Hi everyone, so last year was my first training year and I jumped right into mid volume which was a mistake I soon realized. I switched to low volume and added an easy workout on Wednesdays and sundays to get mid volume at a lower intensity and weekly TSS
This year my plan is the same, something between Low and Mid Volume. However, not sure if I should do what i did last year, or instead enroll in mid volume and then substitute the sunday workout with something like Perkins -1 (which was my sunday ride last year)
I notice that the workouts are different between the low and mid volume plan even on the same days. Low volume seems to focus on sweet spot whereas mid volume tends to have more thresholdy stuff (McAdie, Tunemah, etc.).
Basically I’m not sure if I’ll be better off doing low volume as prescribed and then adding an easier ride wednesday and sunday, or doing mid volume and cutting out the bigger sweet spot ride from sunday to replace with an easier ride
Depending on how much time you have, adding in endurance sessions to the LV plan is a great option. Being more time constrained, you might just do MV. The only difference is that MV has a long (2-hr, usually) SS session on the weekend where the LV + addition should have a longer endurance session to be equivalent. In my case, the 2-hour SS sessions have been key. When I wasn’t nailing those, I wasn’t performing as well. When I got those nailed down (doing MV), I took off. So I’d let my time constraint make the call, but IMO you need to do one or the other (long endurance sessions or 2-hr SS).
I was just worried I’d miss out on the McAdie type rides that could help me with intensity but I guess there’s more of those to come in the build phase. I planned on doing General build. Really wish I had enough gas to hang with the mid volume plan this year but I’m worried about blowing up a few weeks in and having to backtrack.
I had the time to commit to mid volume but did not have the strength, then again that was last year. Not sure if I could keep up with the plan now either, but i basically made Perkins -1 my sunday ride LY since it was easy enough to complete but still long enough to make me do some work.
Definitely understandable. I struggled in SSB1 and 2MV earlier with the threshold-SS weekends, but eventually got strong enough where now I do them without much issue and consider that back-to-back fundamental to addressing my muscular endurance limiter.
I recall on a podcast some time ago that Nate and/or Chad said one common thread among the users with FTPs of 4.0W/kg or higher is that they have a higher compliance rate with the 2-hour SS sessions, in that they do them regularly whereas others do not. I can definitely tell a difference since I started nailing those regularly in June.
I’m planning on doing SSB1 and 2 MV, but spreading the workouts out so that I have one to 2 endurance sessions/week, coupled with a rest week every three weeks. It will spread it out, but I think by doing this way I should be able to handle it at age 65.