Hi, I purchased a Fenix 7x in Dec 22. I’ve been following the recommended workouts religiously for the past 107ish days.
Any feedback would be appreciated. I feel my progress is slow, compared to the mid vol SS plans I did in 2020, but those burnt me out and I didn’t train for nearly 2 years.
Currently I’m more consistent than I can remember and look forward to my daily suggestion. I think if I ever slept well it would push me harder.
A few of my ride titles are misleading, I sometimes used an existing workout but stuck to the Garmin recommended times throughout.
I failed miserably on my only recommended sprint workout. I’ve never been able to sprint, no point at my weight anyway!
I would like to continue to improve but don’t think I’ll return to the heady days of 3.6w/kg
My FTP is currently 268, 2.3w/kg. It is my Garmin estimate.
FWIW I got faster by switching to an approach with more hours/week, more consistency, and less progression. Don’t have a TR account so can’t see and comment, but will toss that out.
Failed a sprint workout? The ones I do you are suppose to fail LOL (not kidding). I think sprinters are born, my ftp is around 270-280W and 2.8W/kg. No matter my FTP, even when untrained, and with only 7 years cycling and at sixty-one I can pop out 1000-1200W for 5-sec. Training pushes out the amount of time I can hold power, but my sprint power falls fast. I never spent time in the gym doing squats or deadlifts or anything. Have been a desk jockey my entire adult life.
It looks like you’re getting a lot of consistent saddle time which is great. I think it depends on what your objectives are to provide any recommendations. I also have the Garmin Fenix7x and the daily recommended workouts on there are kind of just a basic fitness suggestion, no reason that following them won’t be good for your health but they’re also not objective based or purpose driven at all. About all you can expect from doing hours of endurance rides is to have good endurance but not significant increases in FTP. I’m not sure how you’re selecting which TR workouts to do but the Sprint one for example that you selected is a very high level and not appropriate for your first Sprint workout. It does look like you’ve done a few sweet spot workouts recently and were riding over your estimated FTP for the duration of those so your FTP probably needs adjustment.
I guess if your objective is to increase your FTP faster my suggestion would be to do a Ramp Test on TR to get your actual FTP for training purposes and then make sure you’re getting in 2-3 rides a week that are Sweet Spot based with the intention to increase your FTP. If you just want to have good fitness and enjoy doing the longer easy rides then just keep doing what you’re doing and work on your sleep and nutrition.
I had a threshold bike in plan yesterday but felt knackered. Checked my “trainnow” options on my fenix for bike and run, and both were “Rest”. So I took a rest instead
I havent gone through your last 100 days of workouts, but I suspect you will be lacking progressive overload which is a key principle for performance training.
I followed bike and run suggested workouts on my fenix 6 for several month last year over the winter leading into sprint and Olympic triathlons (won my age group in one and 3rd in the other).
My opinion, the Garmin suggested workouts are good enough for most of us. We are not pushing to be world champions. Consistency is better than the “perfect” plan. They provided me with plenty of stimulus and kept me from over training.
I upgraded to a 840 Head Unit just now and can access Garmins Trainings now as well. A Question to the OP and others: Have you set an “objective” in the Garmin Connect Website? Garmin then gives you a structured plan over multiple phases with a base, build and “maximum performance” phases. I’m just toying with it right now and contemplating trying it for a few months. (As my first A Event of the year is just behind me and the next is in october).
I say go for it! I view my training as an experiment of one. Sometimes I find stuff that works, sometimes I don’t respond. I mostly focus on consistency.
