asked questions about our training plans. If you don't find your answer there, please email us directly.