Back to FitnessThe 12-week indoor cycling plan to get back in shape
Back to Fitness
12 weeks · 2 rides a week · 30–80 min
Start easy, build step by step, and finish fitter than you started. Every fourth week is lighter, so your body can catch up.
Two rides a week on your smart trainer. You start with 30 minutes of easy spinning and finish with an 80-minute graduation ride. Every fourth week is lighter, so your body can catch up.
12
Weeks
2
Rides a week
30–80
Minutes
82%
Easy riding
01Who it is for
Start where you are.
Back to Fitness is for you if you are out of shape, new to cycling, or starting again after a long break. An injury, a new job, a baby, a winter on the sofa: it does not matter why. What matters is that the first ride is 30 minutes of easy spinning, and nothing more.
From there, the plan grows slowly, in time and in effort. New kinds of effort come one at a time: tempo in week 3, short hard efforts in week 6, sweet spot in week 7, and threshold in week 11. Twelve weeks later, you ride for 80 minutes, and you enjoy it.
Can you already ride 45 minutes without a stop? Then Fit in Four is the shorter, harder way in. Only have half an hour? Look at Fast Fitness.
You can pedal 30 minutes
Easy, with no pressure. That is the whole first ride.
You have two days a week
With a day or two of rest between them.
You have 12 weeks
Long enough to build a base that lasts.
02The science
Build the base first.
Coming back is not the same as starting from zero. Four ideas shape this plan. (What FTP and the power zones are, we explain on the Fit in Four page.)
1. What a break takes
Stop riding for a few weeks, and your body cuts back what it does not use: some blood volume, some mitochondria, the small blood vessels around the muscle fibers. Your FTP drops. The good news: what you built once tends to come back faster than it took the first time.
2. Zone 2 builds the base
Zone 2 is easy riding, 60 to 76 % of your FTP. It does not feel like much, but it does a lot: more mitochondria, more small blood vessels, and a body that burns more fat at the same pace. And you recover from it fast, so you can ride it often. 52 % of this plan is zone 2.
3. The talk test
You don't need numbers to know how hard you ride. If you can talk in full sentences, it is easy. Short sentences: tempo. A few words: threshold. The ride descriptions in this plan use the talk test, not watts. Try it on the right.
4. Three weeks on, one week off
Weeks 4 and 8 are lighter: 65 minutes after 85, and 75 after 105. That is not lost time. The body adapts in the rest, so you start each new block a little stronger than you ended the last.
How hard do you ride?
“So on Sunday we rode out to the lake, and on the way back we stopped for cake, and honestly…”
Full sentences. You could chat for an hour.
Zones 1–2
Target
Up to 76 % FTP
In Back to Fitness
15 h 35 · 82 %
03Week by week
Three blocks, 24 rides.
The plan has three blocks of four weeks. In each block, three weeks build and one week rests. Below is every ride as the app draws it: every block as long as it lasts, as tall as its power, in the color of its zone.
Weeks 1–4 · 8 rides · 4 h 40
Easy does it
Rides of 30 to 45 minutes, almost all in zone 2. The first ride has no pressure at all: just see how your legs feel. In week 3 comes your first tempo, comfortably hard. Then week 4 rests, with two short, easy rides.
Week 1
Week 1 · Ride 1
FIRST PEDALS30 min
Welcome back! Easy spinning with no pressure. Just see how your legs feel today.
Week 1 · Ride 2
FINDING RHYTHM30 min
Find a smooth, round pedal stroke. Every three minutes, spin a little faster for 30 seconds.
Week 2
Week 2 · Ride 1
STEADY STEPS35 min
Four gentle steps up and back down. You should be able to talk the whole time.
Week 2 · Ride 2
SPIN & SMILE35 min
Short lifts to tempo. Get used to a little pressure on the pedals, then let it go again.
Week 3
Week 3 · Ride 1
BUILDING BLOCKS40 min
Three blocks in zone 2 with short breaks. This is the base that everything else builds on.
Week 3 · Ride 2
FIRST TEMPO45 min
Your first taste of tempo: three short blocks that feel comfortably hard. You can still speak in short sentences.
Week 4
Week 4 · Ride 1
BREATHER30 min
Rest week. Your body gets stronger while it rests, so keep this one really easy.
Week 4 · Ride 2
LIGHT & LOOSE35 min
Still a rest week. Easy riding with a quick, light spin every five minutes to keep the legs awake.
Weeks 5–8 · 8 rides · 6 h 00
Longer, with a little spark
The rides grow to 55 minutes. Tempo gets longer, and in week 6, SPARKS brings your first short, hard efforts: thirty seconds, then easy again. Week 7 climbs a tempo ladder and opens the door to sweet spot. Week 8 rests again.
Week 5
Week 5 · Ride 1
BACK IN THE SADDLE45 min
Rested and ready. Thirty minutes of zone 2 with a small lift at the end of each block.
Week 5 · Ride 2
TEMPO TIME50 min
Three 6-minute tempo blocks. Breathe deep and steady, and keep your shoulders relaxed.
Week 6
Week 6 · Ride 1
SPARKS30 min
Short and punchy! Ten 30-second efforts that feel hard, but each one is over fast.
Week 6 · Ride 2
THE LONG WAY55 min
Your longest ride so far. Steady zone 2 with a small tempo lift every ten minutes. Drink and enjoy it.
Week 7
Week 7 · Ride 1
CLIMBING HIGHER50 min
Three tempo blocks, each one a bit longer and a bit stronger than the last.
Week 7 · Ride 2
FIRST SWEET SPOT55 min
Welcome to sweet spot: hard enough to make you stronger, easy enough to hold. Three 5-minute blocks.
Week 8
Week 8 · Ride 1
RECHARGE35 min
Rest week again. You have worked hard for seven weeks. Spin easy and let the body catch up.
Week 8 · Ride 2
FRESH LEGS40 min
Easy riding with six short, quick efforts. They keep you sharp without making you tired.
Weeks 9–12 · 8 rides · 8 h 15
The full hour, then the graduation
Now you ride for an hour, and more. Sweet spot blocks grow to two times ten minutes, and in week 11 you meet threshold, the hardest work of the plan. BIG DAY is 75 minutes: eat and drink on the way. Week 12 starts short and sharp, and ends with the 80-minute GRADUATION RIDE.
Week 9
Week 9 · Ride 1
GETTING STRONGER55 min
Two 8-minute sweet spot blocks. Notice how much easier this feels than it would have in week 1.
Week 9 · Ride 2
ONE HOUR CLUB60 min
Your first full hour on the bike. Zone 2 with short tempo lifts. Welcome to the club!
Week 10
Week 10 · Ride 1
TWO TENS60 min
Two 10-minute sweet spot blocks. Find a rhythm and settle into it.
Week 10 · Ride 2
HILL COUNTRY65 min
Four hills. Build the power slowly to the top, hold it for two minutes, then roll down easy.
Week 11
Week 11 · Ride 1
FIRST THRESHOLD60 min
Three 5-minute blocks at your FTP. This is the hardest work in the program. You are ready for it.
Week 11 · Ride 2
BIG DAY75 min
A long ride with three tempo blocks. Eat and drink along the way, just like on a real day out.
Week 12
Week 12 · Ride 1
SHARPEN UP40 min
A short ride to feel fresh and sharp for the big finale. Three short blocks and three quick bursts.
Week 12 · Ride 2
GRADUATION RIDE80 min
You made it! Twelve weeks of work in one ride: zone 2, tempo, and a strong finish. Enjoy every minute.
04Then and now
Base miles, then and now.
“It never gets easier, you just go faster.”
The rides in week 12 will not feel easy. But you will ride them at watts that would have stopped you in week 1. The base has always come first; today we know why, and we fit it into two rides a week.
Old winters
Miles in the legs
For generations, club riders spent the winter on long, slow rides in a small gear. Coaches called it putting miles in the legs. Nobody measured it, but the base it built carried them through the season.
Old winters
The fixed gear
Many riders trained on a fixed gear in winter: no freewheel, so the legs never stop. It forced a smooth, round pedal stroke. FINDING RHYTHM, the second ride of this plan, trains the same thing with faster spins.
Early 1980s
Heart rate on the wrist
Wireless heart rate monitors come from Finland, with Polar. For the first time, a rider can see how hard the body works, live, and keep the easy rides easy.
Today
Zone 2 is back
Researchers like Iñigo San Millán, who has worked with Tour de France teams, put zone 2 back in the spotlight. The best riders in the world spend most of their hours there, at a pace where they could still talk.
05In the app
Your trainer does the counting.
You don't need a spreadsheet or a coach to ride this plan. Open AnyMap, pick Back to Fitness, and ride the next ride. Here is what happens on the way.
Connect in seconds
AnyMap finds your trainer, heart rate strap and Zwift Click over Bluetooth by itself, and connects again next time.
Devices
KICKR CORE
Trainer · Connected
Polar H9
Heart rate · Connected · 84 bpm
Zwift Click
Controller · Connected
SCAN FOR DEVICES
ERG mode holds the watts
In every block, the trainer sets the resistance for the target. Pedal faster or slower: the watts stay. Here is STEADY STEPS, played fast, at an FTP of 150 W.
ERG · FTP 150 W
STEADY STEPS
90Target watt
Your FTP stays true
After every ride, AnyMap checks your FTP. Ride a new best, and it goes up at once, with every zone. The next ride is already a little harder.
New FTP
156W
+6 W
Your zones moved up. Every workout now uses 156 W.
Watch the weeks add up
Every ride is saved, second by second. Your week shows time in each zone, and your month shows rides, kilometers and time against the month before.
3h 45min
This week
6
Week streak
1417%
Rides
41834%
Km
13h 5021%
Time
Make a ride your own
Copy any ride of the plan into the workout builder and change it. Try it here: tap a block, drag its top for more watts or its side for more time, or tap + for a new block.
New workout · FTP 150 W
My workout
33:3010 blocks
Tap a block to change it, or + to add one.
06FAQ
Before you start again.
Slow is rarely wasted. If you can talk in full sentences, you are where most of this plan wants you: zone 2, where the base grows. Only if a whole ride feels like nothing, with no effort at all, is your FTP set too low. Then ride the ramp test, and the targets move up.
A little, yes. New work makes muscles sore for a day or two, and it fades in the first weeks. That is one reason the plan starts with 30 minutes of easy spinning. Sharp pain is different: stop, check your saddle height and bike fit, and see a doctor if it stays.
It helps. Your trainer counts your work in kilojoules, and that number is close to the calories you burn. An hour at 120 watts is about 430. But what you eat matters more than any plan. Ride for fitness, eat well, and the weight follows.
No. Every target is a percentage of your own FTP, so the plan fits a rider of 25 and a rider of 70 alike. If you have a heart condition, high blood pressure or have not done sport in years, talk to your doctor before you start.
Yes. The first three rides are free, with no account: FIRST PEDALS, FINDING RHYTHM and STEADY STEPS. AnyMap Premium opens the other 21, and every other plan and workout.
Keep the habit. If two rides a week suit you, go on with Step Up: one sharp ride and one longer ride a week, for eight weeks. Want a short, harder step first? Fit in Four takes four weeks. Little time? Fast Fitness gives you three short rides a week.
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