6 weeks Polarized "base" plan - modification for extra recovery week

Training
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Doing 5 weeks of work will not work for me. Yes the plan only is 1 hard workout a week in low volume, but i have too much going on to do 5 work weeks
Through the years i noticed that a 3:1 work recovery is manageable for me.
So i think this is a good modification for the plan?
Similar to what TrainerRoad recommended for other plans.

Week 1 - week 1 of the plan: work
Week 2 - week 2 of the plan: work
Week 3 - week 3 of the plan: work
Week 4 - week 6 of the plan: recovery
Week 5 - week 3 of the plan: work
Week 6 - week 4 of the plan: work
Week 7 - week 5 of the plan: work
Week 8 - week 6 of the plan: recovery

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Yup, that’s similar with the TR comments and what I do with SSB for my own use. Seems good to me.

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Exactly the modification I made yesterday :+1:
I don’t know how my body will react to the added TSS through long slow rides, so I prefer to play safe and give me some rest earlier, always better than too late. Experience with 5 weeks of SSB without rest has been pretty bad for me. I struggled in 2nd week of build, even on low volume. Mainly mental overreaching. Hopefully this will help

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If all i did was the plan, then i would have no trouble following the low volume plan and would probably “crush it”. A medium volume plan would probably be ok too. But too much going on to do 5 straight weeks of work.

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4th and 5th week of SSB 1 on low volume are killing me mentally. The overunder sessions (and not easy mountain shaped one) after the fatigue from previous weeks in addition to a stressful job are a bit too much for me. I can go through it, I can go through the 5 weeks of SSB 2 also. But when build comes I really struggle. I never saw specialty.

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For future reference, here is my guide to adding more recovery to SSB 1 & 2

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@rizaulait2 I Highly recommend @mcneese.chad his suggestion!

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Really not sure the fatigue from SSB and these Pol plans is comparable. Having ridden a Pol approach since Xmas and doing 15-16 hrs a week, I rarely find I need a rest week when SSB plans would quickly grind me down at MUCH lower volumes of training. I’ve ended up on a couple of weeks just reducing to 1 intensity day or doing a shorter (or slightly lower intensity) endurance day is enough, and then just pick up again.

Until you’ve done it I think most people don’t realise how quickly they recover from endurance hours - its far quicker than tempo/SST/FTP work.

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My schedule is as follows:

Monday: rest
Tuesday: 3 hours of MTB or CX or Road training (i am the trainer), where i do mostly low intensity
Wednesday: the Z3 workout of the polarized plan ( 60 - 90 mins.)
Thursday: 3 hours of MTB or CX or Road training (i am the trainer), where i do mostly low intensity
Friday: rest
Saturday: 1 hour run, Z1 or Z3 efforts, depending on the time of year.
Sunday: 3-4 hours of MTB or Road riding, try to keep in Z1 (of polarized). But this could also be a CX race, an MTB marathon, a crit.

During a restweek, i only skip the wednesday workout, go easy on the run, and the sunday ride might be only 2 hours easy spinning, so still a lot of activity.

And this is pretty much the whole year round, depending on the season, i train kids and adults in CX, MTB or road. So i do expect i need that additional restweek.

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How can you modify the plan? The plans in TR are “as is” or?

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It’s possible to shift workouts around to different days, push weeks out, to add in more recovery weeks (using the ‘copy’ tool). Essentially, there is a template plan, but once added to your calendar, you can modify in many, many ways.

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Thats perfect!
Is is also possible to import an customized trainingplan from the Treadcreator?

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