Hi, I was about to choose a HV Polarized build plan, however I went by a MV Polarized build thinking in extending Saturday’s (Threshold) and Sunday’s Endurance with 1 or 2 hours more of easy riding (outdoor). I started yesterday and did the 1h15min of the proposed workout and added 2h more of outdoor riding as i was with my group ride. For today I had a 1h45 min of endurance but a red light was added for today. Should I follow that advice? Would this had happened if I had chosen the HV plan also?
I would follow my body.
I have found that if you do long outdoor rides TR seems to over weigh them. Causes red snd yellow days. There is a slider you can adjust in settings/training approach that effects red/green light.
I found RL/GL very accurate, scarily so. Erring on the side of caution and doing slightly less than you can is better in the long term as consistency is king.
As @TrekCentury mentioned, you can adjust the Training Approach slider to either prioritize recovery or intensity. And +1 for always listening to your body!
Like @OreoCookie said, consistency is key when it comes to training, so we’d recommend erring towards a balanced/conservative approach as well.
I did not know that setting existed. I currently have a coach but like to watch what RLGL thinks. And definitely have noticed after a long endurance ride on Saturday TR is usually at least yellow for Sunday
I know it’s badged as more than just a training stress balance (form/fitness/fatigue) but unless you have a few weeks of data in there, then the system just won’t know what kind of load you can take - regardless of you having selected mid volume rather than high volume. It won’t make the pre-conceived argument that you’re a hero if you pick a high volume plan but not so much a superstar if you pick mid volume.
I’d still train on a red day but if it turned out to feel tougher than it should then I’d probably re-assess what the next days training was like and whether a rest day was a good idea.
I’m always surfing a continuous string of red and yellow days when I go on a biking holiday riding every day but I know my volume will go back to usual when I get home, and I won’t keep digging a hole.
You have a wealth of training history in your TrainerRoad Calendar. AI has used this data to understand how you respond to training. So given the adaptations are specific to you and what we know you respond well to, we recommend accepting the Adaptations in TrainerRoad.
This is why we see this:
[quote=“OreoCookie, post:4, topic:95847"]
I found RL/GL very accurate, scarily so.
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One of the key tenets of getting faster and therefore TrainerRoad Training Plans is Progressive Overload. However, where and when you add that additional volume is important. This is the beauty of having a Training Plan .
If you are capable of handling more volume than the volume that your current Training Plan prescribes, there can be wiggle room for adding more volume. However, your adaptations are based on your training history, and not your training aspirations so you would have seen a Red day after that Workout regardless of the Training Plan you had chosen.
RLGL is designed to prevent Long Term Fatigue. It considers all of the Training you have done (within and outwith your Training Plan) how much training you can productively manage. Yellow and Red days indicate that you are approaching that limit.
I reccomend you stick with the Mid Volume Training Plan for now. Prioritise completing the Scheduled Workouts before adding more volume. Once you are consistently completing the Scheduled Workouts, you could consider increasing your Training Volume if you feel up to it .
Unlike Sven, I have not noticed RL/GL learning anything from my training history. I have been doing a 3-ish hour group ride on Saturdays all year. This ride is outside of my LV plan. Every Sunday, I get a yellow day.
It certainly does: in middle of summer, I was lucky to have enough time during 2 months to do twice a week long-distance 8-12h rides. With 1-2 hard days + 2-3 short very easy days it made 18-30h/weeks. Initially RL/GL turned red after each long ride. In couple weeks it quieted down and gave me yellow warning, and red only after I did back-to-back hard day / long day workouts. Now that month has passed since then, even now hard day, followed by long day gives me only yellow warning.
And just for bragging: went near 11k endurance score in Garmin ecosystem. Don’t know what it means but for a moment felt proud
Do you imagine that a coach would prepare a training plan based on doing a 3-15 workout, which consisted of having a 1-15 Threshold, then 2hr endurance? Does TR have workouts structured like this? What is your subconscious brain, during its deep rest period, supposed to adapt? You wonder why you have a red light!
Such workouts exist. E. g. you can first do a 2-hour endurance ride, which fatigues you and then you do your sweet spot or threshold workout. The purpose is to train to do hard efforts after spending a long time at endurance pace, which is what happens in a lot of road races.
Alternatively, you can ride for, say, 5 hours, and do a 10-minute sweetspot or threshold effort every other.
No, but you could concatenate two workouts. That is IMHO the easiest solution and works well for me. On the trainer, I have done that to tack on 15–30 minutes of endurance work after a hard workout.
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