I’m stuck in a fitness rut. This is is how I intend to ride and lift myself out of it, and how you can too

As a keen amateur cyclist, my progress slowed last year and I’ve devised solutions which hopefully you can learn from. 

In 2025, I was still respectable across a range of disciplines. I averaged 25mph for a 25-mile road bike time-trial, completed a 200km gravel audax in 7.5hours and finished in the top-100 of the UK National Hill Climb Championships for the fourth year running. 

I also increased my power-to-weight ratio. This was mainly due to sensible weight loss at targeted times except over 20 to 30 minutes where my watts did go up. 

That meant my shorter duration power didn’t improve versus 2024 when concussion forced me off the bike for six weeks. 

I found this disappointing, but on reflection it’s understandable considering the mistakes I made. By summer, pre- and early-season discipline had lapsed into high-volume, pyramidal training which failed to address my weaknesses. 

My strength training tailed off too when I should have carried on through the warmer months. 

With that in mind, below I’ll set out how I intend to escape my fitness rut based on self-analysis and input from a coach. 

Stay strong

Last off-season was the first in which I followed a strength training plan. Twice a week, I lifted free weights for about 30 minutes after warming up with core exercises.

I struggled with soreness to start but soon reaped the benefits. 

My pedal stroke felt more powerful throughout as my glutes and hamstring strength caught up with my dominant quads. 

I felt more ‘solid’ on the bike, banished a knee niggle and felt more comfortable on long rides. So much so that I still felt great at the end of a 750km bikepacking trip in April.

But through spring and summer as I started racing more, I dropped down to one weekly weights workout and sometimes none at all. 

It’s probably not coincidental that aches and niggles started creeping in by late summer and I wasn’t seeing the power increases of the spring. 

By the time I tried to remedy my mistake in the autumn, I’d lost months of progress and was kicking myself. 

As a result, my goal for 2026 is to maintain strength through the summer by continuing to lift around my priority events. 

Set not à la carte menu

My spring discipline drop-off also concerned interval training. When the time came in my training plan to transition to VO2 max work, I slipped out of the structure.

I made my ‘hard’ days a random mix of near-max efforts and riding in and around threshold. Such a scattergun approach is unlikely to stimulate any physiological system enough to improve it. 

The reason I made this error? I fell into the classic self-coached athlete trap of doing what I enjoyed, not what I needed to do. 

VO2 max intervals are unpleasant at the best of times. But I can tolerate and almost enjoy them when preparing for a specific goal, such as hill climbs. 

This year I aim to harness that mindset when high intensity interval training is called for to achieve more general objectives, such as lifting Functional Threshold Power.

Easy means easy

The flipside of going harder some of the time is that you need to train easier for the rest of it. In endurance sports you typically do this by lowering the intensity of your steady sessions.

While the proportion of time I stay in zone 2 on such days has increased, I’m still prone to drift towards the top of the zone on the flat and out of it on climbs.

This is very easily done. After all, going faster can feel more fun and productive, even if the ensuing fatigue can compromise your high-quality sessions. Plus, it tests your patience to switch up the cassette and crawl uphill. 

That’s not to say there’s no room for zone 3 and sweetspot. There is on days the training plan advises it. But during rides that are meant to be easy, moderate-intensity minutes could be detrimental in the long term. 

So this year I’m resolved to accept lower average powers and speeds on endurance rides if they help me maximise time in the targeted watt range. 

Test more regularly 

As my weight and interval training slackened off, so did my fitness testing. 

Coaches usually recommend that more experienced cyclists check their FTP every few months. This ensures that your training zones are properly calibrated and indicates whether your training is working. 

As a side note, I recommend testing Critical Power, which involves maximal efforts of different durations, to get a more rounded picture of your strengths and weaknesses. 

Back to my year and over the summer I left it too long to assess my threshold power. In the early autumn I smashed past where I thought I was in an all-out race effort. 

As encouraging as this was, it also suggested I trained too easy in the preceding weeks, having tied my intervals to a lower FTP number. 

Therefore, this year I’ll plan more frequent fitness testing to avoid losing track of my progress. 

Now all that’s left is for me to stick to these targets and if any have struck a cord with you, I hope you do too.