All cycling-specific Build phase training plans have been improved to fall in line with the newly revised Base plans and be more specific to a rider’s performance goals.

What’s New

Coach Chad has revamped all Build phase training plans (this does not include triathlon plans) for riders who have completed their Base training and are ready to take the next step in achieving a more specific type of fitness. These plans include Sustained Power Build, Short Power Build and General Build.

Consistent with all of Coach Chad’s training plans, each 8-week Build plan is offered in three volumes. All newly revamped low-volume Build plans have a total of three interval workouts a week. All mid-volume Build plans include five workouts a week, one of which is an easy endurance workout. Finally, all high-volume plans consist of six workouts a week, two of which are easy endurance rides.

To fall In line with the newly revised Sweet Spot Base plans, Coach Chad revised the TSS of the newly revamped Build plans. Entry for the low-volume plans is about 300 TSS per week, whereas the mid-volume plans enter at around 450 TSS per week and the high-volume plans start off at about 600 TSS per week.

What to Expect

After you’ve completed your Base phase training plan — be that the legacy Sweet Spot Base plan or the newly updated Sweet Spot Base plan — your FTP is going to be higher at the end of your plan than when you started. Your fitness test scheduled at the start of your Build plan will give you insight into how much you’ve improved.

Whether your fitness has improved marginally or significantly, expect the first one to two weeks on your Build plan to be challenging, but manageable due to the slightly lower weekly TSS the new Build plans begin with.

Why TSS Decreases from Your Base Plan to Your Build Plan

When moving from plan to plan, you cannot simply look at TSS increases — you also have to consider the sort of stress included in each one of your workouts. That said, if you’re coming out of a Sweet Spot Base plan — a plan that consists almost entirely of Sweet Spot work — there is a lot of stress. To keep TSS climbing would be inadvisable and unrealistic. Again, considering different forms of stress matters here.

To account for the new types of stress (VO2max, anaerobic, etc.) you’ll experience in your Build phase of training, Coach Chad designed each new Build plan to have a decline in TSS during the first week. Then, during week 5, this decrease is more subtle in some plans, almost nonexistent in others. These two weeks are assessment weeks and therefore the TSS might be on the lower side due to the lower TSS value that goes along with your shorter assessment workout. In some instances, this has been accounted for in one of that week’s later workouts.

How to Get Started on a New Build Plan

If you’ve recently started (before March 20, 2017) a legacy Build plan and would like to update your plan to one of the new Build plans, you must stop your current plan and reselect the Build plan you were on to access the new updates.

If you’d like to update your new plan with completed workouts from your past Build plan, you must unassign the workouts from your past plan in order to assign them to the new plan. It’s recommended to delete your original plan to disassociate all your completed rides. This will allow you to more quickly assign those completed rides to your new plan.

What’s Next

Stay tuned for newly revised Speciality plans! Coach Chad is currently working on refinements to all Speciality phase training plans to fall in line with the recently updated Base and Build plans.

Have a question about the latest training plans update? Leave it below or send our support team a message to support@trainerroad.com.