- More and more of us are turning to Zwift
to get our riding fix, rightly because riding outside
isn't an appealing option, or the efficiency of indoor
training just makes the most sense.
Let's be fair, for a lot of you you just do it
'cause you love it.
An aspect of Zwift that is less well-known, though,
is Workouts, which are structured training sessions
that you follow whilst riding in
one of Zwift's virtual worlds.
You ride along to a specific training session
with a goal in mind, while looking at something
motivating and interactive.
I'm going to explain a little bit more in a moment,
and then I'll also get to tell you about the exclusive
GCN training sessions that are on here as well.
Firstly though, how you do find Workouts?
Well, assuming you're familiar with Zwift,
when you get to your homescreen, so, having already paired
your trainer and your powermeter and whatever else,
you simply click Select Workout,
which is quite straightforward.
From the Workout menu you can see that you've got loads
of different workouts to choose from, and, indeed,
actual training plans as well.
Each workout has a description so that you can see
what's in store for you, and then, once you've found
the one that you want to do, you then need to set your FTP,
so that's your functional threshold power,
to make sure that the workout is then tailored
specifically to you.
That might be a little bit ambitious.
I'm not going to lie.
If you don't know your FTP, then probably your first
port of call should be an FTP test,
which, I'll admit, is a particularly brutal place to start,
so what you might rather do, actually, is enter a Zwift race
which should get you going hard enough for long enough
to give you an indicator of your FTP,
and whilst we're talking about threshold power,
it's definitely worth mentioning again that you should
regularly test yourself, maybe every six weeks or so,
firstly, so that you can actually see whether your training
is making you fitter, and then also, obviously,
to make sure that each workout is tailored
to your current standard.
Workouts are definitely at their best using a smart trainer.
That's one that can vary the resistance that you feel
automatically, and then it can also do something
really quite clever.
If you switch on ERG mode, it will keep you at a set wattage
regardless of your cadence, so that's perfect
if you're really, really keen on doing the workout
as accurately as possible, but, having said that,
a smart trainer is by no means essential to get you going,
and nor, in fact, is a powermeter just as long as that you
make sure you use the same equipment each time
you do a workout.
Then you can still compare workouts over time
and track that performance.
Once you've picked the workout that you want to do,
and I seem to have chosen the wringer for some reason,
then everything you need to know about the session
is on the screen in front of you, including a little arch
over the road that signifies the start and also then the end
of each interval, so that's perfect if you're hanging on
desperately trying to complete a rep.
If you complete that rep well, by the way,
you actually are given a gold star, which apparently
you can help move up your Zwift level for added motivation.
You can see, on the left hand side of the screen,
that all my intervals, and there's a lot of them
on this one, are all aligned up, including both the length
and also the target power I've got to hold for each one,
and then the central panel shows me the wattage
that I'm doing versus the target wattage,
and also my cadence and my heart rate as well.
Right, 115 left in my warmup.
Then I'm going to do 740 watts for 30 seconds.
(upbeat music)
There's also a tool to create your own custom workouts.
If you don't find quite what you're looking for, indeed,
your coach has prescribed you something specific.
You can either import it directly into Zwift Workouts
or, using this cool little tool, you can drag and drop
to build your own.
Now, this one, admittedly, might be a little bit difficult,
so I'm going to create it with Matt in mind,
so that's 10 minutes of zone six followed by five minutes
recovery at zone five, another six minutes at zone six.
He'll love it.
This is right up his street.
What about those GCN workouts then?
Well, we are particularly excited about this.
We've created four month-long training plans,
each one designed to improve a specific area of your riding.
Dan's one, first up, is designed to help make you
ride faster on flat roads, so, whether you are a rouleur
or a budding time trialist, this one is going to help
build the fitness and also technique involved
in that specific area.
Then, next up is mine.
February is a time when many of us
are looking to start racing for the first time
this year, so here are eight sessions
that are going to help you transition from training
right through to racing, or, if you've already
started racing, each one is going to help build
a specific areas that you need to be good at
if you want to race successfully.
Then, now you might not be doing the Spring classics,
but being able to ride up steep climbs is probably something
that's really quite important for most of us out there,
and Matt particularly wanted to work on this,
so here you got eight sessions to do over the course
of a month that are going to help you work harder
and be better at steep climbs,
and then, last but not least, Tom.
Now, Tom, out of all of us, probably had the most talent
at sprinting, which isn't saying all that much
'cause Matt, Dan, and I were all rubbish, but, anyway,
Tom really wanted to build on that, so he's got
eight sessions here that are designed to build peak power.
I suspect the rest of us are going to be signing up for that.
Make sure you let us know which of these training plans
you're going to embark on and, indeed, how you actually get on,
because we will be really interested to know.
Let us know in the comment section.
We'll be keeping a close eye on that.
Before leaving this video, do make sure, firstly,
that you subscribe to GCN.
To do it, just click on the globe.
It's completely free, and then, if you're after more content
right now, if you click just up there,
then you get to see a video about behind the scenes
at Zwift, so meeting the people and the place
where all this is actually worked from, and then, indeed,
if you want to see our latest Zwift race here on GCN,
where I lined up and then got my ass completely whooped,
you can click just down there to watch that one.