As others have commented on the recovery RIDE thread, I don’t wholly trust TR’s approach to recovery weeks. It seems like there is just too much recovery/detraining in them. I also question there not being any intensity in their recovery weeks. I’m used to having one intensity workout, albeit not at max effort.
I use Training Peaks to monitor what they call “fatigue” and “form.” I wish TR had something similar, but that’s another discussion. At the end of a 3 week block before a recovery week, my form is usually around -23 or so. I try to calibrate my recovery week (by TSS) so that at the beginning of the next 3 week block, my form is around +23 or so. This will put me back at around -23 or so at the end of the next 3 week block.
Another thing I shoot for is having my recovery week be approximately 50% or so of the last week’s TSS before the recovery week.
What approach do you use to calibrate recovery weeks? Or do you just trust the TR plan?
I am all for merging when appropriate, but I see a distinct difference in discussing an entire week like this OP vs the singular ride focus of the one you merged/linked.
That in mind, I think there are likely better topics for merging a “week” focused topic like above, with a leading one from early last year potentially a better match to the OP’s focus:
I’ve done a lot better following the approach you outlined. Although my adaptation weeks usually have two interval workouts. Mentioned the PMC (performance management chart) in a reply to Nate about red light green light. I’ve been reliably using the PMC based “rlgl” since late 2016 (after getting power meter October 2016). There is actual science in the PMC, but it also requires some coaching art because we aren’t robots and everyone responds differently.
It depends!
Depends what I was doing the month before, during base, my recovery weeks might have a workout on Friday or Saturday after a couple days of very easy riding. During a build/ vo2 work, I probably won’t do any intensity, if I do it would be something like openers.
Also depends if I did a long hard ride/ group ride/ race the weekend before. If so I’d take 2-3 days off completely. Then ride easy or maybe do openers.
It depends how I feel, lots of it depends for me.
Starting with a copy/paste on my comment that may have been a related spark to this new topic:
I just finished the last work week in Mid Vol of phase 2. Feeling good overall but wondering what people think about one detail. They have apparently really dropped the time & TSS for the recovery weeks. It seems they now run the Recovery weeks about 1/4 the TSS of the Work weeks, in contrast to roughly 1/2 per the older versions of their plans.
After doing the first recovery week after phase 1 and heading into phase 2 I felt good and nailed all the work weeks. Felt great overall and never had any “Very Hard” rated workouts. I pretty much followed AT directly with a few swaps for the Sunday workouts to what I know works for me (3hr 7+ WL). This mixes in my AIFTPD value that feels about right per the Threshold workouts, so I think that is close enough to right, but had to mention it at least.
Just curious about this lower recovery week strategy since they had used the 1/2 level for as long as I can remember. Anyone else experience the new plans or have thoughts?
I have the 2nd hard workout of the first week in the 3rd part of my Base and may have an update tomorrow. TR gave me 2 Breakthrough workouts which I am second guessing as I head into tonight’s over/under
I trust the algorithm. The n=1 evidence is that when I treat the recovery week as TR prescribes, I’m ready for a hammerfest the following week. When I add in extra volume, the first few workouts are harder than they should be. YMMV, but when I want to bake cookies, I don’t use a cake recipe.
At this time of year (Northern Hemisphere/ UK/ Winter) I think my recovery weeks are how TR plans (but substituting my 2 commutes for workouts). In the summer though I often fail to meet a complete rest week it’ll often have mid week chain gang (which tends to be tempo with bursts), weekend TT’s (threshold) and perhaps midweek TT’s too (high tempo).
This was going into a super hard VO2 block starting the next monday. If the next block wasn’t as intense then the endurance on that weekend might be a bit longer.
The recovery spins are scheduled for 1hr but usually fall between 45m and 1h15m and have an NP of well under 50% ftp. And this is in reference to a normal training week of ~ 12-16hr.
Just came off a recovery week - TR had Monday off, 3x45m recovery (~50%), Friday off, and 2x1.5hr on Sat/Sun (~60%). That did not feel like enough stimulus, so changed the plan around. Kept Mon/Fri as days off, swapped mid-week for 3x1hr @ 70% during the week. Long Z2 ride Saturday including a 35m steady tempo effort at the end, and 1.5hr Z2 on Sunday. Felt great for Tuesday’s VO2 workout, we’ll see how remainder of 2.5weeks goes!
