Agree in general however the term “compliance” is somewhat confusing because it applies to several different ideas. For example complying with the power targets and interval format. Which leads to thinking of workouts in a plan. And comparing one plan to another plan. From another thread:
Which goes back to my point of riding your bike. And why I prefer to think of consistently riding 3-5 days per work. Miss a workout? Add some time to the weekend workout to preserve volume targets.
More emphasis on riding and less importance on the workout. And I believe the explanation of why TR made the plans “easier” in 2021 - to increase consistency. Because riding more is a better driver of gains than the specific workouts.
Volume then becomes a discussion on riding consistently and more frequently, with year over year volume increases driving gains. Basic endurance training principles.
I tend to view compliance as “meeting the intent of the workout.” So if I prescribe 2x20 at FTP and a rider decides they are fatigued and instead they do 2x20 sweet spot, I would call that compliant in that my intent was probably a maintenance session.
I prescribe a lot of 2 or 3 x XX or 5-7 x XX these days with some of my more experienced riders where they can adjust on the fly based on how they feel they r time constraints sometimes. If we are pushing progression I’ll give more direction. My midweek rides are also 1-2, 1-3, or 2-3 hr endurance rides, e.g.
The problem with compliance in this individual’s case is twofold in my opinion:
They weren’t completing many of the interval sets successfully.
They were on a plan that SHOULD be driving a much higher volume of endurance riding in order to be effective, but it wasn’t. (A “polarized” plan on 3.5hrs per week).
In one case, you have an athlete not meeting the intent of workouts; in the other you have a plan that doesn’t meet the intent of “polarized” training by design.
The latter is TRs fault for even having that plan in the first place. The former is something the athlete probably needs to work on from what I saw in their history.
Yesterday I had programmed 7x3 VO2s for myself in the midst of a four workout block that is intended to just jump start things before a block of endurance. I didn’t feel great, but ended up getting 3x3 done. I’m not pushing a VO2max progression, and so I considered that I met the intent of that workout even though I wasn’t strictly compliant.
This showed me what I wish trainer road did. How bad my outside workouts where in a comprensive way.
Because when I started going outside It showed 50% of the interval or so was around the intended zone, and then 20% in each of the other zones. I thought to myself that was good enough at least for now. I kept during all these outside rides trying to work on getting in the correct power target but it seems it wasn’t as good as I expected.
Sorry for maybe being blunt, but I highly doubt that your lack of progress in terms of FTP is due to compliance on a workout level. I really think it is due to lack of volume, consistency and frequency.
What does intervals.icu say is your CTL (they call it fitness)? Also you can add custom charts to their /fitness and /compare pages. If your training is working, you can see improvements on a month by month basis (and not just in terms of FTP. For example, here is my power vs. heart rate this season compared to last:
As you can see, the line is shifted down and/or to the right, indicating that I’m pushing the various wattage points at a much lower heart rate than last year.
Or here’s my efficiency factor over the last few months (using a 3-week moving avg to smooth out the data):
Clearly showing I’ve been slowly upping the volume and then recovering every few weeks. All outside in pancake country (Netherlands), so my intervals are very far from what they’d be in ERG mode. Body doesn’t care.
Okay, low volume could make sense. Compliance, as in doing all the workouts prescribed I don’t agree.
I missed 1 week of workouts on vacation. And then the only non-rest week workouts I missed was 1 where I cut it short and immediately compensated with longer workout next day.
What I don’t understand from the graph is that should have a I rested more after my peak at AGR? Because the fatigue was quite higher since then, which makes the same workout volume as before to not fall under the green zone. I’m reading it the other away around. So more stimulus, wondering If I should have done a AI FTP detention then so at least I would be prescribed more intense workouts.
Yeah, my main gripe is probably with the plan itself. If you’re riding only 3 days per week then those rides better be (really) hard. Looking at your CTL graph it looks like there’s not much progression in terms of volume at all, so personally I wouldn’t be surprised or discouraged that your FTP barely moved. So basically, good news!
If I set up a 2x20 at threshold (example), I want to see a majority of my time in Zone 4, and a little bit in Zone 5 and a little bit in Zone 3.
An example of a common power layout for a 2x20 threshold set might be:
31 min Zone 4
3 min Zone 5
6 min Zone 3
Something like that. On the trainer, you can get it pretty close to bang on. On the road, it depends on a number of factors (wind, hills, etc.).
Here’s my 1 hour VO2max workout yesterday. When I have somewhat discreet power targets this is kind of what I look for. Is the BULK of the time spent in the proper zone, with some above and some below? Perfect. Sweet spot is a little tricky because you’ll probably see close to half in Z3 and half in Z4. It just depends on the workout.
This is it. With some of the workouts that are out there created by whomever on Zwift (and some of TRs too) there’s no sense in some of them. I think if they had a “purpose” statement it would be, “Do some stuff that feels hard.”
It’s been mentioned that, at least with many Zwift workouts, part of the reason for some having a variety of intervals with different intensities is just to keep it interesting for users riding indoors. Some of those zwift workouts have a crazy number of intervsls targeting all zones.
I would definitely say for many Zwift users who’s goal may be just staying fit the “do some stuff that feels hard” probably works okay.
Or for almost anyone, really - it’s basically the classic “race your way into shape” approach (or Hunter Allen’s “kitchen sink” sessions). The downside is that it makes it more challenging to apply principles like overload and specificity.
I will say this: once I got a power meter, my training became a lot simpler. I would really only do one of seven different things:
Recovery rides
Endurance workouts
Fartlek sessions (simulating a solo breakaway over rolling terrain)
I definitely know people who prefer the race yourself into shape method. They have little interest in structure. They just go out when they can and ride hard.
@tuxedotrainer just do 3 sessions per week on the trainer, not outdoors, in erg mode. If you fail a workout, let trainerroad do its thing and accept the adaptions. I guarantee you you’ll see improvement.
If you want to do outside workouts, find a good canal or dike in your case where you can ride uninterupted almost all of the time.
Don’t go to the Utrechtse Heuvelrug in your case. It’s to busy with traffic lights, roundabouts, other people on the road. Only go there for hill repeats or something. Find a piece of het Amsterdam Rijnkanaal or de Lek. Do you SS, threshholds intervals and when you are done Z2 back to Utrecht.
This way you can have quality workouts and still enjoy outside riding. I do this exact same thing in the Netherlands as well (Apeldoorn area) and I’ve seen great progress with a LV SS plan. And I only increased the volume when I trained for specific events.
