What Does it Take to Become a Pro Cyclist?

You’ve watched them on TV dancing up the climbs or tearing around a time trial course at blazing speed. You’ve seen their mind boggling power numbers on Strava and mega training sessions. When we look at the best professional cyclists in the world, it’s pretty obvious there’s something different about them.

But, just what makes a pro, a pro? What gives them that little bit extra to take the step up to the pro ranks? There are thousands of young and aspiring Under-23 and junior cyclists hoping to make it to the top of the sport, but yet only a handful actually make it.

Is a lot of this genetic? Most certainly! However, champions are made and not born. Even the most talented of cyclists won’t make it very far without a good work ethic and a solid training plan.

There has been some research in recent years to investigate long term athlete development that we’ll dive into. What sets apart professional cyclists from the rest of us and, for young aspiring cyclists, how can you get there? There are also some good training lessons here for everyone!

Physiological Differences Between Pros and Amateurs

What physiologically makes a pro cyclist faster? One recent study by Leo, et. Al answered this question quite eloquently.

In this study, the researchers followed young cyclists who were members of the same UCI U23 development cycling team. Over the course of a year, they quantified the athletes training intensity and volume. They also performed field testing to determine peak power at 2, 5 and 12 minutes and critical power.

Additionally, they took data from the cyclist’s racing to determine peak power outputs of the same 2, 5 and 12 minute durations after 2,000kj of work. This metric was intended to assess durability, or how well the cyclists performed while fatigued.

The researchers then followed up later and retroactively divided the cyclists into two groups: cyclists who turned pro and those who did not. They found a few key differences

Greater Raw Power, But the Same Watts-Per-Kilo

One of the main findings of this study was that cyclists who turned pro had greater absolute power than those who did not turn pro, which is unsurprising. But interestingly, both groups had the same power-to-weight ratio (relative power) at the measured durations.

This would illustrate that races are not won on watts per kilo alone. Watts per kilogram has become somewhat of a buzzword these days and many have become fixated on this number. Yet, many races are not won by w/kg, and the parcours of a race can lend itself better to someone with more raw power.

Many of the best riders in the world might not have the same power to weight as a Grand Tour winner, yet they still win many races due to the sheer watts they can generate (think Mathieu van Der Poel or Wout van Aert). For young cyclists aiming to turn pro, perhaps the focus should be more on improving raw power than fixating on w/kg and weight loss.

While the data was not significant in the study, I did find it interesting that the average weight of the pro group was 71.5 kg whereas the non-pro group’s average weight was 67.0 kg. Clearly lighter isn’t always better!

One speculation I have about the difference in weight is that the non-pro group was underfueling their training and potentially sacrificing training quality. Due to underfueling, they also maybe didn’t have the same amount of lean mass to generate the same watts as the pros. This is all just speculation but interesting nonetheless!

Greater Durability

Perhaps the most marked difference the researchers found was the pros’ ability to generate power after 2,000kjs of work. The pros demonstrated a remarkable amount of fatigue resistance and did not tire as easily as the amateurs.

One of the main findings was that the amateurs’ 2, 5 and 12 minute power declined much more after 2,000kjs of work compared to the pros. On average, power decline was 5-7% greater in the non-pro group after 2,000kjs of work compared to pros.

This shows just how important durability and endurance is to racing success. In a bike race, it’s usually not the rider who can generate the most power at the beginning of the race who wins, but the one who can put out peak power at the end of the race when it matters most.

It’s easy to get fixated on FTP or 5-minute power in training, but just as important is an athlete's ability to sustain and repeat high power outputs. This is something that should be kept in mind when looking at your own training.

Greater Efficiency

Another big difference between pros and amateurs is efficiency. This has been well established in other past research. Efficiency measures the internal load (VO2 uptake) and compares it to the external power. Those with greater efficiency will consume less oxygen at a given power output and thus fatigue less quickly.

Lucia, et. al from the University of Madrid found that professional cyclists are more efficient while riding at intensity than amateurs. In fact, the harder pro cyclists rode during a ramp test, the slower their rise in VO2 uptake became.

How To Become a Professional Cyclist: Training Differences

How much of an athlete’s success can be attributed to talent? How much can be explained by their work ethic and training regimen?

This has been a central question around professional sports for decades and there is no simple answer. Of course, to become truly great, one must possess talent. However, without hard work and proper training, an athlete will rarely ever succeed.

As demonstrated in the Leo study, there were some marked physiologic differences between the U23 cyclists who ended up making it pro and those who did not. However, the big question is why? Did the pros win the genetic lottery, or did they train better? Fortunately, the researchers had access to a full year of the cyclist’s training data and identified some key differences between the pros and the amateurs that we will discuss below.

Higher Volume of Training

Around ten years ago, when high intensity intervals and the idea of the “Time Crunched Cyclist” became popular, people began touting that big base miles were no longer necessary to become fast. All you had to do was go out and smash some hard interval sessions a couple of times per week and voilà, you’d get the same results in half the time.

Unfortunately, this is not the case. There is no replacement for hours on the bike and research has demonstrated this repeatedly, the study by Leo et al. is no exception.

One of the key differences between the pro and amateur group was the total volume of training they completed. The pro group spent significantly more time training than the amateurs.

More specifically, they spent much more time training at endurance pace. Despite doing similar amounts of intensity, the pro group racked up approximately 530 hours in Zone 1 during the training year (using the 3 Zone Model), whereas the amateurs only managed around 350 hours.

Is it really that simple? Could the only thing that’s separating these two groups be the amount of time they rode at endurance pace?

While undoubtedly there was a lot more going on behind the scenes, this was the biggest difference found between the training regimens of the two groups. When we connect the dots, many of the physiological differences between the two groups can be explained by the pro’s increased training volume.

The greater amount of Zone 1 training certainly explains the improved durability of the pro group. By training more at endurance pace, the pros trained their fat burning capabilities to a greater extent. This means they could preserve their limited muscle glycogen till much later in the race and had more power at the end.

Additionally, by training more at endurance pace, the pro group enhanced their capacity to clear lactate and repeat hard efforts. Lactate is cleared aerobically by the mitochondria of the cell and base training is one of the best ways to increase mitochondrial density in the muscle.

The end result is that the pro group was more readily able to repeat their peak power outputs in a race and thus, win more races. Whilst the amateur group had similar w/kg values to the pros during the field testing, they were unable to produce power at the end of their races when it mattered most and could have benefitted from improving their endurance.

Lower “Internal Load”

One other fascinating finding of this study is that high intensity was actually less taxing on the pro group than the amateur group. Whilst the pro group did spend a lower percentage of their training time doing high intensity intervals compared to the amateur group, they actually did slightly more total volume of high intensity than the amateur group during the course of a year.

However, despite the pros spending more time at power output Zone 3 than the amateurs, they actually had a smaller percentage of training time in heart rate Zone 3 than the amateurs did.

Essentially, this means that the internal physiologic load (heart rate) was lower relative to the external load (power) for the pro group. The best illustration of this concept would be your heart rate response during a set of intervals.

Let’s say one week you do 3x15 FTP intervals and your heart rate climbs up to 185 bpm at the end of the workout. The next week you do the same intervals, but your heart rate stays more steady and only gets up to 177 bpm at the end. You had a lower internal load for the same power output the second go-round and most likely the workout didn’t feel as hard either.

This phenomenon is called the VO2 Slow Component, and you can learn more about that in my blog here.

The significance of this phenomenon is that riding at intensity simply wasn’t as fatiguing for the pro group. They could sustain power outputs close to their lactate threshold for extended periods and would fatigue much slower than their amateur counterparts.

The research group out of Madrid (Lucia et. al) theorize that this phenomenon is due to having a greater percentage of type I muscle fibers. This could again be partly explained by the larger volume of training the pro group completed.

Correlation Between Training and Results

To further confirm their results, the researchers in the Leo study correlated the rider’s training data with UCI points scored over the course of the season. These results allow us to see the relationship between training and racing results. A quick summary of what they found:

Hours, distance, total work (mostly from endurance riding) and total training sessions were significantly positively correlated with UCI points scored. This means the more the cyclist’s trained, the more UCI points they scored.

%Time in HR zone 1 was positively correlated with UCI points, but %Time in HR zone 2 and 3 were negatively correlated with UCI points. Essentially, this means that the riders with a higher percentage of their training time in zone 1 saw greater success.

Application to Your Training

Now, keep in mind that this is just one study and by no means does it explain everything. However, it certainly illustrates the importance of training and the role it plays in determining success in cycling.

It also shows pretty clearly one thing: If you want to go pro, you have to put in the time!

Of course a large genetic component to cycling, but it is possible to make it pretty far in the sport with hard work and a good training plan. While this study was done on elite level cyclists, there are certainly some take home points for the rest of us so we can make better decisions about our own training.

Base Miles Work

Many of us have searched for the “magic bullet” of cycling training that will take us to the next level. However, one of the best ways to progress your fitness is to simply add more volume to your training.

Now for those of us with jobs and families adding volume isn’t always possible, but if there is potential for you to increase your training volume during the week, this is low hanging fruit for fitness gains. Even just adding 2 hours per week to your training can add up to 100 hours per year!

More Intensity Isn’t Always Better

There comes a point where adding more intensity to your training won’t give you any added gains, and is more likely to lead to overtraining. This is shown pretty nicely in the Leo study. Despite the pros riding way more at endurance pace, their total volume of intensity was not much different from the amateur group.

In general, 2-3 days per week of high intensity is all the body needs to get maximal adaptations from interval training. Past this point does more harm than good.

Pedal Properly

Much research has shown that one of the biggest differences between professional cyclists and amateurs is their greater efficiency. By improving efficiency, you can ride at the same power with less effort.

Simply logging miles on the bike will drastically increase efficiency, but there are other ways you can also improve efficiency with neuromuscular training and strength training for cycling.

Don’t get caught up in just staring at your power numbers, but make sure you give thought to how you are producing that power with proper pedaling technique. It makes a difference!

Nutrition and Recovery

The only way professional riders can sustain such high volumes of training is with a keen focus on nutrition and recovery. I’ve often said this, but you can only train as hard as your nutrition lets you! We have lots of articles about nutrition for cycling, so be sure to check them out.