The Right Way to Start Masters Training in January

Masters Training is something that Ric Stern of CycleCoach knows a lot about. Not just because he is still training and racing as a master; I’ll let him tell you exactly how young he is! With forty-two years of racing and over twenty-five years of coaching, Ric has built up a wealth of coaching knowledge. He’s also the inventor of one particular piece of cycling pain. Ever cursed the creator of the MAP (ramp) test? Then here he is! Ric created that little piece of testing horror back in 1996 and it’s been making cyclists curse ever since.

Ric recently wrote about how older (over forty) riders should approach their training in the new year. This article is from Ric’s site, CycleCoach, where he is the founder and head coach.

Start your Masters Training in January

January is where a lot of masters cyclists quietly sabotage their season. Not because they’re lazy. Not because they lack motivation. But because they restart training in a way that feels productive and looks disciplined, yet sets them up for fatigue, stagnation, or injury before spring has even arrived.

If you’re over forty, the first week or two of January is not about gaining fitness. It’s about re-establishing training tolerance so the work you do later actually sticks. Get this right, and the next three months flow smoothly. Get it wrong, and you spend February wondering why nothing is moving.

Here’s what “starting properly” actually looks like.

First: accept where you really are

By late December, most riders are carrying some combination of residual fatigue, disrupted routine, poor sleep, richer food, alcohol, and mental overload. Some people rode through Christmas. Others barely touched the bike. Both groups tend to make the same mistake in January: they assume fitness status and readiness are the same thing; they’re not.

You might still have plenty of fitness on board, but that doesn’t mean your body is ready to absorb structured training immediately. Readiness is about how well you tolerate load right now, not what you could do six weeks ago. January training needs to respect that distinction.

Week one is about re-establishing rhythm, not building fitness

The purpose of the first week of January is simple: get back into regular training without creating unnecessary stress. That usually means three to five rides across the week, depending on your schedule. The focus is frequency rather than volume. A consistent pattern matters more than long rides or big numbers.

For most masters riders, sessions in this week should feel manageable. You should finish rides feeling like you could have done more, not like you’ve ticked something heroic off the list. That’s not being soft. That’s being intelligent.

Endurance rides should actually be endurance rides

A lot of riders think they’re doing “Zone 2” when, in reality, they’re riding a steady mix of endurance, tempo, and threshold because it feels purposeful. In January, that approach backfires.

Endurance rides should be predominantly aerobic. Flat roads where possible. Steady pressure on the pedals. If terrain forces you up into higher zones for a few minutes on climbs, that’s fine, just let it come back down again afterwards.

What matters is the overall load. As a guideline, if the normalised power of the ride sits around 50–65% of MAP, you’re in the right place. Over two to three hours, that can still feel surprisingly demanding, especially when fatigue is present. That doesn’t mean you’ve done it wrong. It means endurance work accumulates stress quietly.

Include one light intensity “touch” — no more

Completely ignoring intensity isn’t necessary, but this isn’t the time for full sessions of VO₂max or threshold work. One controlled intensity touch in the week is plenty. That might be a handful of short MIET efforts, or a few brief harder efforts embedded inside an endurance ride. The goal is coordination and familiarity, not adaptation. If the session requires deep motivation, perfect pacing, or a long recovery afterwards, it doesn’t belong in week one.

Strength training needs restraint

If you’ve been lifting consistently through autumn, one light session in the first week is fine. Keep the loads conservative and the focus on movement quality. If strength training has been inconsistent or absent, January week one is not the time to reintroduce heavy lifting. That comes once cycling load is stable again. Masters riders don’t get injured because strength training is “bad”. They get injured because they stack too many new stressors at once.

Don’t test, assess, or judge anything yet

This is where many riders go wrong. They test FTP. They compare numbers to last year. They analyse durability. They decide something is “missing” and try to fix it immediately.

None of that information is useful in the first week of January. Most of it is misleading. Your job right now is not to measure progress. It’s to create the conditions that allow progress to happen later.

Why this approach works

When you start January this way, training feels familiar rather than threatening. Endurance rides feel steady instead of heavy. The first structured sessions don’t come as a shock to the system. Most importantly, motivation returns naturally. You’re not forcing yourself into discipline; you’re rebuilding momentum. That’s exactly where masters riders tend to thrive.

Masters Cycling Training – What comes next?

Once rhythm is re-established, January is where structure starts to matter. That’s when training load, progression, and specificity need to be planned properly. This first phase simply sets the table so that work can be absorbed when it counts.

If you want help with that next step, there are a few options:

• Start with the 6 Pillars of Cycling Performance, which outlines the framework I use with every rider.
• Join The Collective for structured plans, education, and ongoing support.
• Or work directly with me, or one of our expert coaches through 1-to-1 coaching, where everything is built around your schedule, goals, and limiter profile.

For now, keep it simple. Ride consistently. Keep intensity under control. Let your body remember what training feels like.

January doesn’t reward enthusiasm. It rewards patience.

Ric has previously reviewed Magene’s PES P505 power meter for us. He’s also helping me get in shape for TransPortugal; a seven day MTB stage-race.