I just subscribed to Trainerroad and did my second workouts today. I built my plan according to my FTP and my needs (two hometrainer sessions during the week and a club ride every weekend). Unfortunately I was quite disappointed by the two workouts I rode, which I found too easy.
To sum up every weekend I ride with my cycling club for 100 to 130km climbing from 700m to 1500m (TSS is close to 260). Winter is coming so It would be more around 80 to 100km in the coming months.
What are the two kind of Trainerroad workout sessions I must absolutely practice during the week to improve? My goals are quite obvious : increase my FTP, my ability to climb and my explosiveness.
I can’t make more than two Trainerroad sessions in the week, each of them must last approximately one hour.
Did you start by doing a ramp test? That will help set your ability level for all workouts.
Did you select a training program?
You will want to follow a base-build (and maybe speciality) trajectory for best FTP improvement.
The lowest volume is 3 rides per week so i would recommend selecting that and then dropping one of those workouts. Which one you drop is probably better recommended by someone else
You say you found them too easy, assuming FTP etc is set ok then don’t think of the workouts in isolation the cumulative effect might make you think otherwise.
Additionally, you shouldn’t feel dead after every workout and if you’re only riding 3 times per week you’re likely to be coming in fresh so this could also be a factor in hitting those workouts without too much trouble.
Unless you are highly trained, as I mentioned before, I would recommend doing a low volume base plan and substituting one of those rides for your outside ride.
When I first started on Trainer Road back last April, I also thought the first few workouts were too easy. (I had already been doing structured training for a year with another program). I just kept bumping up my FTP 2 percent every workout until I was barely finishing them. I had never done a ramp test, nor really worked on VO2 max much, so I think I got too low of a result. Now that I have everything set correctly, every workout feels like a real accomplishment. They don’t all “destroy me” but usually the Thursday ones are very tough to complete. I prefer doing an 8 min FTP test and get a result that is very close to my max 1 hour normalized power, a 20 minute test, or the Joe Friel idea of 30 minutes as hard as you can. But my ramp test will give me a number 20 or 30 watts too low and result in “way too easy workouts”. For instance, I remember a ramp test giving me an FTP of 215 when I had just held 236 for an hour on a ride like a week before. As for training, I would do VO2 max intervals on Tuesdays, Over Unders on Thursdays, then ride like the devil on Saturdays (I actually usually do Steady State intervals on Saturdays or more Over-Unders). Any chance you get, fill it in with Z2 rides for as many miles as you can. That’s what I have done for the last few months with really good results.
I switched the plan from Base phase to Build phase, now It seems.more relevant. One Threshold workout plus another VO2Max session every week. If I can do one more home-trainer session I assume I should ride a tempo or recovery workout.
Base workouts aren’t supposed to destroy you. The TR Base plans kinda set the groundwork (dozen+ minutes sweetspot, etc) for what you’ll see in Build. You might be experienced enough to jump right into Build, but it’s not generally recommended.
If you’re not going to follow the TR base > build > spec or a base > build > base > build cycle and just want a couple hard workouts per week, maybe check out the lv specialty offroad and enthusiast plans… those are essentially all high intensity. Definite type-2 fun. Downside is they’re not specifically about growing your ftp or tte.
base > build > then we’ll see