Its in the coaches podcasts on WKO. I have posted a list of progression workouts in the over 60 group. Joe Friel in Fast after 50 states rest intervals equaling the work intervals, and I just listened to the podcast again where he recommends 90 sec rest intervals regardless of the work interval length. Currently I can do one 5 rep set with 2 min on/90 sec off, and my best for the second set is getting through 4 intervals before coming apart.
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Thanks - I’ll look for the podcast and check it out.
I have been through a number of similar items as you. I am 8 years younger and have learned that TRs prescription to train isnt sustainable. As others here have posted Joe Friel offers good advice that I have turned to doing 2 intensity days and the rest endurance. Recovery is our huge factor that we have to learn how to deal with. The biggest item I have learned is to just insert a few extra days of endurance as soon as you feel draggy…The 3 weeks/1week recovery plan doesnt work for me. TR fails here in not making this an easy fix in their programs.
As to maybe give you some hope…I myself have had a chronic illness since I was 19 and had many surgeries with the last two major ones being in my early 50s. Now I had no fitness and started to ride at 55. At first I couldnt even ride for 20 minutes. Eventually I started with TR but all I did was hurt myself. I learned I needed to go see a physical therapist, get a proper bike fit and to get stronger. We worked on my problems and over a couple of years I worked on strength via body weight moves and yoga. Yoga really is well worth the time. I now use weights but limit it to twice a week on days after my intensity workouts. These are done a few hours later. I started though in the fall by doing endurance rides and the weights to build up my tolerance. It does take time to adjust.
My legs added a lot of muscle from the cycling, especially my calves. My calf muscles now are back to the measurements I have from before I was sick at age 19. So we can add muscle.
I had knee issues from age 16. Like you the hard starts were just plain dangerous enough to hurt me. I learned to change my approach by not focusing on the push to generate power but the speed of my cadence. Small little angle changes can mess me up.
I will still consider myself weak on the muscle side and strong aerobically. To me some of the workouts I do dont quite make sense as I can do a VO2 of 40/20s at 135% FTP but I dont get my heart rate to where it should be. I need to go to longer VO2 intervals to get my heart rate up. I only got my power to that level by slowly over time focusing on intervals that I could repeat without losing form. So early on they were mostly at 115% of FTP. This year things got better but I attribute that to limiting myself to two days of intensity so I just feel fresher for the hard workouts. I like pushing the power up as it does help develop the muscles in my legs.
My trouble with a lot of advice we get is it needs to come from those who are like us or older and have been through it. TRs plans are not designed with us in mind. I have learned a lot over at intervals.icu in the group of us who are over 60. It was there I learned I really needed to drop a day of intensity. Things for me are going a lot better this year.
I think age can play with our mind that we are losing it. We still need that feeling that what we are doing is worthwhile. Learning to have a positive attitude and learning to do what makes you happy is the best approach. I have lived a long time with poor health and developed an attitude of take each day as they come. Nothing happens over night. I am healthy now and attribute that to two surgeries and cycling. I still think the same approach needs to be reflected by us as we age. IF we do all the little things to help us, are consistent our decline should be slower.
Wish you well and dont give up.
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Thanks, Amber. I really am grateful for the work all of you do at TR. Training using TR has been a revelation to me–it showed me that I actually have a decent aerobic system for my age, just no strength at all. Which is definitely not anyone’s problem but mine.
When I hurt my knee on over-unders last year, the sports med doctor sent me to physio and by doing prescribed exercises I have been able to continue but not push. After grappling with this for most of a year I think I am beginning to get used to the idea that cycling has to be secondary–did I mention that being pig-headed with your own body is maybe not the greatest training strategy? At any rate I did do strength training as prescribed and found that if I do that I can’t train cycling at the same time because of the fatigue. It comes down to recovery and sleep. I don’t really know how to deal with those because the correspondence between what I feel and what I can do is no longer linear, more like one of those curves where a small change in input results in a large change in trajectory (if that makes any sense).
Your reply is making me think more about the psychological side of it. It made me self-evaluate about the need to change my attitude, because I am finding that, for me, injury coincides with periods of stress when a lot of stuff is going on and I forget to be mindful of how I am pushing. This seems like it might be important (and I feel like, oh, yeah, duhhh).
I do believe that AT is going to revolutionize training in ways that we have not yet grasped, in part because it is basically a major long term observational study. We just haven’t begun to see it that way yet. Over a 20 year period, if the data stream continues, no-one on the planet will have as much detailed information on such a wide array of people focused on one limited activity. While oriented toward higher level athletes now, the mass of data will always tilt toward the average people at center of the bell curve as more people join the platform. As more people add data the tails will extend to include all possibilities and center on the graph may shift left but the data will become more dense and more revealing about edge cases. You have the most awesome opportunity I think I have ever seen for a data geek. No one else is really in the same space yet, although it looks like the light bulb turned on for the marketing folks over at Zwift.
BTW your reply is why I come to this platform. You guys are so thoughtful and I really am grateful for that. So thanks again.
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Phenomenal response, thanks @ambermalika .
Paraphrasing (accurately, I hope)…
Chad: At some point, with Age on the X-Axis, and Potential on the Y-Axis, the slope turns negative.
Amber: The negative slope may be inevitable, but its magnitude is not, nor is when the curve takes that turn, NOR how we think about it (and ourselves).
I do wonder if adaptive training and plan builder, as they are working now, build in enough recovery for older folks. An empirical question…
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To misquote a playwright
You don’t stop cycling because you grow old, you grow old because you stop cycling.
I will say from my perspective that cycling is such much more than a bunch of numbers. It’s so much more than the physical as it has mental benefits as well. Try and recover the joy you get from cycling. I’ll also add that comparison can be the thief of joy. Whether that is comparison with your younger self or with others.
Some of my most enjoyable rides are with no bike computer, no data, no record other than my memories. Maybe this will make your outdoor rides more enjoyable? Leave the numbers behind on the indoor trainer.
As for muscle loss, the strength work, as above, is the way forward for that.
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100% it’s where I’ll be headed a long way before 70!
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I don’t think so, having listened to the podcast they were all joking around the unhappy realities of aging, and all finding the positives too.
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I honestly felt how coach Chad approached it was fine. He laid out the, as you phrased it “the unhappy realities of aging” and then stated things that could help delay some of the muscle and overall fitness loss due to aging. I say all the time that getting old sucks as I take longer to recover from workouts, old injuries start nagging me again, etc. it is what it is. I’m not happy getting older but I’m trying to do things that will at least keep me a bit fitter while knowing my performance will still take a hit due to aging
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It’s better than the alternative
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Getting younger? 
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Coah Chad and Amber nailed it. It’s that slope that I wonder about. Just to be clear, I don’t wonder at all about the care or accuracy with which Coach Chad states the results of his research. Coach Chad and TR are my trusted resources for pretty much anything training. I’m just not sure that we have all the evidence yet for people my age, because usually in the past a longitudinal study was not easily accomplished and may still present difficulties, as in your subjects die off from other stuff before the experiment is done cause they’re old. One of the things I have realized is that many people my age have varying degrees of metabolic syndrome. This changes averages and skews all sorts of observational findings.
Having had the help and thought from people here I am coming to the conclusion that I am my own experimental group and that I need to be a mindful observer of what happens as I carefully use the tools available for fitness. In the meantime, I just love getting on the bike and huffing up climbs. That is enough to make me feel like I am a very lucky person, all in all.
Thanks for your comment.
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I have an ebike. I use it less than I would like because it weighs 59 pounds with water bottles etc. and I have to lift it up a flight of stairs when I get home. A little irony there I think. Another reason I really need to take up weight training I think 
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I turn 63 this month. I’m in pretty good shape for a 60 plus male. However each year it gets harder to hit times on segments compared to the year prior
I have adjusted my focus quite a bit. I don’t think Santa Cruz or Specialized is going to come calling in need of a mid pack old fart on any team. So races are now more for the fun of the event and time with my buddies vs see how close I can stay with the young ones
I have adjusted my strength training from off season only to twice a week all year to try to hold on to the strength in still have.
Finally, my biggest concern is longevity. I want to be a highly functioning human as long as possible, triple digits I hope. It puts bike riding in a new light.
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Seems you have a workout hauling that bike up the stairs.
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Same here. At this point I just do 20-30 minutes and then add additional core work and push-ups throughout the week.
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Could you share the workout you are able to complete in 30 minutes?
Having recently turned 40, this is on my mind a bit lately.
Despite doing more training than I’ve done since my early 20s, I haven’t improved power scores below 10 minutes for over a year, and FTP improvements are coming very slowly. I’m pretty much stuck at 280w at just over 70kg - agonisingly close to, but not quite at, 4w/kg (unless I do the ramp test, which tells me I’m at 295w, but I know that’s almost exactly 20m power, not FTP).
There are some bright spots: repeatability is better, 4-5 hour rides at z2 leave me much less tired, and I am faster on the road.
But the ‘snap’ is going a bit, and more importantly, I suppose I’m coming to terms with realising I’m close to the inflection point, i.e. the stage where, whatever I do, I won’t get faster.
Psychologically it’s hard in some ways, but I try to remind myself I never took this sport back up to win things, and that I’m immeasurably fitter than I was 5 years ago. And while I do plan to rage against the dying of the light for a little while yet, when it does come, it’s going to be a bit of an excuse to just enjoy riding my bike. Here’s the thinking…
I want to have a really good go at a couple of masters cross seasons, and that will mean 2 more years of pretty structured training. After that, the plan is going to be this: one really hard interval session a week, one long ride, and one solid weights session. Outside those planned things, I’m going to ride where/how I want or have time for based purely on enjoyment. If it’s raining and I don’t fancy zwift, it’ll be a run, or maybe work on my chess. If the AXS callipers on the gravel bike are stuck again (don’t ask), I might go for a hike - or go to the pub.
I don’t know how useful this is - I have a sense I’m rambling - but maybe it strikes a chord with someone.
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Today I just did dumbbell bench press, dumbbell rows, dumbbell squat and shoulder press, kettle bell swing, and kettlebell around the body. That was just a quick 20 minutes before a 1.5 hour endurance trainer ride. I had some shoulder pain a couple weeks ago so I’m still taking it easy.
For me to be consistent, I need to keep it simple. I also will use the site fitnessblender.com where you can selected body focus, equipment, and time to pick a workout. Or I just find something on YouTube.
As long as I’m working hard and hitting all the body parts I’m okay with that.
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