Today I started a 16 week Sprint Triathlon Training Plan that I used last year to complete my first triathlon. The bike workouts in this plan, I completed, by importing them into TrainerRoad and using my indoor trainer. I liked the plan but wanted to push my stress a bit and am looking to substitute similar TrainerRoad workouts for the endurance and speed workouts used in that plan. If I match the TSS result in a similar timed workout with the same intensity is that acceptable or do I need to look for more a direct interval connection? I haven’t found exact matches. Thoughts or comments?
What is your goal in substituting these workouts? You say you want to push your stress a bit, but I’m not sure if you mean you want to increase weekly TSS or do higher intensity workouts, etc?
To put it bluntly, finding a workout with similar TSS, duration, and intensity is not going to cut it. The intervals in each workout, along with the very specific progression in the training plans themselves, are all purpose-built to foster the most training adaptation in the most effective way possible. If you start substituting all the workouts in the plan, you won’t get the training benefit that we’ve worked so hard to develop with the training plans.
That said, if you’re wanting an increase in weekly TSS and have more time available to train, check out the higher volume options of the Sprint Tri plan. These will have longer workouts and more of them each week. If you want to accumulate more TSS, you can add low-effort rides like Pettit and Taku to keep your legs moving on recovery days. Lastly, if a workout doesn’t seem hard enough for you, you can check out the “workout variations” and find a +1, +2, +3 etc version of the same workout. These will generally be longer and a bit more difficult to get through than the original version.
Hope this helps!
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Larry
The training plan that I am following is by Phil Moseley, not TrainerRoad. Last year in preparing for my triathlon I used that plan and I took the indoor biking workouts from the Training Peaks workout builder and imported them to TrainerRoads to use that app with my indoor trainer. I liked the plan as I felt very prepared for my event on race day and want to use it again, however, the base portion of this plan starts with rides of 20-30 minutes with some descending intervals and I’ve been exercising for almost 9 months and would like to push my base workouts to riding at 30-45 minutes. The workouts are described as either endurance or tempo rides and I was thinking I could just use a comparable TrainerRoad workout that came from a similar category of endurance, tempo, VO2max and using a similar TSS and the same intensity as the prescribed workout. My thoughts were, I like the TrainerRoad workouts with pedal training, and the commentary of the thought process of what the workout was trying to accomplish during the ride. TrainerRoad workouts are longer in length and I feel that this increase will better match my current physical capacities. I’m not trying to change any of the TrainerRoad training plans, or substitute any other workouts for those prescribed there. Just a way I can bring a different approach to a tried plan.
So I guess my more accurate question is can workouts be exchanged if the TSS, intensity, and type of workout match?
Thanks for the response
Clair Stewart
I would take workouts from the sprint triathlon plan in order to increase the tss to the value you’re looking for while keeping the stress/wkos tri-focused.
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+1 to this. It’s really easy to follow the bike workouts from a TR plan and simply do you own run/swim stuff from another plan or coach
Ah, thank you so much for clearing that up, Clair!
To answer your more accurate question, you can absolutely switch out workouts as long as the TSS, intensity, and type of workout are similar. This is a great way to gain more TSS during those endurance/tempo rides, and you shouldn’t have any problem doing this. I’m glad you like the in-ride workout text, it helps a lot of us pass the time faster and with a bit more motivation 