What really is an annual training plan and is it productive to create one?
The term Annual Training Plan, ATP, has been used for years, probably decades when it comes to designing a plan to improve athletic performance. There are training platforms, like the one I use, Training Peaks, that have a semi-automated method to create a plan that will gradually improve athletic performance, progressively building workouts from easier early in a season to harder later, closer to the desired peak of the year.
Using the term annual training plan however may be a bit misleading. What I think when I hear the word annual is 1.1.2026 to 12.31.26 calendar year to date (YTD). That is great if, like me, you live in the northern states in the Northern hemisphere. What happens if your “season” is in the southern hemisphere or you live in southern states of the northern hemisphere or if you decide the peak time of year for you is in the middle of a winter season? I will still use the term ATP but when talking to an athlete, I may also talk in terms of a Key Events Season Training Plan.
I’ve talked about Key Events in the past, but as a reminder, for competitive purposes, athletes need to decide early in the season what the 1 to max. 3 goal or key events they would like to focus on for ultimate performance. If you are a more recreational rider, maybe the key event is a week-long tour, a 100 mile Century ride, a vacation time with riding a bike in MOAB or Sedona. Whatever that goal event is, a training plan takes time to build to peak performance using intensity, duration along wit rest to get to that desired peak level.
If you are invested in a coach/athlete collaboration of any kind, it is CRITICAL to get that goal time calendared early, 8, 9, 10 months prior to the event. Without that calendared goal, a coach will only be able to generally focus on overall fitness not peak fitness at a key event. The training plan then becomes a frustrating mix of maybe fun but unfocused training sessions and a potentially disappointing key event
There is a vital metric or piece of data used to build the ATP. It is a number generated from a mix of other bits of data, it is TSS, Training Stress Score. The true definition of TSS is, a calculation of intensity and duration adjusted to the athlete’s functional threshold power (FTP) and is a predictor of the amount of Glycogen (Food/Fuel) used in a workout session.
In an ideal world, using a very simplified description, a coach will build a progressively harder and more intense and more specific to you goal event set of workouts that stress your current condition and along with rest, your body will generally become more fit and more tuned to that goal event. A coach will suggest TSS total per week. Each workout during the week will add to that TSS total. Generally, the totals will vary based on a relationship to how far in the future your goal event is scheduled. This process is not easily rushed nor is it advisable to set more than a few key events as the body can only endure a limited amount of stress before it quits improving and sometimes can lose fitness.
This is the Art of Coaching.
If you head down this path, focus on planning, communication, consistency, awareness of how realistic the goal, rest and enjoying the process whatever the outcome.
Below is a very generic schedule of what an Annual Training Plan, based on TSS looks like through a season. Very generic in that there are numerous questions posed. How fit is the athlete to start, how trained they are in the specific goal event, equipment, the list goes on. As always, for additional docs, go to MENU at the top right and click on desired item or click this link below.