I was just remembering an old podcast where coach Chad discussed an upcoming feature where TR would offer “training camps”, a week or two of high intensity training intended to be used before some time off.
It sounded like a decent amount of time had been put in before it was eventually shelved, but I’m now curious if there were other nearly there features that ended up abandoned for one reason or another.
Anyone remember anything else like that that got mentioned on the podcast? Or any TrainerRoad inside info out there?
Masters Age Plans were teased a time or two on the cast. Comments here over the last year or so have said they are headed in a new direction for that issue.
I’m looking forward to seeing where they go with this. I’m intrigued by what might be possible with Plan Builder. Plus whatever else they have on the roadmap.
That would be interesting. I’m building my own. MV SSB1 2 weeks, then an easy week with 3 Seiler zone 1 rides, Repeat. Extends SSB to 8 wks, will continue the same going forward if it seems to work out.
in my limited experience, that may be called “veteran” age, but it’s all labels anyway.
The shift to short work cycles between recovery weeks may be appropriate for people of any age, really. Especially if they are having issues with the stress in the later weeks of the work segment.
I think it’s common for us aging riders to need it, but it sure isn’t just us that can benefit.
And overall, I am impressed anytime I hear older riders like you still training like this. Gives me reassurance that I can keep on this track if I choose to for the years to come
I raced into my mid 50’s, but developed a stress-related illness that threatened to end my career. Quit riding altogether. Just started again upon retirement. I’m not planning to race, but I’d like to get to 3 w/kg. I’m doing a cross-country ride this summer
I would have loved to see this, especially now with outside workouts I could TR with me when I go somewhere warm for a week in the spring and raise training volume
My feeling is that TR at some point realised that continuing to provide ‘training plans’ isn’t the future. While it likely wouldn’t be hard to upload a ‘stretched out’ version of a plan with more rest, or a condensed ‘training camp’ version with less rest, it would never be enough. Each new plan seems to spawn a dozen or more requests for another special case plan. It would also continue to increase confusion, ‘which plan is best’ and ‘what do I do now’.
I think instead they are working on some sort of approach that will build an individualised plan for everybody. It might work a bit like plan builder, but incorporating the extra features that have already been asked for - extra rest, add holidays, restrict weekday training times, etc. However the recent plan builder launch showed how difficult this is in detail, there were way more inconsistencies and bugs than you’d expect.
The problem is, what they’d need to do IMO is to abandon the existing plans and re-classify the existing workouts. The other half of the problem is to figure out which progression of workouts will lead to which training effect (if it isn’t the current plans), or to develop some sort of feedback loop, but that would mean to significantly enhance the analysis functionality.
I would love to hear what @Nate_Pearson and @chad in their wildest dreams thought TR might possibly evolve into. As technology has evolved, possibilities change. Did they ever imagine the possibility of having such a ride database to create that tech?
I love the OPs question of what was abandoned as things have evolved.
Camps and master stuff are not dead! They are both just super complex. We want to make sure we don’t make things worse in your training with them.
It would be easy just to put 7 workouts together and call it a camp…but it’s more complex than that. Same for master’s plans. I’d call it more “I recovery differently than the bell curve” plan. That’s also complex but we’re building towards it.
I have a 5 year road map for TR that I update every quarter or so and we are achieving all of my wildest dreams . Most of the “wild” stuff is still behind closed doors though.
I hope there is also some “I have no clue about my best recovery strategy” plan behind your closed doors (maybe that would fit into the adaptive plan bucket ) .
I’m trying to reflect on my training permanently but honestly nailing the recovery phase for best adaptation is so hard (sometimes I feel I match into the bell curve, sometimes not. And often it feels like my body is playing tricks on me ).
Interesting! I just assumed we could declare camps dead since it has been years since we last heard tell of it.
I agree that recovery could easily be a second dimension of an intensity/recovery problem for generating more customized plans and it makes for an interesting and complicated problem to solve.
in my limited experience, that may be called “veteran” age, but it’s all labels anyway.
. Most of the “wild” stuff is still behind closed doors though.
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