Includes pre-hab exercises for injury prevention
Best for triathletes and cyclists who race off-road

This program was designed to build total body strength and your aerobic endurance.

The total body training strength portion of the plan includes upper body, lower body and the trunk (core) workouts two or three times per week**.

By connecting all three, you’ll generate more power on the bike because you’re able to transfer force into the pedals more efficiently. This is especially important for triathletes, mountain bikers, and gravel riders, who benefit the most from increased strength and stability in the hips, shoulders, and core.

** In Optimize, choose 'basic' for twice week total body strength workouts or the 'intermediate' level for three workouts per week, in addition to your base training!

You’ll begin with an adaptation phase to get the body accustomed to strength training. Then a hypertrophy phase to increase muscle fiber size and strength endurance, a strength phase to increase maximum strength, then a power phase to convert the strength gains into speed.

The cycling portion of this plan includes structured sweet spot and tempo workouts plus zone 2 rides, all of which you may do indoors or outdoors. It also includes longer endurance sessions on the weekends. This 16-week plan is similar to our popular 16 Weeks of Sweet Spot Base plan but with the total body strength workout balanced with the cycling training.

In addition, this program utilizes activation exercises to help prepare the body for the workout to come, and they also double as “pre-hab” exercises to strengthen the small muscles and connective tissues (tendons and ligaments) in the shoulders and hips for injury prevention. This is important because when you’re strong and healthy, you’re able to train more consistently, which ultimately leads to better performance.

In order to complete this program at home, you'll need the following equipment:

Minibands
Bands with handles or 0.5 inch Superband like you see in the video
Stability Ball
Kettlebells or Dumbbells (or something heavy- Can be ViPR or another heavy implement, though a range of weight options is best - heavy, medium, light.)
TRX (Optional)