"Ignorance is Bliss" unconventional approach + supplementation of Trainer Road

[Tactical.Gambit]

“I find myself to be in disagreement with the Trainer Road plans (Sustained power - High Volume)”
1, Before generating the plan (after the Ramp test) i had used TSS as my weekly target to guide how much vollume/intensity i wanted as my weekly goal [~900 TSS]
1.1 CTL/Fitness score was my guidance telling me if i was making improvements (i.e. Aimed to keep my CTL the same) [~128 CTL/Fitness]

Fast forward to my setup of the Trainer Road High Volume (Sustained Power Plan) i could see the projected TSS was around 500TSS.
I know this isn’t necessary bad, But for me this felt Counter Productive as each session that was perscribed to me was between 1.0-3.0 Recovery>Productive) I’ve promptly switched out all the session to “Stretch” variations (Successfully completed with between Easy/Moderate perceived exertion).

My question is, has anyone come into Trainer Raod already acclimated high TSS weeks and how were you able to leverage the TR platform to make you faster?
(I find myself perscribing my own “next” workout each day at this point as i feel that despite TR having my entire training history - it doesn’t quite understand me well enough yet)

FTP: 300
Weight: 76kg

[rhine]

If you rate every workout easy or moderate, your FTP isn’t set high enough, no?

[Tactical.Gambit]

I hear you… I did update my FTP (2 days after the Ramp Test on TR)
But this doesn’t account for the “feature” of TR to automatically assign Recovery, Achieveable & Productive level workouts in my calendar when it first generates me a plan.

Without realising it…

1. I did manually update my FTP despite completing my ramp test a few days prior (maybe i don’t test well?)
2. I did manually change the scale of each suggested workout to increase the TSS to reflect what i would usually do on other platforms

[TexanDad]

Similar FTP, I ride 10-12 hrs a week, intervals on Monday and Wed, Endurance for the rest. A week of Stretch workouts would ruin my legs for days if not weeks, something seems off.

[Tactical.Gambit]

I usually have to clock 15hours to maintain my TSS/CTL
Structured plans is something new to me.
-I’ve come to TR because I feel “deliberate training” is what I now in terms of stimulus.

“Ignorance is bliss”
Just to add a-bit of context, I had approached cycling with the mindset of “if someone with a similar body composition as me could do something, then I can do it as well”

I dropped powerlifting for cycling 7months prior

• Why this tangent might be insightful is that when I loaded my by Strava history to TR “Red Light / Green Light” had my entire month of March in Orange with a couple Red days

[ivegotabike]

However you cut it, you are coming into TR at a decent level

3.95w/kg, 900 TSS/wk, 15h/wk

As you have only been cycling for 7 months, they are great stats. Well done.

You are right that there is room to continue to improve. You can be sure that there are cyclists (including cyclists who do fewer hours and lower TSS) who have a higher w/kg / a faster sprint / a longer TTE / a higher VO2max etc… Also, to be at the sharp end of some events, 7 months would be regarded by many as only long enough to finish part of the necessary training plan.

Here are some things to perhaps consider

• What are you training for? Specific events / types of event? Higher watts? Longer TTE? Higher w/kg? Something else?

• What other platforms have you used before? How did you set your FTP on those platforms? Can you post an example week from your pre TR days and a recent week of your self selected TR workouts?

• Are you just riding indoors, or are there are outdoor rides in the mix too?

• Have you uploaded your history into something like intervals.icu / WKO5 and looked at it that way? As an example, intervals.icu will show you how you compare to others (in your age group) in terms of power at different durations - you might see something you specifically want to work on.

• My suggestion - not that I am qualified to suggest really - is that if you can consistently find 15h / week to train, then continuing to use all those hours, rather than, say, looking to achieve 900 TSS in fewer hours, will produce better long term results.

[TheHunted]

@rhine

If you rate every workout easy or moderate, your FTP isn’t set high enough, no?

Or the workouts are easy for the OP ? Progression levels not caught up / workout to short ?

[Tactical.Gambit]

!!! “Progression Levels not caught up” is the theory i went with:
previous self selected SS workout:

Following that successful workout, i tried a breakthrough VO2 Max:

[Tactical.Gambit]

• What are you training for? Specific events / types of event? Higher watts? Longer TTE? Higher w/kg? Something else?

I would like to raise my floor (I want to be a “Diesel”, Always enjoyed climbing - there is also a non-zero chance that i will do the Le Col 8848 Everest challenge towards the end of this month)

• What other platforms have you used before? How did you set your FTP on those platforms? Can you post an example week from your pre TR days and a recent week of your self selected TR workouts?

Zwift & Intervals.icu both have me with and eFTP at around 296/300
Below is the Lactate Shuttle failed workout i would push on Zwift up Alpe Du Zwift

• Are you just riding indoors, or are there are outdoor rides in the mix too?

Indoors + 25KM Commute (each way) to work twice a week

• Have you uploaded your history into something like intervals.icu / WKO5 and looked at it that way? As an example, intervals.icu will show you how you compare to others (in your age group) in terms of power at different durations - you might see something you specifically want to work on.

My Chart from intervals.icu

• My suggestion - not that I am qualified to suggest really - is that if you can consistently find 15h / week to train, then continuing to use all those hours, rather than, say, looking to achieve 900 TSS in fewer hours, will produce better long term results.

Thanks appreciate your advice

[ZackeryWeimer]

Hey there and welcome to the TR community!

I think you’re on the right track here with your line of thinking that your Progression Levels weren’t yet caught up with the level of fitness you were bringing into your TR plan.

The good news is that Adaptive Training will now see what kinds of workouts you’re capable of completing and adjust your Progression Levels accordingly. From this point on, you’ll start to get recommendations based on those higher-level workouts you just completed.

If you’re still looking for some extra volume/TSS, you can look into adjusting your TR plan’s custom workout duration. That should help bump you up closer to the 15hr/week mark you were hitting before.

Hope this helps – feel free to let me know if you have any additional questions about adjusting your training plan!

[ivegotabike]

Good stuff.

Keep in mind I have no qualification to be advising anyone really, but I’ve done indoor and outdoor everesting rides and I don’t mind throwing in my 2 cents worth.

If you want to be a diesel and prepare towards an everesting ride in a few weeks time, my initial thoughts are that the rides / data you have posted don’t make me automatically think “that’s an everesting training plan in action.”

On intervals.icu, how does your chart look for 90m, 2h, 3h and 4h?

I have no doubt you can do an everesting at the end of this month, but I also know that pushing out time to exhaustion and building endurance are good training objectives for everesting rides. Doing that with 1 hour sweetspot and 6x2’ VO2 workouts would need multiple workouts per day (Maybe you are dong that? There is certainly time to, with 15h / week available).

Whilst there isn’t a lot of this month left to move the needle much on those things, with 15 hours / week to play with, you have the opportunity to at least do multiple 2 hour plus workouts per week. They are the rides that, imo, will move you towards your stated objective.

If I was to train for another everesting, here is how I would use ~15h per week. I would primarily keep building consistent tempo / sweetspot volume to push out the time to exhaustion and drag up the floor and let TR AI take care of the FTP setting.

1 x 4h ride per week (I’d do that outdoors personally) with indoor rides along the lines of Gammon and Polar Bear +1, along with something like Dorr+5 once a week to keep the top end touched, making up the rest of the hours.

I would do two workouts in a day a once per week to get more used to being on the bike for longer periods of time.

I would stick with the principle that consistency is king and if I found that this session was too hard for me to do the next one properly, I would dial back the intensity or frequency accordingly. Against some conventions, I would rather ride every day than take a rest day when training primarily at these intensity levels.

Maybe take a look at the sweet spot progression thread on this forum for more on TTE and similar training and its benefits.

Also, I would be as certain as I could be that I had my position on the bike as close to perfect as I could get it. There is nothing like a mostly seated long ride that gets you really close to the limit to magnify the slightest bit of discomfort from, say, too long a stem or a cleat that isn’t quite perfectly aligned (ask me how I know about that one!).