Although Zwift is great for just jumping on the smart trainer and free-riding for fun, it’s also a powerful training tool with an abundance of workouts and training plans to help you take your fitness to the next level.
Whether you ride road, gravel or mountain bikes (or a bit of everything), there’s a training plan suitable for you.
Because they’re all based around Functional Threshold Power (FTP) – the maximum average power you can sustain for approximately one hour – these training plans and workouts are all tailored specifically to your fitness.
Zwift has worked with race-winning coaches, such as thee-time Olympic time trial gold medallist Kristin Armstrong and USA Cycling Level 1 coach Shayne Gaffney, to create workouts and training plans to improve your fitness and strength on the bike.
Once you’ve got your Zwift setup sorted, all you need to do is jump on and pedal.
From there, you can take a Zwift FTP or ramp test to establish your training zones, enabling you to target specific intensities through your interval training and fast-track your fitness.
How to sign up to Zwift
Once you’ve created an account, you’ll get a 14-day free trial if you signed up online, or 25km of free riding if you joined via the Apple App Store.
Once that’s finished, you’ll need to sign up for a subscription, which costs $19.99 (plus sales tax), £17.99 or €19.99 per month.
Annual membership costs £179.99 / $199.99 (plus sales tax) / €199.99. New members get 12 months for the price of 10.
Flexibility
Zwift offers on-demand workouts and flexible training plans.
You can choose from its extensive workout library by browsing in Zwift.
Its library of shorter workouts – all of which can be completed in under an hour – is particularly popular. Each week, there are new hero workouts, which appear on its home screen.
Zwift also makes it easy to pre-select workouts by browsing them on the Zwift Companion App.
It will automatically add chosen workouts to your 'My List', so they'll be there on your home screen when you next log on to Zwift, so you're not spending time searching for a workout at the start of your next session.
As well as choosing individual workouts, you can opt for one of Zwift's goal-oriented training plans.
Rather than prescribing a set workout at a set time, all of the training plans on Zwift are flexible, meaning you can adjust them around your schedule.
Each workout in a training plan will give you a window in which to complete any given session, meaning it’s much easier to fit around your personal schedule.
You can also complete workouts outdoors – simply mark them as ‘done outdoors’ on the plan in-game.
New workouts will then unlock automatically once a designated rest period has passed.
As you go, you’ll earn experience points and stars for completed intervals.
Best of all, if you work out online, you no longer have to do it alone, because you can join the thousands of other riders on the platform in Zwift group rides and races, to help you stay motivated.
Training Stress Score
The difficulty level of a workout is measured by its ‘training stress score’, or TSS.
Based on the duration and intensity of a session, the higher the TSS of a workout, the harder it will be.
The maximum TSS you can generate within a single hour is 100. For reference, this would be your score if you rode at exactly your FTP for the entire hour.
The system is similar to the Andrew Coggan/Training Peaks TSS metric that riders who train with a power meter may already be familiar with.
The key advantage of this kind of metric is it’s relative to everyone.
Even if you’re fitter, the TSS of any given workout will still be the same – you simply do the workout at higher power numbers.
With this in mind, Zwift categorises its training plans into three tiers: beginner, intermediate and advanced.
Average TSS per week will tend to rise with the tiers (although this isn’t always the case) and as you move up.
You’ll also do more intense intervals and target specific areas of fitness according to the type of plan you choose, rather than simply making broad gains in general fitness.
We’ve chosen a few of our favourite workouts and training plans to get you started, but this is by no means an exhaustive list. For the full rundown of what’s available, head to the Zwift app.
Workouts on Zwift
If you don’t want to commit to a longer-duration training plan, Zwift has a large catalogue of individual workouts to get you working hard and targeting specific areas of your fitness.
Emily’s Short Mix: 00:30 / TSS 44
This workout is ideal if you’re short on time. With a TSS of 44 in half an hour, it packs a lot of bang for its buck.
2x20 FTP Intervals: 01:20 / TSS 101
A classic turbo trainer workout, this 2x20 FTP Intervals session is perfect for anyone riding time trials. The long, hard intervals force you to concentrate on holding your power and position constant over longer durations.
If you’ve got a time-trial bike, do this session on that and try to stay in the TT position for the entire duration of each 20-minute interval.
Mat Hayman Paris Roubaix 1: 01:21 / TSS 97
Indoor training on Zwift was crucial to Mat Hayman’s famous win at the hardest one-day race on the cycling calendar.
It enabled him to replicate the kind of efforts required not just to hang tough with the likes of Tom Boonen across the infamous cobbled sectors, but also to outsprint him in the Roubaix velodrome for the win.
Now, thanks to his former coach, Kevin Poulton, you can experience something of what it took to win that famous Monument with this session built using Hayman’s power profile from the race, condensed down to a more manageable 81 minutes.
Be warned, though, it’s as hard as the cobbles of Northern France.
SST (Long): 02:10 – TSS 163
SST stands for Sweet Spot Training, which is a small sub-zone around 90 to 95 per cent of FTP (we've got a separate explainer on sweet spot training).
It gets its name because it’s intense enough to provoke great physical adaptations, but easy enough that you can do lots of it without overly fatiguing your body.
If you’re feeling really keen and you want a longer ride to accumulate those stress points, this is an ideal session.
Workout of the Week
If you think 'variety is the spice of life', Zwift’s Workout of the Week section is perfect for you.
As the name suggests, workouts in this category are updated on a weekly basis to keep things fresh and engaging.
If you’re not following a set training plan, these workouts are an easy way to incorporate some structured interval training into your weekly riding without needing to overthink things too much.
Custom workouts on Zwift
If you're thinking none of Zwift's content quite matches what you’re looking for, well, don’t worry. Zwift also enables you to easily create custom workouts from its Training page.
Zwift uses a simple drag-and-drop interface that makes designing your ultimate sweat-sesh a cinch.
Just grab blocks from the right-hand column (there are blocks for all the different power zones, plus warm-up, cool-down, intervals, free riding, text prompts and cadence) and use the mouse or text boxes to expand the length and difficulty of each interval.
You can then tag your workout with a category and give it a suitable name.
Handily, Zwift has a more in-depth guide to building custom workouts if you need a little more help.
Zwift training plans
Beginner training plans on Zwift
If you’re new to cycling and/or indoor cycling, or are perhaps just coming back to the bike from a break, it’s a good idea to start out with one of the beginner-level plans.
They’re designed to give you a relatively easy introduction to the world of interval training, while still ensuring you get in a decent workout and make those all-important fitness gains.
Zwift 101: 1 week / 2 hours per week
This plan only lasts a week, so it’s intended to act more as an introduction to Zwift’s training interface and the world of structured interval training.
It contains a couple of introductory workouts and two of the most popular short workouts, as well as a ramp test in the middle of the week to help you accurately measure your FTP before you start on a longer plan.
FTP Builder: 4 to 6 weeks / 5 hours per week / TSS 255 (average)
The FTP Builder plan focuses on building sustainable aerobic power, with the majority of sessions consisting of endurance and tempo intervals.
Designed for riders who perhaps haven’t done a structured training plan before, the workouts are simple and easy to understand, and most last under an hour.
Fondo: 3 to 4 weeks / 3 hours per week / TSS 177 (average)
Created for cyclists who are building up to a long ride, or sportive/gran fondo, the Fondo is another great plan for anyone who’s new to structured training or coming back to the sport from a break.
The plan focuses mostly on endurance and tempo intervals, but there is also a bit of work at threshold and beyond mixed in to give your fitness a boost.
Pebble Pounder: 5 to 6 weeks / 4 hours per week / TSS 199 (average)
The Pebble Pounder is a gravel-focused training plan, which aims to build your aerobic ability steadily. That means plenty of time spent just below your threshold (also known as ‘sweetspot’), as well as some VO2 max workouts and pedalling exercises.
With three workouts per week, plus an optional weekend ride (ideally spent outside on your gravel bike honing your handling skills), this is a great plan for anyone working towards an event or adventure.
Back to Fitness: 10 to 12 weeks / 1 hour per week / TSS 84 (average)
If you’re coming back to cycling after a break or perhaps an injury, the Back to Fitness training plan is designed to ease you back into regular riding so you can realise sustainable, long-term fitness gains.
Designed by former pro racers and Olympic gold medalists Kristin Armstrong and Dani Rowe, this plan features just two short sessions per week. This leaves you with extra time to add volume through base training endurance rides, if you're keen to do more.
Intermediate training plans on Zwift
These plans are aimed at the more dedicated cyclist who, perhaps, already has a decent level of fitness and is looking to add structure to their training, or build on specific areas of fitness.
Active Offseason: 8 to 12 weeks / 9 hours per week / TSS 446 (average)
If you’re a dedicated cyclist, with a good amount of time to train and looking to add structure to your winter, this could be the ideal plan for you. The workouts focus mostly on building up your endurance, but there's a little bit of tempo, threshold and above mixed in.
There are some big days in this plan, leading to a relatively high average TSS, but there are also plenty of prescribed rest days to ensure you don’t overdo it.
Build Me Up: 10 to 12 weeks / 5 hours per week / TSS 318 (average)
If you’re serious about your training but a bit tight on time, the Build Me Up plan will help you make a big improvement to your aerobic engine.
There’s a good mix of intensities in this plan, but tempo, threshold and VO2 max intervals make up a significant portion of the work.
Zwift Racing: 4 to 6 weeks / 4 hours per week / TSS 246 (average)
If you’ve ever dabbled in Zwift racing, you’re likely well aware it can be incredibly intense, especially in the opening kilometres when everyone’s fresh and the adrenaline is pumping.
So whether you’re looking to prepare for your first tilt at full-gas indoor racing, to compete for a better finishing position or to move up a category, the Zwift Racing training plan is designed to help you achieve those goals.
Dirt Destroyer: 4 to 6 weeks / 5 hours per week / TSS 273 (average)
Designed by professional coach Matt Rowe, the Dirt Destroyer training plan is for mountain bikers and will upgrade your ability to keep putting out the power at low cadences, as well as repeating the large surges in effort required to scale steep and technical courses.
Expect to have to react to constantly changing power and cadence levels across high-intensity workouts and at least five hours of training per week.
Advanced training plans on Zwift
At this level, you’ll need to have a solid base of fitness already established, because things can get quite intense.
Look at these plans when you’re approaching a period of competition or have a big event coming up for which you want to be on form.
Crit Crusher: 4 to 8 weeks / 4 hours per week / TSS 233 (average)
Focusing on sprint and breakaway repetitions, this plan was created as a race tune-up for criterium (short road races around circuits) and cyclocross races, and will help sharpen your legs for whatever kind of riding you do.
The average TSS isn’t high on this plan, but there are a lot of hard and fast efforts, so Zwifters taking it on will want to have a decent base of fitness already in the bank. This is a great plan to use in the run-up to competition to hone top-end performance.
Singletrack Slayer: 7 to 10 weeks / 7 hours per week / TSS 366 (average)
Intended for experienced mountain bikers, the Singletrack Slayer training plan will push your limits with plenty of high-intensity workouts and pedalling drills designed to replicate the demands of cross-country racing.
As with other Advanced-level training plans, you’ll need a decent base of fitness under your belt before attempting this. For those on the final run-in to a key event though, it could be just what you need to sharpen your fitness.
TT Tune Up: 5 to 8 weeks / 7 hours per week / TSS 391 (average)
With six workouts a week, this plan requires a large commitment, but if you’re looking for a big boost to your top-end power you’ll reap the rewards when you complete it.
As the name suggests, this will suit those who want to excel in time trials, but recovery periods are limited, so you’ll need to be in good condition going into it.
