Plans with managable weekly hours

Training and Performance Fundamentals
#1

Recently signed up to TrainerDay after a successful trial and some great chats with the creator Alex (who seems like such a good guy!).

Had a support question and it seems that the forums are the most appropriate channel:

Regarding the TD plans:

  1. I understand that generally, the volume of a given plan ramps with each passing week to elicit the desired adaption.
  2. As a time-crunched cyclist, one of the features of TrainerRoad and Zwift plans that I appreciated was that you could pick a plan with a set number of hours per week that you knew you could spare and train accordingly.
  3. Unless I’m missing something, all of the plans I’ve been looking at have a starting number of hours that you select (i.e. 4 hours) but then they ramp the volume with each passing week - to, in my case, an unmanageable level.
  4. For example, fast forward 6-12 weeks and the hours the session is asking you to commit to are WAY over what I can sustain i.e individual sessions that are 2+ hour each mid week and then 4+ hour weekend ride(s).
  5. I get that volume is arguably the most effective way to drive fitness, but I guess what I’m asking: is there a way to specify the number of hours and have the stress and intensity of the workout ramp weekly to give me the fitness adaptations, rather than just increasing the hours.
  6. Even if you could specify that (for example) for Weeks 1-4 a rider is able to commit between 4-5 hours, then on weeks 5-8 they can commit 5-6 hours and so on, it would at least be manageable, rather than the hours increasing at an unsustainable rate
  7. As things stand, I don’t think using TD / CoachJack plans would work for someone in my situation (which can’t be uncommon for a time-crunched cyclist) and the alternative of manually setting up my own program with hours that are manageable week to week doesn’t really appeal

Hope all that makes sense. Look forward to hearing people’s thoughts. :slight_smile:

#2

You can set the hours of each day and not set the ramp too high. I played around with coach Jack for a while to find the sweet spot for me and from week to week the hours don’t vary that much with my settings…
But you have to get used to the settings a little bit.

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#3

Hi, thanks for the kind words. I think I am going to have you repeat that to my wife :slight_smile: So the short answer is “not perfectly like you would think.” The longer answer is you can set daily time limits that will limit your weekly hours.

As you have realize, the problem is that modern science shows that you can’t really substitute intensity for volume, which means you can’t arbitrarily increase CTL via TSS and expect to get great results. I realize that TrainerRoad has a lot of people believing otherwise and for sure different people can get results in different ways but generally this is a risky strategy and likely to be less effective than doing less intensity even if the hours are the same (the only thing close to proof we have of this is Seiler/Polarized).

All this said, we do gradually increase intensity over the course of the plan but do not believe that pure TSS manipulation makes sense. There is no science showing this is effective. It was a good theory. Partially because the opposite holds fairly true. When you are at your highest CTL you are likely to be in top fitness. But trying to maximize your CTL by using intensity means you are manipulating the plan based on some random overly simplified math concepts.

You can still get what you want with Coach Jack by limiting daily hours, increasing intensity a bit in the beginning. The big difference is it won’t maximize your weekly tss ramp rates by strongly manipulating intensity. So TSS growth will be less and since you are not increasing volume the gains are likely less than if you could increase your weekly hours.

Does this all make any sense? :slight_smile: I can provide more arguments to try to make it more clear if necessary.

One thing I am saying is the TR approach can work, is it more effective for most? I would argue it is not, although the people that don’t burn out should be reasonably strong. Will they be in good form after 1 year of maximum CTL focus sweet spot training? Most will not.

What I have found is most TR users learn to adapt TR to their needs. As a build period it can work or for special people it can work… Generally I really like TR and Nate and what they are doing, especially the software (not their workout creator :)) I liked Chad a lot especially his messaging. My guess is he was smart enough and wanted to move away from the sweet spot focus but that is pure speculation.

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#4

Thanks, as ever, for the prompt and super helpful response.

So it seems like I can manage this manually from within the plan. Great! (Any pointers or links to explain how I do that? I’ve had a look but it’s not obvious to me.)

Agree entirely with your assessment of the benefits of increasing volume vs simply driving intensity. I’m a firmly paid up member to that philosophy - which is why, as you know, I’m moved to TD from TR.

However, all that said, as a busy working parent (like many TD users), I only have so many hours to train, so I will inevitably sit somewhere between your/TDs ideal and where TR and Zwift are.

Getting to the point where I can have a well designed plan that doesn’t run away on the hours feels like it’s not too far away. :+1:

Feel free to pass on your wife’s detail - I’ll happily sing your praises! :wink:

#5

Thanks for the helpful response, Ben. I’ve asked Alex for a link or a pointer to show I can manage that. :slight_smile:

#6

Yes here. Good luck. We try hard to let people override our opinions and do what they want/need. I have twin 9-year olds so I fully understand life’s constraints :slight_smile:

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#7

Some food for thought for all time crunched athletes…
Please be aware that I perfectly understand your situation. I always had a (overly) full daytime job and I have three kids, all with their own hobby’s and demands. I know that life can be complicated and that lots of situations can have negative impact on your training plan.
I’m now old enough to have more time available, the kids are all grown up and living their lives. But I still consider time with them and my grand-children as quality time.
My idea is that a strict training plan can’t work for time crunched people. You have to be creative and make use of time as efficiently as possible. The first thing that you need to realize is that cycling is an endurance sport. And endurance training doesn’t necessarily need to be all cycling. If you want to go for a planned ride, it takes some time to prepare everything. But any moment of the day can allow you to do some crosstraining with very little preparation. All endurance sports profit from any kind of cardiovascular and/or strength training. So start thinking about dialing that in, in your busy daily life. This can be any form of brisk movement or strength training from 5 min on. If you’re willing to take this approach, you can easily squeeze in multiple hours a week.
Some examples:

  • brisk walk/jog during lunch break
  • walk/jog around the school block iso waiting 15min in the car for your kids to come out at the gate.
  • do some burpees, push-ups, squats… wherever you feel like doing them. Might be just 3-4 minutes before you jump in the shower. It doesn’t matter if it is short or long. Anything of this kind will help you progress.
  • check you phone or read that meeting report while ‘wall-sitting’ iso just sitting at your desk. Don’t under-estimate wall-sitting, it is very taxing on the quads! And those stronger quads will help you cycle faster :wink:
  • setup your trainer in front of the television and watch that TV show that you don’t want to miss while pedalling along at comfortable intensity iso laying on the couch.

At first it takes some effort to build all this in your daily routine, but you’ll be amazed at the effect it can have on your cycling performance. And as soon as this becomes a ‘habit’, you will do it with very little thinking about it and you will pile up multiple hours per week, all positively influencing your cardiovascular fitness and strength.
Make sure to always have some sports clothing/shoes in your car and use it iso stressing more behind the steering wheel in another trafic jam. You probably want to add deodorant too…
Just make a solid plan for the little spare time that you have where you do exactly what was planned. And then take advantage of any possibility that comes along to do something extra in the form of crosstraining/strength training. Don’t think that only longer training sessions on your bike are the only way to become better. EVERYTHING counts, as Alan Couzens always says. The advantage of re-thinking your training this way, is that you will feel less guilty if, once again, something came along that made you dispose your planned training. And believe me, once this becomes a ‘way of life’ you will feel less stressed and fitter. Avoid wasting time by recycling it into brief fitness time.

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#8

This is the best advice/plan!!!

#9

Also to add to MedCD’s advice we have a feature called a sequence of workouts. If you frequently need to adjust your indoor bike sessions then instead of using our calendar, push the plan to my plans and select that plan as active in the app and then you just do one workout after then next on the next time you have available. Really from a training perspective doing it on specific days versus when you have time has minimal differences. 3 days in a row is probably not ideal but really these plans are not taxing enough (unless you crank the intensity way up) at least in the beginning that even that is not the end of the world.

#10

Interesting discussion. I am also one of the time-crunched athletes. The typical training plan does not work well for me since I often can spare ‘only’ 30 - 45 during a lunch break in a busy working week. I think this requires a different approach as most training plans will aim for the optimum ratio of input/output wheras in my case I want to maximize the output with a given input (time).

I would vote for a Coach Jack feature that looks at your past workouts (e.g. 42 days) and provides you with a workout recommendation for exactly the time you have. E.g. “The last 3 days were very intense, do a 30 minute recovery ride today” or “Your training load was moderate, I recommend a short interval session at VO2max”.

I don’t know if that makes sense…

#11

Typically, your situation does not allow much planning because in those cases, you are very dependent on stress caused by other life circumstances and your training stress is only a very small amount of your total stress.
The thing is that even if you have exactly the same amount of time available in some weeks, your recovery and stress levels may be very different due to life stress.
You should mostly go by feel and make use of all brief moments that you can get in some workout time. Chances of overtraining caused by workouts are almost inexistent, your life-style has way more impact.

#12

Yes, TODAY will evolve to this. Right now it is very simplified version of this. I believe for next winter it will be much smarter.

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#13

Yes, I agree with this 100%. TODAY will give you an theoretical decent workout but at the same time you need to decide how you feel and what has been going on outside of training. We make in workout training adjustments and switching workouts in real-time (merging) very simple for this reason. It can be “auto-pilot” of ERG but you make exceptions. It’s tricky because you start the workout, you are like oh this feels bad… I don’t want to do it, but logically there is no reason to not continue. Sleeping good, not sick, generally fine in 5 more minutes you might feel great and missed the opportunity for an ideal workout and switched to low zone 3 when you did not necessarily need to.