I might be a bit of a edge case with this, due to injury and illness
This year I have been putting a lot of emphasis on time on the bike, building it gradually doing around the 10hour mark, and 2 hard workouts per week, done me ok in 12 hour gravel races and multi day events, have my highest ever FTP and was close to 4w KG, I feel that a lot of MY problem when using TR in the past was that I cut out my commutes e.t.c to focus on intensity over time on the bike, this did me no favors
So this was working for me, but in late July I picked Covid up and this hit me hard (T1 diabetic), just recovered from that, and then fell down the stairs and broke my foot
I decided to give TR another go (mainly as I canāt do a FTP test for a while) with a priority of getting my hours on the bike up whilst increasing the intensity while my foot improves, last few weeks have been 7hrs 343TSS, 8hrs 425, 9.5hrs 470
The new new plan builder has me at 5 hours and a TSS of 290, in the last 7 weeks (despite recovering from covid and breaking my foot) I have 1 week with less hours, and 2 with less TSS, I donāt intend to follow this āoptimumā plan
It feels to me like TR has gone back to prioritizing intensity and the expense of hours on the bike, and for me that doesnāt seem to work, Group rides that I do on a Sunday are 4hours at least, so to balance week days against weekend days (important to me) I need to be looking around the 8-10 mark
Apologies if this has already been covered, but would be interested to get a comment from someone from the TR team if it hasnāt.
I have several years of historic data on low volume plans (the analysis says it looks at ~1600 workouts). Because of breaks in training (basically resetting to off the couch fitness every year or so) these will show good improvement. Iām now being more consistent and training at higher volume and seeing good results, but every time I try the new system, it tries to drag me back to a low volume level of training, and warns me about anything remotely higher.
Iām concerned the historic data may be tricking the system into thinking thatās the best way for me to train, because thatās the majority of the data it sees, whereas itās just seeing that quick return from starting training off the couch over and over again. Is that likely?
I see the opposite! Recently Iāve been doing 4/5 rides a week fairly consistently with a lot of historic data on 3 days a week and I feel like itās trying to push me back to 3 days a week. Maybe that means that have the balance right
Iāve just run the new plan builder again to see if Iāve missed somethingā¦
My Background thatās visible to TR: nearly 7 years TR structured training, with plenty of outdoor volume, with either steady or slowly increasing volume over the years I believe.
Calendar year 2024 to-date: avg. 9.5-10 hrs week on the bike, avg >400 TSS/week
Running the new Plan Builder for a seven month āIncreasing FTPā Road plan, with a Recommended Balanced approach, outputs a custom Masters plan like this:
2x Intensity of 1-hr each
1x Easy of 30mins
1x Endurance of 1-hr, 1x Endurance of 1hr:30
= 5 hrs, 267 TSS.
Cannot see me making much progress on that recipe of ~half volume & load.
My preference is actually for 4 rides(workouts)/week, so I edit the Settings and change it from 5 (āRecommendedā) to 4 per week. By default my new plan now looks like this:
1x Intensity of 1-hr, 1x Intensity of 0:45hr
2x Endurance of 1-hr
= 3:45hrs, 211 TSS
Thatās hopeless.
In order to get the plan to look remotely useful I need to change a lot of things manually to reshape. Hence my conclusion that little if any of my history is actually being looked at here and no āsmartsā are being applied; in any case, whatās being output doesnāt seem useful to me at least.
EDIT:
Hereās my TSS graph from the top, showing what Iāve done historically vs. whatās being suggested:
Sorry if this has been covered elsewhere but is there a way to build in holidays so that the Custom Training Plans builder takes account of it? It would be great if that could be added in at the start e.g. Christmas, with the best will in the world Iām probably not going to get three structured sessions done but I might get out for a quick spin two or three times.
Iām seeing the same drastic recommended reduction in hours and TSS that others are reporting. Iāve always felt like TR disfavors volume. But now there is an update that is supposed to be taking my solid history of high volume into account. And even now, with the training approach slider maxed out to the right, Iām getting a recommended calendar with a 25% reduction in time and TSS. What to make of this?
Ahh thatās interesting, I presumed it was because of my Illness / Injury in the last couple of months
Having a serious think, I like the TR progression on SS and TH, but I do all my endurance work in Zwift using pace partners (aim for a HR, if my HR is to low, go up a pace partner) but want to have someway of planning my time in a week, currently adding TR high volume, masters and then adjusting to make progression ā¦ this update doesnāt make progression by Time easier
Same here, Iāve put a huge emphasis this year on z2 volume (not ājunkā miles) and itās made a huge difference in my performance but this new feature is recommending my current volume only at the most aggressive level. Considering my current volume has me progressing much better than the 6 hours and 3 intensity rides a week on TR mid-volume Iām very confused.
after reflecting on this more and reading some of these comments - I know I am struggling to trust the AI over my intuitionā¦ and its hard to know maybe the computer knows us better than we do and should listenā¦or maybe not.
I dunno - its no help but this is a void and I am talking into itā¦
I have noticed some very similar findings in regards to volume recommendations. Without giving away the secret sauce, I would love to know more about looking at your history and seeing when you have been successful.
How long back does it look? From comments and my own plan, it seems like it is a very short window, reflecting on what you have been doing in the last few weeks. How does it determine what has worked for you in the past? What if you havenāt used TR in the past, then what? And how quickly does it ramp up volume if that is your goal?
@AldridgePrior could you DM me your account username so we can take a deeper look at things? The one tied to your forum account seems to be showing something different on our end so weād like to make sure weāre looking at the right thing and help get you all sorted.
It would be really helpful, and probably engender more trust in the plan, if the āAI plan builderā provided its reasoning like you can get some of the newer generative AIs to do - see this from Google
I really like the updated UI and plan builder process but I agree with many above that the resulting plan doesnāt seem very individualized. I assume it always starts with 2 intense workouts per week in easiest setting no matter what. And from there itās always 3 intense days (which you need to manually set back per masters switch if you only want 2) plus some endurance.
When playing with all kinds of settings it becomes clear to me that itās more rigidly aligned some pre defined plan structure than really individualized. As said I think itās a nice UI and itās gotten better overall but the whole speak of a plan personalized to you and taking all your individual history into account seems just like maketing to me.
Otherwise there should be users getting weeks with 1 intense workout and 3x endurance 90-180 minutes just as an example.
Would be nice if TR could point out what exactly is meant by personalization and show concrete examples of the whole spectrum. For example show how different history leads to individual workout duration recommendations and different number of intense days (and why there is no result with 1 day of intensity per week or maybe even no day of intensity and just endurance volume).
Adding to the list of getting a āpersonalisedā plan with 25% reduction in training volumes, and 3 (2 masters) intense workouts a week (right from day 1 base!). I donāt rate this new system at all.
Also I get 2-off nonsense 30 min 17 TSS workouts twice a week: Going into settings, to attempt maybe make this 1-off 34 TSS minute workout, all I can do is go from 6 to 5 days, however this drops down 3 hours volume and 100 TSS, AND I get a warning about excessive volume, what?
For anyone currently trying to put together a plan, the old system in still on the Android app for now.
