Guides
Cycling
Building endurance and sustained power on the bike.
Cycling is an endurance sport built on sustained power output. Progress is measured less by a single max effort and more by how much power you can hold for minutes to hours.
What matters most
- Aerobic base: a large volume of easy, sustainable riding develops the oxidative engine that underpins everything else.
- FTP and sustained power: functional threshold power (the power you can hold for roughly an hour) is the central benchmark for training zones.
- Polarized intensity: most training is easy, with a smaller dose of hard intervals; the moderate "grey zone" is used sparingly.
- Durability: holding power late in a long ride, when fatigued, is its own trainable quality.
This is a starting stub. See Cardiovascular & Cardiorespiratory and Energy Systems.