This workout appears every thursday in my AT plan for the next 4 weeks, besides the 12 minutes at V02 max, I’m not really seeing the benefit, seem the AT could throw something a bit more diverse and interesting at me. Been a TR user since late 2012 but Im not enjoying AT, I find it kinda boring and repetitive…it throws identical workouts at you all the time.
My plan will occassionally throw the same workout on the calendar within subsequent weeks as well, but i’ve never had an instance where AT didn’t replace it at some point prior to the next time it rolls around. If you are seeing that, maybe it has something to do with the way you are answering your post workout surveys, but I would suggest maybe reaching out to support@trainerroad.com to get their feelings on the matter.
“Because it is there”
- G. Mallory
I’ve not had exactly the same workout repeated, but I have had nothing but Truchas and Eichorn variations for the last three weeks (they’re all basically 20 mins Sweet Spot x2, with minor variations in rest periods and power targets). I just hit Train Now and pick something else when I’m not feeling up to that sort of session.
Honestly I’m just bored with it. I need some variation to keep my interest.
I would contact support - I don’t think it should be serving an identical workout every week, that’s not normal behaviour in AT in my experience. There should be some week-on-week progression in PLs.
It looks like a reasonable workout for now (it’s down as “Productive”) but if you complete it successfully, you would expect the subsequent workouts to have increased PLs (4.8 this time, 5.0 or 5.2 next time etc etc).
Also, you can use the “Alternates” options in the app to choose an alternate workout at the same/similar level if you don’t like the look of it (I do this quite often to choose longer or shorter variants of similar difficulty, or if the workout looks boring like Pettit etc).
They do progress a little each week but its basically the same workout just slightly harder. I guess I am used to more variety in the old plans.
What plan are you on? It’s not Polarised is it?
I’d sub them with Alternates then in any case.
MTB XCO plan.
Ah, now this makes sense. My plan does the same (on any given day (Saturday Threshold Ints, for instance), week to week I get small increases of TIZ/power increase and/or decreases in recovery ints generally).
It’s all about how AT analyzes your previous sessions in a given zone and how you answer those surveys. In my experience, slow progressions are expected behavior within the bounds of AT…
My next 3 productive Saturday Threshold workouts are…
4x9m at 100% w/4m recovery
4x10m at 95-99% w/3m recovery
4x10m at 96-102% w/3m recovery…
Assuming I answer those all as HARD/VERY HARD, I wouldn’t expect them to adapt much, BUT if I have GOOD sessions and answer EASY/MODERATE they would jump more…
I think it was Jonathan on a podcast that said when progression levels were being developed, they realized that they needed additional workouts to fill in the PL gaps. They might have had a VO2 3.1 and 3.4 so needed to create the 3.2 and 3.3 versions.
I assume it’s easier to duplicate an existing working and shorten the rest, increase a % of FTP in a section or other modification than to create a whole new workout that hits a specific PL.
Looking into this for you @craigmanning! I’ll circle back around when I have more info .
Hey @craigmanning!
I just want to be sure that I have the full picture so I have a couple of questions for you:
- It is my understanding that you are saying that the outline of the Workout that you are being prescribed for the next three Thursdays are very similar in structure?
- However, all three Workouts are not named Dollar Law?
The Plan focuses on progressing your ability in each zone. By the way of Progressive Overload, that sometimes comes with very subtle changes to the duration, intensity etc. By gradually increasing the demands of Workouts in this way, specific abilities in a particular zone will improve, reflected by steady increases in your Progression Level. We target certain Workout profiles as it ties in with the specific focus of that particular block or phase of training.
It is useful feedback to know that you find this repetitive. I will raise this with Coach Chad and Coach Jonathan to identify whether varying the Workout profile within a specific zone would impact the specific goals in the periodised Training Plan.
I will circle back when I have more information!
Yes to both questions. Saturdays and sundays are repetitive too.
Do the recovery intervals get shorter, or the intensity of the VO2 intervals increase across the 4 weeks?
A little bit.
Looking at your calendar I see they do look the same on paper. Although aren’t exactly the same, the power targets are higher for each week, this helps your repeatability.
You can also use workout alternates if you don’t like what you see. Sunday sweet spot workouts on the mid volume plan are made to be “ easier” and they recommend swapping for endurance on Sunday, if you read the weekly notes.
If I were you I’d choose a different workout using alternates, no one says you can’t.
I’ve had to do a lot recently, because work has been crazy lately.
From a classic training theory point of view, those are not “vo2max intervals” except if you classify by work interval power on the Coggan 7 zone model. Those could be made to push a higher % of aerobic capacity by shortening the recovery intervals to say 30-seconds, for a 4:1 work:recovery ratio.
Anaerobic endurance workouts include design’s like Dollar Law’s 6x2-min intervals to either maintain, or improve, anaerobic repeatability/stamina (as opposed to raising anaerobic power/capacity). The amount of power for the 2-min work interval should be customized to your power curve rather than be a fixed % unless the goal is simply to keep anaerobic system ‘warm’ (some level of maintenance) and 115% is below what you are capable of, and the real anaerobic repeatability work is off the horizon (a month or two or three away).
That is all classic training theory, so for TR use of that workout you would need to ask TR.
Weird thing happened today, there must be a glitch in the matrix. After commenting that Saturdays & Sundays are repetitive as well to Sara, I opened my career page and there were adaptions pending. I’ve been doing various versions of Daniel over the last few weeks and have it scheduled for the next three sundays. My sunday workouts changed to something different, although it still has me doing Daniel this sunday. Weird to have adaptions pending in the middle of the day when I hadnt uploaded anything in the last 24 hours. Its like Nate hit the “refresh” button on my profile.