56 year old long term time triallist here. I’ve been using TR for many years pretty successfully. My FTP hovered between 290 and 300 at around 65kg until Covid (twice) and getting older and now it’s about 280.
At the start of October I started on a high volume base plan and added in some strength work and a weekly Zwift team trial. It was going great. I was feeling stronger each week when I got to the Zwift races. Garmin was reporting Productive and my TSB was pretty much in the middle of the “green zone” of stimulus on Intervals
Then TR launched masters plans. So I thought I’d start the base again using the masters plans as I figure they’re aimed squarely at my demographic. Everything else stayed the same (high volume, strength and Zwift). I’m now in the first recovery week. The actual training weeks were easy but I’ve felt worse in the Zwift races, Garmin has been consistently Unproductive and my TSB is in the “grey zone”. I’ve not had any illness or other disruptions I can think of.
Has anybody else encountered similar? Should I just sit tight and work through base or should I go back to the non masters plans? I’d appreciate any viewpoints on this. Thanks
The whole TSB thing is based on something Joe Friel said that as far as I know as zero basis in science and is simply what he observed in his athletes so take that with a grain of salt
Also Garmin status is also dubious and is notorious for negging and calling things unproductive.
Can’t really speak to the other concerns as we can see what you have scheduled but I wouldn’t use the above as basis for judging any quality of training
My masters plan has 12 hours per week, including a couple of SS/threshold interval sessions. I’m 41, 70kg, with an AI detected FTP of 272 (likely a slight underestimate as I haven’t done much intensity for a few months).
And it’s plenty for me, even with a likely low FTP.
I feel like the intensity level is a bit more yet the overall intensity is less. For me, that’s just fine.
As for the Garmin…it’ll take some time before Garmin adjusts to your new normal. You pretty much dropped one day of hard work from routine. That kind of change takes time for Garmin to adjust to. It should be back to “accurate” readings next month.
Not sure, but it might come down to individual settings for limits on workout days, combined with Progression Levels giving a rider longer workouts than the “default”?
Ditto, other than the age overlap I don’t see a reason stated that the OP would have needed to change plans to Masters. If they were handling the prior non-Masters plans well for loading & recovery, as well as getting suitable results… I’d have stuck with that.
The essence here is cutting intensity days and maximizing recovery. Totally makes sense and overlaps with plenty of “masters age” riders, but certainly not a cure-all. There are plenty of non-Masters age riders that can benefit from these plans as TR covers and has been discussed in the main Masters topic.
Cutting intensity and more likely TSS without a real need to do so seems perfectly set for lower demand and results. Less work = less gains to dumb it down to a silly summary. Not an issue with the plans, just the wrong plan & rider combo in this case from what I see.
(I see that TP has fixed their redundant use of both "Dr " and “Ph.D.”, but they still refer to me as “Dr. Andy Coggan”, a combination I have never used. The rest of the text is all mine, though.
ETA: Except for this part, which I didn’t write:
“The Performance Manager is available in both TrainingPeaks.com as well as TrainingPeaks WKO desktop software.”)
For the record, though, I’m just being pedantic in alluding to academic norms. I routinely sign emails to undergraduate students “Dr. C.” and tell them to call me anything except too late for dinner. (I tell graduate students to call me Andy, since they’re professionals-in-training and already members of the ivory tower “club”.)
Well if I ever have the opportunity to buy you a beer, or whatever libation is appropriate, you can tell me what’s ok. Until then you are Coggan or Dr Coggan (my kids went to a school where everyone was Mr or Mrs, but I’ll drop that formality).
Oh thanks, I stand corrected, I had only ever seen Joe Friel mention it in a blurb online and had never seen any other mention defining tsb “zones” so I had come to have the impression it was based on his own experience
I had a couple of friends who spent a winter training in Tallahassee, FL. The locals kept telling them at group rides, “Just wait until The Vog (Hans Selvog) shows up!” This in turn led my friends to regale the Floridians with tales of “The Cog”. Hence, my handle here. (However, just call me Andy should we ever meet IRL.)
Coincidentally, I later ended up riding for “Ten Speed Drive-Guerciotti-Campagnolo USA-Universal Brakes-Tallahassee Velosport” for a couple of years.*
*Another true story: first race of the 1980 Olympic Trials, they called each rider to the line by name and team…the woman who was announcing read my entry form and said:
“Andy Coggan, from Muncie, Indiana, riding for…oh my God!”
(To her credit, she then proceeded to rattle off all of the sponsors w/o any hesitation.
Does TVS get credit for development of the whole “presented by…” schtick?)
I haven’t looked at the masters plans in detail, but the first thing I noticed about them is that the weekly TSS is lower than the “normal” plans (at least for the plans I looked at). I think reducing the number of intensity days is probably a good idea for a lot of folks, but I’m not sure I agree about further reduction in overall training stress. I guess they didn’t want to add more training time to make up for the intensity. If you are seeing your performance slip, the first thing I’d do is look to see where your training stress is trending. It may not be a fundamental problem with the masters plan structure, just a byproduct of reduction in stress. Even the “normal” high volume plan only calls for around 400TSS per week. I’m 55 with similar power numbers to yours and I need a lot more than 400TSS per week to get in race shape. I’ve actually ramped volume up a bit in my 50’s and power hasn’t dropped off (yet), but I am careful about limiting intensity and intervals (to avoid physical and mental fatigue). I wouldn’t toss out the master’s plan right away, maybe just try to add more Z2 volume to bring up the overall stress.
Not all TSS is built the same, I think people was asking for a reduction in ntensity, since I limited myself to two intense workouts per week, I’ve increased my time on the bike, which has inceased my overall TSS
I think the idea is that you increase your availability, and actually put what in what you can ride, thus increasing your TSS
