For the foreseeable future, we’re using data to make incremental improvements to our training plans.
We’ve got the data!
We’ve got year and years of high quality, accurate data on how our users’ complete TrainerRoad workouts. We know their age, their watt/kg, how often they’re training, their history and where they are in a plan.
I’m talking about millions and millions of workouts.
We’ve leveraged some of this data and built an internal system to categorize workouts in the following categories:
- Completed Successfully
- Completed, but not totally compliant
- Failed
We’ve then developed a “Compliance Rate” metric. If you’re in group 1 or 2, we say you’re compliant.
Hard workouts should be hard
In general, our theory is that hard workouts are hard, and they shouldn’t have the same compliance rate as something like Pettit which is aerobic riding for 60 minutes. That being said, there’s also a minimum compliance rate that we’d like to hit.
We have found that some workouts in plans have a lower compliance rate that we’d like.
Sometimes these are because the workout is too soon after a Ramp Test. Other times small tweaks (like increasing RBI from 2 minutes to 2 minutes and 30 seconds) reduces the failure rate by half and doesn’t change the nature of the workout.
With this data in hand, Coach Chad is making small tweaks to our plans.
Plan TSS changes
One thing to note is that TSS could change when we make these tweaks. Some people are OBSESSED with TSS, and if they don’t have an exact point load per week, they will freak. TSS is helpful, but it isn’t everything. We can get the adaptions we want and make you faster even if TSS isn’t a perfect point step.
Timeline for updates
We’ve already updated:
- Sweet Spot Base I/II Mid and Low Volumes
- Plan Improvements: Short, General, and Sustained Build!.
- Plan Improvements: Rolling Road Race - Low, Mid, and High
- Plan Improvements: Climbing Road Race - Low, Mid, and High
Next up are our road plans. We’ll continue this process for (hopefully) ever. As we get more and more data, we’ll make smaller and smaller changes and customize it more for each individual.
What if I’m currently on a plan?
If you’re currently in a plan, there’s no need to switch your workouts with our new ones, but you are welcome to do that if you want. Think of these as 2-5% plan improvements rather than the new revolutionary plan.
If you want to be aware of updates, please watch this thread and the forum. We’ll post when we make updates.
What’s your exact process for taking into account a failed workout?
We won’t be sharing our exact process to figure this out. It was challenging to develop, and we view it as a competitive advantage.
I can tell you that we’ve thought about people ending workouts because they are busy, equipment failures, skipping just one interval, etc.
If you have any other questions about the process, let me know!
. But even if you skip a few intervals, (as it looks like most people do) it’s still a highly productive workout.
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