This plan is made for the highly motivated and experienced mountainbiker focusing on cross country racing. The plan will help you to develop as a mountainbiker, and become faster, stronger and a more complete XCO rider. The training not only will focus on improving your physical performance, but also your flow on the trails, technical skills, and how you combine these aspects to perform well!

XCO racing is a very unique and demanding sport, when you look at the physical, mental and technical demands. So in order to learn these three aspects, you need to train these three aspects individually and together. Thus improving the single aspects in training and combining them in racing! The plan will not only train you, it will also teach you to become a more complete XCO rider.

The training plan has a duration of 9 weeks with 3 week cycles. Typically 16 days of focused training followed by 5 easy days to ensure recovery. In some periods this 21 day cycle may change, if something is considered more optimal in relation to recovery, testing and competition.
The weekly training schedule is built around 4 key sessions on the bike and 2 functional strength sessions. The session on the bike will focus on developing endurance, anaerobic threshold, anaerobic power and riding skills. Some sessions will be very XCO specific focusing on improving your capacities on the trail. Other sessions will be more straightforward, with steady effort intervals or continuous rides. The latter can be done on a road or gravel bike, if you like to combine road or gravel rides into your training.

On average you will train around 10 hours on the bike and 1-2 hours of functional strength training. If you are time constricted in some periods, you can always train less hours, and focus on quality in the intervals (quick warm up, high quality intervals and short cool down). Thus, still reaping most of the benefits.

All training sessions on the bike are structured workouts based on power, and can be transferred to any device. You will do a FTP test in the first week, to get a benchmark of your current level of fitness and set your training zones. After the 9 weeks you will do another test, to get a new performance benchmark. Workouts are also outlined in writing, to clarify the purpose of the workout and important details on how and where to perform the workout. Getting in the details is of great importance for a XCO rider!

Make sure to read the ‘Training Plan Guide’ thoroughly before starting on the plan. This contains valuable information that will make sure you get the most out of the training plan.

The functional strength sessions are based on years of experience coaching XCO riders. Programs are designed to make you stronger and more functional on the bike, thus improving strength, power and functionality. Some exercises will be with bodyweight and some with weights. There will be instructional videos to show you the different exercises. You do not need to go to a gym to do these workouts, but you need some weights (either a barbell and weight plates, kettlebells/dumbbells or both). The programs are made simple, so that they are easy to follow. Further the load will be adjusted from week to week, so it does not compromise the training on the bike.

It is recommended that you have done 2-4 weeks of ‘Pre Base’ training (see our ‘MTB XCO - Intermediate - Pre Base - 4 weeks’ training plan) before starting on this plan. So basically a period where you have prepared the body for the base training, primarily doing some easy endurance rides (1-2 hour rides 2-3 times a week) and some functional strength training, easy running or the like. In other words, make sure to start on this plan feeling ready to take on a bit more load and put in some specificity in your training!

After completing the plan, you will have the option to continue on the ‘MTB XCO - Intermediate - Build/Prep/Race - 9 Weeks’ training plan. This plan will make you ready for racing.