All Off-Road Specialty training plans are improved to be more specific to your riding and racing goals.
What’s New
Each Off-Road Specialty plan includes a TSS progression in line with the improved Build training plans. To allow flexibility for varying racing schedules, training stress remains steady from week to week throughout this 8-week block bringing you to peak fitness.
Promoting increased performance for race-day, the workout selections in each Off-Road training plan have improved in terms of discipline specificity. Additionally, all mid- and high-volume options for each plan include Sunday ride alternatives (indoor/outdoor).
The Off-Road training plans that have been improved in this new update include:
The Type of Fitness You’ll Gain
Off-Road riding — Mountain biking specifically — includes efforts ranging from extremely short, explosive starts & surges to long, steady, uphill slogs and include everything in between; often times numerous times within the same event.
A combination of interval work in the Anaerobic, VO2max, and Sweet Spot power zones address the varying efforts seen in off-road riding. The emphasis on each is adjusted based on which off-road discipline you’ll be pursuing. Racing types like Short Track Cross-Country, Gravity, and Cyclocross sees more of an emphasis placed on the more explosive forms of fitness. While the training in our Cross-Country Olympic and Cross-Country Marathon training plans rounds out the focus to be more inclusive of sustained, aerobically fueled efforts.
Why the Drop in Stress from the Newly Update Build Plans?
If you started training with TrainerRoad before November 14th of 2017, you’ll notice a slight reduction in TSS from your Build plan to the Off-Road Speciality plans. This is to transition you from the Build phase into the Specialty phase at an appropriate ramp rate. If you look at your full Base, Build and Specialty training plans, Coach Chad steadily grows your TSS in the Base and Build phases. It isn’t until the Specialty phase that you’ll see TSS level off to make sure you’re as fresh as possible for your goal events or riding season.
How to Start the Off-Road Specialty Plans
If you started a Off-Road Specialty plan before November 14th (the release date of the new plans) and would like to update to one of the new plans, you must stop your current plan and reselect your Off-Road plan to access the new improvements. This is with the exception of the Cyclocross Specialty plan, which was updated on August 30th.
If you’d like to update your new plan with the completed workouts from your earlier plan, you must unassign the workouts from your past plan in order to assign them to the new plan. This will allow you to update your new plan with the rides you’ve completed from your original one.
If you’re new to structured training: Before you start the Off-Road training plans, we recommend completing Base and Build phase training plans first. The Sweet Spot Base plan, followed by the Short/General Power Build plan are great to follow before moving onto refine your abilities with any of our Off-Road Specialty plans.
Have a question about training plans? Leave it below or send our support team a message to support@trainerroad.com.
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When thinking about training to race a series over a whole season (cx) where rather than a few speciality events you need to perform well every wekend for a few months, do you recommend finishing the speciality phase prior to the start of the season and hoping to maintain or expecting to increase perfomrnace throguh the season by starting speciality say a month out and running it through the start of the season?
Would be great if there was a cx maintenance plan for us weekly racers!
Hey Ian!
We touched base today on our Facebook Page, but for anyone else who want’s to know the best way to maintain a peak for a long season, here’s my response:
“For situations such as a long CX Season, we recommend simply repeating Weeks 7 and 8 of your Specialty Plan upon completion of your first full Training Progression. These weeks are designed as Taper weeks, but they work very well for maintenance as well due to the fact that they lower the volume but retain the intensity of the plan. This allows you to recover between races while retaining your legs’ “snap”.
We recommend maintaining this peak no longer than 8 weeks, so you may have to plan your season accordingly, understanding that you cannot be at peak fitness for an entire season.”
Cheers!
Looking forward to giving this a go in like… 4 months. 😀
I just about survived the last time I did it, but I really dreaded going into the pain cave every single day. It was brutal.
I know you guys traditionally have recommended that even if someone has no races planned that they still do the Base/Build/Specialty combo. With these new changes, do you still maintain that recommendation?
Doesn’t it make more sense now that intensity remains the same in the Specialty phase (by the way, you misspelled Specialty in the title ;)) for someone who is simply trying to improve their power and endurance to just repeat the Base/Build combo while maybe switching up which Build phase is done each time?
FYI – I’ve been loving TR for the past 10 months! I’ve gone from a completely untrained, out of shape, new to MTBing guy who tested at 119 FTP in January to 259 FTP now! Thanks guys!
Hey Chris!
I just spoke with Chad to verify, and we do still recommend completing the full Base/ Build/ Specialty progression for a few reasons.
For one, it breaks up the monotony of repeating the same plans and stressing the same energy systems over and over. This helps physiologically because as the body adapts to a certain type of stress, that stress starts to become less effective at creating adaptation in your body. By constantly changing the energy systems through the full, periodized training, it keeps your body in a constant state of growth rather than allowing your fitness to fall into a “rut”.
Another incentive is that this progression allows for a better overall fitness trajectory. When you complete Base and Build repeatedly, it does not allow you to reach those high fitness peaks that help you grow as an athlete. The Specialty Phase, while similar in intensity, reduces the TSS ramp rate allowing you to continue training those supra-threshold energy systems for longer without burnout. After you reach a peak, your fitness declines slightly, however it does not decline enough to erase the gains made during that peak. In other words, by completing the Specialty Phase, you will start the next cycle at a higher level of fitness which allows you to improve year over year.
I hope that clears things up a bit 🙂
On the subject of stressing different systems. I seem to have hit a peak that I can’t break through. Is it worth switching from the MTB Marathon plan I’ve done the last two times?
That makes sense. Thanks Bryce.
Couldn’t find if/where had answered this before but I am planning to start one of the off-road training plans soon just wondering what to do as far as still doing my normal 2-4 group rides MTB per week. Will still riding at a decent pace outdoors have a negative effect on the training plans recovery cycles?
Hey Bobby,
The outside rides will certainly have an effect on your overall TSS for the week and will need to be accounted for. I would recommend taking a look at this article where we talk about outdoor TSS and how it effects your training plan: https://www.trainerroad.com/blog/outside-rides-with-higher-tss/
What a lot of people do is choose a lower volume plan than they normally would to account for the extra volume (TSS) that they will be aquiring outdoors. So if you would normally choose a Mid-Volume plan, you might choose a Low-Volume Plan plus your outdoor work.
I hope that helps clear things up 🙂
Hi,
I’m having a little trouble choosing my plan for 2018. My ‘A’ race will (time permitting) be Park City Point 2 Point, however all my regular rides will be 60-90 minute XC races (with some serious climbs, all above 7,000ft).
What difference in my performance and physique will I see from doing XC Olympic vs XC Marathon? I’m guessing that marathon will be more aerobic and xc more short bursts of power?
Thanks
Hey there Chris!
The difference between the Marathon and Olympic is exactly as you said: The marathon plan will prepare you for more steady state efforts whereas the Olympic plan equips you to deal with surges and attacks more effectively. That being said, Park City P2P is at the end of the year, which likely means that your other races come before. In that case, you will be racing many of your races without the “cherry on top” specialty plan. For that reason, I would recommend the following progression:
Sweet Spot Base I & II
General Build
Marathon Specialty
By choosing General Build rather than Sustained, you will gain some of that punch that will allow you to compete in the shorter races earlier in the season. Then, you will switch to Marathon which will help you hone in your steady-state aerobic engine.
Best of luck with your training!
Thanks. That makes sense. I will follow this order. Thank you.
Do you think this approach will see me heavier (more muscle) than if I did the marathon Plan? I’m not opposed to having big powerful legs, just trying to understand how the differences will likely manifest themselves in my physiology. Overall I’m not craving a huge FTP, just a modest improvement in absolute FTP and pretty sizeable in w/kg.
Im switching from non-specific Zwift riding to 100% structured training on TrainerRoad this weekend.! Really looking forward to next summer’s outdoor riding now. I’ve ridden a local climb a few times (getting faster each go), and will use this as my benchmark in summer … along with FTP … just need to set a goal and have the reward of a new bike as the carrot.
Thank you
Hey Chris!
The different plans should not have a noticable difference in bulk/ muscle mass so that is not a major concern. Bulk and your tendency to pile on muscle is based almost entirely on your genetics and diet. The difference between Sustained/Marathon and General/Olympic is simply in the types of fibers (fast vs slow twitch) that they cultivate. Both will aim to elevate your FTP, but General/Olympic tip in favor of teaching your body to execute and recover from efforts above your FTP while Sustained/ Marathon helps you maintain power levels just below FTP for long periods of time. By mixing General Build and Marathon Specialty, it allows you to develop both energy systems at the times when you most need them.
Cheers!
Hi, I’ve just finished the high volume sweet spot 1 block. Planning on heading into the high volume II plan, then the high volume general build plan. I usually race the longer mtb races throughout the year that generally last between 5 and 10hrs. Do you recommend the marathon xc specialty plan? Or something with longer rides? Thanks a lot!
For 5-10 hour rides, I can say without reservation that Sustained Power Build and Marathon XC Specialty will be the best route for you 🙂 The XC Olympic race plan is intended for a maximum race time of 2.5 hours so you are going well over that.
Good luck with your season!
Hello! I am just finishing up sustained power build. I ultimately want to do the xc marathon plan to prepare for Leadville. However I’ve got plenty of time. Would you recommend going right into the XC plan, or perhaps doing another round of sustained power build? I am planning to race in a qualifier event in 8 weeks to boost my starting corral so that might factor in to the decision. Thanks!!
To extend your time until an event, we typically recommend a re-build. This means that you complete the Specialty phase, and then return to the Build Phase before heading back into Specialty. You will not have enough time for a full re-build, but you should be able to fit half of the re-build phase in.
Your training would then look like this:
Marathon XC or Century Specialty Phase (8 Weeks) – coincidentally this will have you peaked for your qualifier race
Sustained Power Build Phase (Weeks 5,6,7,8)
Marathon XC or Century Specialty Phase (8 weeks)
Race Day
Good luck with your training!