Training plans traditionally come in one format: A plan designed around a Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. “standard” work week, with weekends off work, leaving plenty of time to spare for long rides.
But here’s the thing: 26 percent of Americans are non-day shift workers—meaning night workers, rotating shifts, or simply not the standardized 9-to-5 types, while 16 percent are part of the gig economy, meaning their hours are often fluid. And that’s not even taking into account all the freelancers and retail workers who work on weekends, but have more flexibility during the week. Or the parents who spend weekends busy with family.
Basing your training plan off of a traditional work week if you’re not a traditional worker might not be the smartest or most efficient way to train. So, what should you do instead? We asked three coaches to weigh in on considerations for creating personalized training plan or adjusting one that’s works for you. Even if you do work the typical 9-to-5, this guide can help you create a personalized training plan that makes it easier for you to stay consistent with it.
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Figure out your personal priorities
“When I build plans for new clients, I try to get them to be as specific as possible about their schedules—work and otherwise,” says Ryan Kohler, head coach and physiologist at Fast Talk Laboratories. “I want to know someone has X amount of time on weekdays and X amount on the weekends. But I also want to know where they have flexibility within each day, and what is nonnegotiable. For a lot of athletes, traditionally, long rides would happen on weekends, but that actually conflicts with their priorities of spending time with family when everyone is home.”
Knowing that weekends are actually not ideal for long rides—but might be great for shorter hard efforts—is more common than you might think. Long rides are important, but if family is your top priority, then waking up early on a weekday to sneak in a long(ish) ride before work might be best for you.
Pinpoint your training priorities
After he figures out someone’s personal schedule and priorities, Kohler looks at training priorities. Depending on your racing goals and your background as a cyclist, certain rides or interval sets will be more important than others. For cyclocross racers, skills practice will always be an important priority, for example, but long rides are less critical. For a new rider, simply being consistent with regular riding might be more important than any one workout during the week.
“We determine those priority workouts based on you and your goals, and then figure out how to best fit those in with whatever time you have available,” says Kohler. Once those key sessions are programmed in, you can fill in the rest of the week with the ‘bonus’ training, but those key workouts should be on the days where you have the most bandwidth to get the job done. For example, if you work four days on, three days off, the key workout would ideally be on the second day off, after you’ve caught up on your sleep.
Figure out your MVT (minimum viable training)
Most training plans are built around pushing as much volume as possible, but for most people, that’s not realistic. Ellen Pennock works as a triathlon coach in Canada, supporting young elite athletes who are balancing their cycling, running, and swimming schedules on top of full-time university schedules and often, part-time jobs. That means her athletes need to spend the absolute minimum amount of time necessary in all three disciplines in order to perform at their best while still recovering and getting good grades.
“Less is more,” she says. “I think a lot of people can get by with a lot less training than they think they need in total. It won’t be the same for everyone, though: You have to look at your past experience and ask, ‘How little training is possible for me to enjoy the race experience, or to get the outcome that I want?’”
It’s also worth looking at a calendar of a week and asking, ‘How much time do I really have to train, really?’ Be honest. It’s better to plan a great five-hour training week that will get done versus an ‘ideal world’ 10-hour training week that will end in tears.
Check in weekly
Especially if you have a schedule that varies, spending a few minutes looking at the week ahead to make sure your workouts will fit in properly is critical. “Take a planning day on Sunday to look forward to the week ahead, making sure those priority workouts are possible with what you have coming up,” says Pennock.
“And remember to add in buffer time before and after each ride: We all know sometimes it takes a bit longer to get ready, or you’re just running late, or you get a flat during your ride. The tighter your schedule, the more important those few minutes of buffer time will be to ensure that your workouts go well.”
Don’t reinvent the training wheel(s)
“There are a few underlying principles of training that don’t change regardless of your personal schedule,” says Lucas Wall of DeVelo Coaching. In general, most training plans incorporate a few key elements: A long ride, one or two workouts with short and long intervals, perhaps a skill-based session if it’s for MTB or cyclocross, and a rest day. High-intensity should rarely follow a long ride unless there’s a specific reason for training hard on tired legs. The rest of the week’s rides are likely moderate-distance endurance (a.k.a. just riding along). For most people, that’s what should happen in a week—from there, you can customize as needed and shift the days.
“It’s not like you have to create a brand new schedule if you don’t work the standard Monday to Friday,” says Wall. “Just go back to those basic concepts and design your week with them in mind.” If you’re not sure what a typical training week should look like, you can find plenty of free plans online and simply adjust what’s in the week to fit your schedule.
If you don’t work a standard seven-day schedule, don’t panic: A week is an arbitrary measure of time, not a golden training principle that can’t be shifted. If you’re a shift worker, you may operate on a 10-day week, and in that case, Wall suggests looking at the full month of a training plan, looking for the priority workouts, then scheduling them into your calendar in a way that makes the most sense for you. (He notes that elite athletes rarely train on a seven-day schedule—so you’re not alone!)
Avoid cramming
While shuffling workouts to fit your schedule is good, skipping a workout one day and moving it to the next can be dangerous. The temptation to move workouts around during the week is strong for everyone: Something comes up at work, you have to help your kid and it costs you an afternoon of training, you slept through your alarm, etc. And sometimes, shifting a workout makes sense. But if you keep shifting and shifting, you may end up with a day that somehow now has four key workouts on it, or you’ve pushed your key workout onto the day ahead of your long ride.
“Consider the big picture,” says Kohler. “Flexibility with your schedule is good, and getting in those priority workouts is important. But if they’re stacked back-to-back-to-back, they won’t be quality workouts. You need to make sure recovery is balanced in there, and every workout isn’t happening at the end of the week.”
If you do catch yourself cramming or moving workouts every single week, your training plan likely has a volume that’s simply too high for where you are in life right now. Consider cutting it down to something that’s easily managed, then slowly add extra rides back in as you adjust, if you feel like you have the time.
Put consistency above all else
All three coaches are in favor of more consistent riding rather than single ‘hero’ rides on weekends and little else during the week. “Something is almost always better than nothing,” says Wall. “If you’re supposed to go do an hour and a half but that gets cut short, can you jump on the bike and do 30 minutes with a short warmup and a really brief cooldown? It’s not perfect, but you’ll get in half of the workout you had planned.”
Even if your day goes sideways, if you can get in 30 minutes of cycling, strength, or stretching rather than doing nothing, that’s a win. Always ask yourself: “What can I actually do today?” You may have to modify a session, but often, a modification is better than skipping it altogether, unless what you actually need is a day off.
Give yourself adequate rest time
With shift work in particular, it’s tempting to go hard on the days you have off. But if you work nights or have been on a four-day on, three-day off schedule where your days on are quite grueling, Wall points out that a full recovery day might be necessary for your brain and body, no matter how badly you want to get on the bike.
“I have a lot of athletes who do very physical jobs,” says Wall. “That’s hard to balance, because if you’re a roofer, for instance, out on a roof working all day in the sun, that’s not a recovery day, even if you’re not riding. We need to be careful that athletes like this actually take time to physically recover.”
“Scheduling training is also about scheduling in down days,” says Pennock. “There are a lot of people who like love the adrenaline of being busy. But at some point, you need to unplug. Scheduling in a complete day off is so good for your brain and your body—that means a day off from work and from training.”
Fuel properly—not traditionally
Breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner—that’s a normal eating pattern for someone working a 9-to-5 job. But if you’re doing shift work, your normal hours for eating may look a bit different. That’s why Pennock reminds athletes to make sure they’re fueled adequately ahead of workouts, during them, and afterwards.
You may not be eating breakfast on a normal schedule, but a meal a couple hours before your ride, in-ride fueling for rides over 60 minutes, and a meal or recovery snack within 90 minutes post-workout is critical for making gains in your performance.
“I tell my athletes to always have snacks with them, and always have a spare snack on hard. Going into training sessions under-fueled means you’re not able to perform as well as you normally can,” she says. “And if you're doing the minimum volume possible, you need to be maximizing each of those sessions.”
Ride outside
For many shift workers and those trying to squeeze in workouts while on tight schedules, there is no doubt that indoor trainers are a godsend. But they can be a double-edged sword, cautions Kohler. “The trainer is so efficient for people, and it’s made training easier for people with tight schedules,” he says. “If you need to do a two-hour ride, you don’t have to go out in the dark or super cold and suffer for two hours, you can do it inside. It’s also helpful for parents, because you can train in the house.”
At the same time, if your goal is around racing or riding outside, you do need that time outside. “The trainer is great for predictability, but it doesn’t teach you how to handle your bike or how to deal with different weather or road conditions,” Kohler says. “Use it as a tool, but make sure you’re spending time outside when you can.”
Block your race schedule early
Especially for shift workers or those with an unpredictable travel schedule with work, putting races on the calendar (and letting your boss and family know about them) as early as possible is key. “Plan races out as far in advance as possible,” says Wall. This not only ensures you’re not on the schedule on race day, but it can also keep you from working double shifts in the days leading up to the race, and hopefully, help you avoid working four long days in a row leading up to it. “The earlier you can plan your race week, the better the chances that you’ll be able to trade shifts, get coverage, and make sure that you have the time you need to prepare,” he adds.
Be kind to yourself
Especially if you work super long hours or have an unpredictable schedule, it’s important to give yourself some grace with your training. You’re not a paid athlete, after all. “If you’ve been really busy and you feel like you need to sleep in, but you have a morning workout planned, there’s no shame in sleeping in and getting recovered. Maximizing recovery is important,” says Pennock. “If you’re choosing between sleep and a workout and you’re absolutely exhausted, you’re setting yourself up for better workouts later in the week if you take advantage of a little bit of extra sleep now.”
Pass this advice along
One final word: Few people will argue that cycling doesn’t have a diversity problem. And arguably, training plans that are only tailored to the people who work white-collar office jobs and don’t contend with childcare woes on the weekends or who are able to take lunch rides during their workday add to that problem. Having only these training plans available creates the illusion that you can only train effectively or be a ‘real cyclist’ if you have a job like this.
“If we think about diversity and cycling, everybody’s life doesn’t look the same,” Wall adds. “And so if you’re trying to diversify the sport, people need to know that we can do this differently. Hopefully, more people can get started training because they don’t feel like they’re being left out of the way you’re ‘supposed’ to do it.”
