How Primož Roglič Trains (the Ski Jumper Who Started Cycling at 22)
Every other cyclist in this series grew up racing bikes. Primož Roglič grew up flying off ski jumps. He was a professional ski jumper into his early twenties, only took up cycling around 2012, turned pro in 2013, and has since won four editions of the Vuelta a España and an Olympic time-trial gold. That career is the single best argument in the sport against the idea that you have to start young. It's worth understanding what carried over from the old sport, what didn't, and what a late-starting amateur can take from it.
A genuinely unusual path
Roglič competed in ski jumping to junior world-championship level, then a bad crash in 2007 shook his nerve for it, and he drifted out of the sport before finding cycling in his early twenties. His own account of the switch is refreshingly plain: he felt it was time for a change, liked cycling, and thought, why not.
What's striking is how fast the trained-athlete base converted. He wasn't starting from a couch. He was a disciplined elite competitor with years of structured training behind him, and that foundation transferred into cycling far faster than it would for someone starting from zero fitness. He credits specific carryover too: "We did a lot of work with core strength, balance, flexibility and acrobatics. All that helps me on the bike." His fearless, precise descending is widely attributed to the nerve control ski jumping demands.
Building the engine from a trained base
Roglič's cycling strength is the classic Grand Tour package: a huge aerobic engine, a strong time trial, and the ability to turn up in form Grand Tour after Grand Tour. Much of that consistency comes from a methodical, repeatable process he trusts and tweaks only incrementally, rather than chasing novelty each season. He works with a long-time coach, Marc Lamberts, who followed him to Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe, and builds around structured altitude blocks.
For a late starter or a crossover athlete, the transferable idea is that the aerobic and muscular base you built in another sport is not wasted. An ex-runner, ex-rower or ex-team-sport athlete moving to cycling carries a trainable foundation that shortens the on-bike ramp-up considerably. The tool for turning that base into structured cycling zones without a lab is critical power, estimated from two honest efforts:
Critical Power
229W
W′ (anaerobic work)
12.9kJ
12857 J
| Zone | Range | What it trains |
|---|---|---|
| Z2 | Endurance ≤ 183 W | Aerobic base below CP. Easy, RPE 3–4. |
| Z3 | Tempo 183–206 W | Sub-threshold steady work. Comfortably hard, RPE 5–6. |
| Z4 | Threshold (CP) 206–229 W | Right at critical power, maximal metabolic steady state. Hard, RPE 7–8. |
| Z5 | VO₂ / W′ tapping 229–274 W | Above CP, every second draws down your W′ battery. Very hard, RPE 9. |
| Z6 | Anaerobic ≥ 274 W | Heavy W′ depletion; short maximal efforts. Maximal, RPE 10. |
Z2 · Endurance. Aerobic base below CP. Easy, RPE 3–4.
Z3 · Tempo. Sub-threshold steady work. Comfortably hard, RPE 5–6.
Z4 · Threshold (CP). Right at critical power, maximal metabolic steady state. Hard, RPE 7–8.
Z5 · VO₂ / W′ tapping. Above CP, every second draws down your W′ battery. Very hard, RPE 9.
Z6 · Anaerobic. Heavy W′ depletion; short maximal efforts. Maximal, RPE 10.
- Critical Power is the asymptote of the power–duration curve: the highest power you can sustain (in theory) indefinitely. W′ is the fixed amount of work available above CP, your anaerobic 'battery'.
- Two-parameter CP needs two maximal efforts of clearly different durations (e.g. 3 min and 12 min). Efforts too close in length give an unstable estimate.
- CP usually lands within a few percent of FTP, but it adds W′, which models how long you can stay above threshold.
A PDF of your personalized results, with a QR code to reopen them anytime.
Do a short maximal effort and a longer one, feed both in, and you get an estimate of the intensity you can sustain in a steady state, plus the size of your anaerobic reserve above it. It's the same anchor an FTP gives, from a different pair of tests, and it's exactly the kind of number a crossover athlete can establish quickly because the engine is already there.
Resilience is part of the method
Roglič's career also has an unusually long list of crashes: shoulders, abandons, a Giro exit, race after race interrupted by bad luck. What stands out is that he keeps coming back and winning within months. That's not a training session you can copy, but it is a mindset worth naming: setbacks, injuries and missed blocks don't have to end a season, and the athletes who last treat them as interruptions rather than verdicts.
2026
Now 36, Roglič is skipping the 2026 Tour de France, where his Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe team backs Remco Evenepoel and Florian Lipowitz, and building instead toward the Vuelta a España in late August, chasing a record fifth title at a race he already owns outright with four. Reporting frames him increasingly as a hybrid leader-and-mentor for the team's younger riders, which is a graceful role for a rider who came to the sport late and has made almost every year of it count.
What you can actually steal from it
- It's not too late to start. Roglič didn't ride competitively until his twenties and won four Grand Tours. Adult beginners should train seriously, not apologetically.
- Your old sport transfers. Aerobic fitness and trained discipline carry between sports. A crossover athlete ramps up faster than someone starting from nothing.
- Anchor to a measured number early. Critical power from two efforts gives a crossover rider structured zones quickly, because the engine already exists.
- Trust a repeatable process. His consistency comes from a method he refines incrementally, not from chasing a new trend each winter.
- Treat setbacks as interruptions. Crashes and missed blocks don't have to define a season.
Roglič is proof that the start line of a sporting career is later and wider than most people assume. The engine you've already built, in whatever sport, is the thing you bring with you.
More in this series: Remco Evenepoel, Mathieu van der Poel, Tadej Pogačar, Jonas Vingegaard and Demi Vollering.
Sources
Roglič's ski-jumping background and switch to cycling, and the carryover quote, are reported by Olympics.com and his Wikipedia profile. His coach Marc Lamberts following him to Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe is reported by Cycling Up To Date. His 2026 plan to skip the Tour and target a record fifth Vuelta is reported by Cyclingnews. Exact dates for his ski-jumping-to-cycling switch vary slightly between sources and are given here as approximate.
Cover photo by Hugo LUC, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
