How Mathieu van der Poel Trains (One Engine, Three Sports)
Most pros specialise. Mathieu van der Poel has been world champion on the road, in cyclocross, and on gravel, which is close to unprecedented, and he does it by racing across three disciplines in a single year rather than picking one. The interesting question isn't how he's so good at all of them. It's what that versatility teaches a normal cyclist about building one broad engine instead of a narrow one, and van der Poel himself supplies a useful complication: he isn't convinced his winter of cyclocross actually helps his road form at all.
A racing bloodline and a three-sport year
Van der Poel comes from cycling royalty. His father Adrie won a Tour of Flanders and a cyclocross world title; his grandfather was Raymond Poulidor, the great "eternal second" of the Tour de France. His own year runs cyclocross through the winter, the cobbled road classics in spring, and MTB and gravel scattered around them. In early 2026 he won a record eighth cyclocross world title, and he holds world titles on the road (2023) and in gravel (2024) as well. Notably, he is not a mountain-bike world champion, despite racing MTB at the highest level, so the "world champion in everything" shorthand isn't quite right.
The counter-intuitive part: cross might not help the road
The lazy version of this story is "cyclocross all winter builds free road fitness." Van der Poel won't let you have it. He has openly said he doesn't think he needs cyclocross to reach his best road level, and has wondered aloud whether he might even be better without it, using the winter for recovery and uninterrupted road-specific blocks instead.
That's a valuable nuance for amateurs who assume more racing is always more fitness. Cyclocross gives him ferocious, race-specific intensity and world-class bike-handling, but it also costs recovery and interrupts the long, focused blocks that build peak road form. More stimulus isn't automatically better. Sometimes it competes with the thing you actually want.
The engine underneath, and what it's worth
What genuinely unites the three disciplines is one giant aerobic engine plus rare explosive power. Independent analyses of his race files put his sustained power in exceptional territory, though it's worth flagging that these are third-party estimates, not team-published numbers, so the exact watt figures should be taken loosely.
The number that ties his disciplines together is the one you can measure on yourself: functional threshold power. FTP is the common currency of cycling fitness, the anchor every training zone hangs off, whatever the terrain:
FTP
250W
Sweet Spot
220–235W
88–94% FTP
| Zone | Range | What it trains |
|---|---|---|
| Z1 | Active Recovery ≤ 138 W | Recovery; spins the legs without adding load. RPE 1–2, very easy. |
| Z2 | Endurance 139–188 W | Aerobic base, fat oxidation, all-day pace. RPE 3–4, conversational. |
| Z3 | Tempo 189–225 W | Aerobic endurance and muscular efficiency. RPE 5–6, comfortably hard. |
| Z4 | Threshold 226–263 W | Lactate threshold, FTP work, the sustainable ceiling. RPE 7–8, 10–30 min reps. |
| Z5 | VO₂max 264–300 W | Maximal aerobic power; 3–8 min intervals. RPE 9, very hard. |
| Z6 | Anaerobic Capacity 301–375 W | Anaerobic capacity; 30s–3min efforts. RPE 9–10, near maximal. |
| Z7 | Neuromuscular Power ≥ 376 W | Sprint and neuromuscular power. RPE 10, all-out sprints. |
Z1 · Active Recovery. Recovery; spins the legs without adding load. RPE 1–2, very easy.
Z2 · Endurance. Aerobic base, fat oxidation, all-day pace. RPE 3–4, conversational.
Z3 · Tempo. Aerobic endurance and muscular efficiency. RPE 5–6, comfortably hard.
Z4 · Threshold. Lactate threshold, FTP work, the sustainable ceiling. RPE 7–8, 10–30 min reps.
Z5 · VO₂max. Maximal aerobic power; 3–8 min intervals. RPE 9, very hard.
Z6 · Anaerobic Capacity. Anaerobic capacity; 30s–3min efforts. RPE 9–10, near maximal.
Z7 · Neuromuscular Power. Sprint and neuromuscular power. RPE 10, all-out sprints.
- Andrew Coggan's seven-zone model expresses every zone as a percentage of Functional Threshold Power. Sweet Spot (220–235 W, 88–94% FTP) sits between Tempo and Threshold and gives a high training stimulus for moderate fatigue.
- FTP is the power you could theoretically hold for about an hour. Re-test every 4–6 weeks; a stale FTP makes every zone wrong.
A PDF of your personalized results, with a QR code to reopen them anytime.
Set it from a test, and your endurance, tempo, threshold and VO2max zones all follow. Van der Poel's versatility is really just an enormous FTP plus a huge anaerobic ceiling on top, expressed on different surfaces. Yours works the same way at your level: build the threshold, and it pays off whether you're riding a gran fondo, a criterium or a gravel event.
Watts aren't the whole story, and he'll tell you so
Van der Poel has a nice line about why he loves racing off-road: cyclocross and mountain biking are more "honest," because the strongest rider on the day usually wins, whereas road racing is "all tactics, power meters and race radios." Coming from one of the biggest engines in the sport, that's a healthy reminder that a big FTP is necessary but not sufficient. Bike-handling, positioning and decision-making decide races too, and the cross-discipline skills he builds off-road are part of why he's so hard to beat on the road when it gets chaotic.
2026
Alongside that eighth cyclocross world title, van der Poel won Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and E3 in the 2026 classics campaign, and capped the season by winning the final stage of the Tour de France on the Champs-Élysées, on the day Tadej Pogačar sealed his fifth overall title. He remains a strength-training regular, doing focused gym work year-round for durability rather than bulk.
What you can actually steal from it
- Build one broad engine, not a narrow one. FTP is the anchor that pays off across every kind of riding.
- Cross-train your handling, not just your watts. Time on gravel, MTB or cyclocross builds skills a purely on-road rider never develops, and they win chaotic races.
- More racing isn't automatically more fitness. Even van der Poel questions whether his cross season helps his road peak. Recovery and focused blocks matter too.
- Respect that watts aren't everything. The strongest engine still loses to better tactics and handling. Train both.
Van der Poel makes versatility look like a gift, but underneath it is a boringly familiar recipe: a huge aerobic base measured by FTP, explosive power on top, and enough skill from riding everything that the number isn't the whole story.
More in this series: Tadej Pogačar, Jonas Vingegaard, Remco Evenepoel, Primož Roglič and Demi Vollering.
Sources
Van der Poel's scepticism about needing cyclocross for road form is reported by Cycling Up To Date; his "off-road is more honest" comments are from a Cyclist Q&A. His record eighth cyclocross world title is reported by Cyclingflash, and his 2026 Tour de France final-stage win by Cyclingnews. His career world titles are recorded in his Wikipedia achievements list. Power figures cited in the wider reporting are third-party estimates from race-file analysis, not official team data, so none is stated here as a precise fact.
Cover photo by Felouch Kotek, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.
