I’ve been struggling a little with red-light-green-light (name?) for a while. I wanted to give it a few months to see if it just needs to adapt to my training or what’s going on. I’m following the standard low-volume plan (3 rides pr. weeks) typically with one additional ‘free ride’ added in. A ‘free ride’ for me is sometimes Z2, and at other times it’s whatever fills my cup, such as a ride with friend or just an mtb ride.
I’ve had adaptive training set to the most aggresive position since the option was introduced, because I find that pretty much anything over 90 minutes, or anything above Z2 will cause a red day otherwise.
Last week and the week before i’ve had 3 yellow days both weeks. If i look at something like the classic TSB chart, I am completely fresh (Intervals.icu has me at -4, Trainingpeaks has me at +2 and Strava has me at +6) even though I am at the end of a training block and going into a rest week. Physically I feel fresh going in to my rest week. My training volume has been quite consistent this year, with almost all weeks ranging between 5-8 hours pr. week.
I have three hard rides pr. week, but I feel like the system converts one of those rides to easy days most weeks, whichs keeps me from getting the progressive overload needed to make progression.
My fitness has been unchanged around 3,1-3,2 w/kg since april, and I feel like i’m going through the same workouts week after week.
Except for July, i’ve been following a low volume plan (either base-phase or plan builder) since december.
I have considered adding more volume through longer rides, but i’m worried that more volume will cause even more yellow/red days and therefore less days with intensity.
From a coaching standpoint, i fully agree about your points about rest, nutrition and recovery, but in terms of adaptive training in TR, the system doesn’t have any knowledge about this, so I would hope it’s assuming that i’m checking the boxes, especially considering that my settings are set to “Agressive”?
You’re fitness has plateaued since April, you know yourself that you need to change something. The first thing I’d ask myself if why haven’t I changed something?
I hit a plateau myself a couple of years ago, I mixed things up by swapping 3x intense sessions (around 0.85 IF under an hour) for more volume by doing mostly sessions under 0.75 IF. Because of the lower intensity I needed less recovery time and could put in more hours in total and more TSS in total, I gained 0.25w/kg in 3months.
When we see yellow/red days popping up, that typically means that there’s been an increase in volume/intensity that’s occurred too.
Looking at your TR Calendar, you actually don’t have too many red days – and those that are there seem to fall after big days out on the bike, which we’d expect to see.
Honestly, it doesn’t look like you have too many yellow days, either – and many of your yellow days seem to fall on rest days anyhow.
To me, that means your training has been solid and consistent!
If you feel like you’re stagnating, remember that RLGL is there to guide you and that you can ultimately choose whether or not to accept proposed adaptations. We generally recommend adhering to RLGL/AT’s advice – but if, for example, you had a yellow day come up on one of your interval days and you had a scheduled rest day the day after, it probably wouldn’t hurt to bang the session out if you’re feeling motivated to do it and you know you have the extra rest coming up.
If you’re looking to increase volume/intensity over time, make sure to do it slowly and gradually. Most of your rides seem to be about 1-2 hours, so it makes sense that some yellow/red days might pop up after several days of 2-hour rides in a row or after a longer/more intense ride compared to what you usually do.
This article has some more tips that might be useful if you’re looking to increase your weekly training hours:
Thank you for the detailed answer. I will try to ignore RLGL more moving forward and skip adaptions when they suggest reducing intensity.
Honestly, it doesn’t look like you have too many yellow days, either – and many of your yellow days seem to fall on rest days anyhow.
I would respectfully disagree here. Last week was a 257 TSS week for me and I had 3 yellow days. The week before was also 3 yellow days in a 437 TSS week. For most of this year my 6week average has been around 400-450 TSS/week.
Considering I am on the most aggressive setting this seems like a lot of yellow for weeks that have not been particularly hard by any measure. There is no increase in my volume or intensity.
I agree in your statement about red days - they generally only come around when i’m pushing it.
The reason yellow days tend to fall on rest days is that I move the scheduled workout to accomodate for yellow days.
Think less in terms of total/weekly TSS when looking at why yellow/red days come up on your TR Calendar – consider instead how your TSS accumulates and how quickly it ramps up over the course of each week and even day-to-day.
For example, while last week was “only” 257 TSS, you got 2 of your 3 yellow days following a block of 4 activities in a row from the previous week:
From those 3 rides on the 19th, 20th, and 22nd, you totaled 388 TSS – which doesn’t include the added stress from the hike. That’s a lot of training stress to induce over 4 days with no rest, so it makes sense to me that you might see some yellow days appear in instances like that.
That final yellow day on the 29th comes on the 5th straight day of training as well – so again, it would make sense to me to see that come up.
This isn’t necessarily bad, either – just trying to help clarify why you’re seeing those yellow days on your TR Calendar. Yellow days that fall on days off or recovery days can even be a sign of good training – it can mean that you’re pushing yourself appropriately through your tougher sessions and then getting some rest/recovery right when you really need it.
I would respectfully disagree here.
Apologies, I didn’t mean to come off as dismissive toward the number of yellow days you were seeing either – I’ve just checked out a lot of athletes’ Calendars over time and I’ve seen a few that have many many more yellow/red days than you do!
Sounds like you have a good plan moving forward here. Be extra mindful of how you are feeling and recovering if you do push up the volume/intensity as you continue through your plan. If you’re feeling fatigued or in need of some extra rest, it’s usually best to err on the side of caution and take some recovery time when needed.
I’ve not necessarily seen this to be the case. In my 70.3 LV plan, my long Sunday runs were nixed for yellow days after EVERY Saturday ride. These were rides where I hit prescribed numbers (in most cases without too much discomfort). This persisted as my fitness improved to the point I started ignoring. I guess my question is if a prescribed workout (that isn’t rated very hard or higher) is completed, then why does the system feel the need to change the next day. Why not just alter the RLGL stimulus workout to something that allows for continued training instead of a recovery day? It also seems to give EXCLUSIVE privilege to the bike portion. I’ve yet to have it suggest a recovery bike day. Only runs and swims have been suggested alterations.
