Pre-season weeks 5-8
The emphasis is still on aerobic workouts with a few high intensity workouts. Duration of the rides continues to increase each week. Make sure you continue to drink and eat sufficiently especially on your long rides.

WEEK 5 EXAMPLE (Start week)

	New to MTB Rider	Regular MTB Rider	Experienced MTB Rider
Monday	30 minutes MTB	REST	1hr MTB
Tuesday	REST	1hr MTB	REST
Wednesday	REST	REST	45 min turbo / road ride
Thursday	30 minutes cross training session	45 minutes cross training session	30 minutes cross training session
Friday	REST	REST	REST
Saturday	1 hour 15 min MTB / Road	2 hour MTB / Road	2 hour 30 mins MTB / road bike
Sunday	REST	30 minutes cross train or MTB	45 minutes cross training session or MTB

PROGRESSIONS WEEK 5-8
Week 6 (build week) - Repeat the same workouts as week 5 and keep your 30 minute session unchanged. Increase the duration of other sessions by 15 minutes and the duration of your longest ride (Saturday) by 30 minutes (all groups).

Week 7 (push week) - Repeat the same workouts as week 6 and keep your 30 minute session unchanged. Increase the duration of other sessions by another 15 minutes and the duration of your longest ride (Saturday) by another 30 minutes (all groups).

Week 8 (recovery) - Repeat the same number of workouts that you did in week 1. In week 8, regular MTBers and experienced riders should also remove one workout from the week and replace it with an extra rest day.

SAMPLE WORKOUTS WEEK 5 TO WEEK 8 FOR ALL GROUPS
• Café ride. Social ride at conversation pace. Don't try to race your mates up the hills - hold back. No anaerobic work.

• On a rolling course with several easy hills. Stay seated. Don't muscle up the hills.

• Turbo trainer - focus on spinning / technique and maintaining a high cadence of 80-90 rpm.

• Really easy flat ride - focus on keeping high cadence and good technique.

• Time trial on a loop that takes approx 30 minutes. First complete a 10 minute warm up. Then ride the loop as fast as you can. Record your time. This workout can be done in week 5 and then retested in week 8 to check progress.

• Turbo trainer - do a 10 minutes warm up. In an easy gear try to spin as fast as possible for 30 secs. Repeat 5-10 times with 1 minute recovery each time. Allow 10 minutes cool down.