🎉🎉🎉 Announcement: Personalized Custom Training Plans! 🎉🎉🎉

[Rizzi]

@JoeX

@Rizzi

truly individualized

I think you’d need to define your terms first.

It totally makes sense to me that TR would implement their philosophy on training in TR plans and not just play back what people do anyway.

The thing is that since AT TR is claiming „to give you the right workout every time“ (https://youtu.be/c15eVK29bj0?si=bCZbZmmDfECRFDsa)

And with personalizes custom training plans to analyze my whole training history and „what works best to make you faster“ (https://youtu.be/P7QDKwLLyGs?si=7V_ZGn-Fh6YLWPNo). I will note that in the promo video TR explicitly states that you get 2 or 3 days of intensity.

And so it might become clear that much of the AT talk is just good marketing for tweaking predefined TR plans a bit to your preference and not what many might imply as truly individualized.

That’s fine and it’s nothing wrong with that but what I don’t like is that TR just ignores these points/critics and doesn’t make it clear when pointed out on the forum here.

With truly individualized I would assume to analyze my whole training history and „what works best to make you faster“ (just as the TR claim but) without the constraints of any plans. Sure there should be TR users with less than 2 intense days and volume/z2 focus that make them faster. Yet these people will get served TR plans along minimum of 2 intense days which might not make them faster.

[Caro.Gomez-Villafane]

@John_Barclay! The workouts may seem similar at first due to the training plan meeting you where you’re at. They’ll become more specific over time.

In terms of how we uniquely address those goals, we focus on the energy systems used in that type of riding, and we focus on the context specific nature of it (ie: sustained vs. repeated, muscular endurance vs. aerobic capacity, etc.).

@kosmo886, great feedback! For now, yes, building FTP would likely be better.

[JoeX]

@Rizzi

With truly individualized I would assume to analyze my whole training history and „what works best to make you faster“ (just as the TR claim but) without the constraints of any plans.

If you quoted the rest of my post you might realise our opinions are not quite so far apart

[AldridgePrior]

@Rizzi

And so it might become clear that much of the AT talk is just good marketing for tweaking predefined TR plans a bit to your preference and not what many might imply as truly individualized.

Having worked for one of Silicon Valley’s finest, for whom “punchy marketing claims” were a way of life, I’m conditioned to cut software businesses plenty of slack in this regard, and don’t take claims too literally.

That said, from what I’ve seen so far, the expectation-reality gap with this new “personalized” plan builder release seems, err, sizable and sadly I’m very underwhelmed.

[Rizzi]

@AldridgePrior

That said, from what I’ve seen so far, the expectation-reality gap with this new “personalized” plan builder release seems, err, sizable and sadly I’m very underwhelmed.

I have had so much sympathy for TR and still have (but it has taken a hit) and like it as a tool but this marketing really annoys me…it overpromises and underdelivers.

And it should be the other way round!

TR should have just called it „Plan builder has gotten a better UI and more customization options“ and I’d be happy because it really has gotten better…but all that marketing annoys me so much that even seeing this bar

makes me just think it’s a UI gimmick that tries to fool me.

[Textuality]

Feeling pretty burned out after a very hard year.

Is there any way to use these plans to come up with a mostly base / zone 2 setup for the rest of the year? I appreciate I’m going to lose fitness, but if I have to do another threshold / vo2max session any time soon I’m likely to give up training forever.

[ChefAcB]

Why not just ride your bike without a plan and maintain volume if you want? Sometimes I find having a schedule gives me anxiety and what I did the last few months was just ride on days I could. Felt good to get away from a schedule for a little while.

[Textuality]

I wont do anything at all without that schedule tbh. Winters here are horrifically wet / muddy and I just don’t have time to endlessly be cleaning the bike / my gear.

[Bones]

@ChefAcB

Why not just ride your bike without a plan and maintain volume if you want? Sometimes I find having a schedule gives me anxiety and what I did the last few months was just ride on days I could. Felt good to get away from a schedule for a little while.

I’m very much like you, but I know from riding with others over the decades, that some just need a plan and a schedule, or like the OP said, it just won’t happen.

This is one of the reasons why I’m not a great TR candidate - I don’t like being tied to a plan as riding is meant to be a stress relief and not something else in my life that I ‘have to do’. Sure I’d like to be as fit and fast as possible, but I’m not willing to do the work if it means I’m doing intervals when I don’t want to. We’re all approaching riding from different angles!

[AldridgePrior]

@Textuality

Is there any way to use these plans to come up with a mostly base / zone 2 setup for the rest of the year?

Nothing new specifically to facilitate that.

Easiest way may be just to schedule a Base block directly. Perhaps choose a Masters plan for fewer intensity days:
Masters Base Phase

But these Base blocks include Threshold workouts each week, so depending on the volume you’re targeting, one option to consider would be to choose a higher volume plan then delete (or simply ignore) the harder workout(s) each week leaving just the easier stuff. eg. choose a Masters Mid Vol, then delete/ignore the Threshold w/o each week:
Masters General Base Mid Volume

Maybe you could do the Sweet Spot w/o if you’re up for it, or maybe just use it as a placeholder in the Calendar which you then replace with something easier on the day, whether chosen manually or using TrainNow for suggestions. Or just drop the Sweet Spot entirely - up to you.

With this approach to using the Base plans as “templates” you get yourself a plan structure, scheduled within the Calendar , and with only a little bit of effort you get to tweak it more to your specific requirements. Can do this with other phases too, if the standard ones don’t suit your needs.

[ChefAcB]

I would plug in traditional base 1 mid volume or whatever volume you are looking for. Then when you want to hit intervals either progress through traditional base or build a plan.

I understand some people need a schedule, I personally like feeling free of that sometimes.

[schmidt]

I didn’t hear back or see it come across.

Is there a way to steer towards more base training? I did base I-III over summer and would like to continue base after a short off season break. It’s only giving me build though.

[AldridgePrior]

@Rizzi

I have had so much sympathy for TR

I think we’re on a similar page. I’ve a big soft spot for TR: like the people, like the ethos, appreciate a polished product that’s free of cruft etc. I may often appear to be moaning on here, but any criticism “comes from a place of love” ; if I didn’t care I would be bothering!

From the outside looking in, ie. based on my experience experimenting with a bit, there seem to be two primary aspects to this plan builder update, both of which amount to modest iterations of the existing plan building toolkit:

• a new wizard, with new scheduling options vs the previous fixed 3/5/6 w/o’s per week format, new “Goal” selection to help direct people to the appropriate plan
• some RLGL integration behind the scenes to help people choose (or be steered to) an appropriate volume plan.

The wizard updates seem to be a modest improvement, so that’s welcome but nothing earth shattering there.

I like RLGL’s presence within the Calendar, which although it’s often just confirming what I already feel, adds a useful sanity check - another input, and I’ve found this to be beneficial and useful.
But, the RLGL integration we’re seeing here in Plan Builder (assuming it’s RLGL “guts” which lies behind the volume suggestions, warnings etc), just seems to be a bit “off” in my experience so far. I don’t know if that’s because it overweights very recent history vs. medium-to-longer term history, but the default suggestions it gave me, volume-wise, just don’t seem particularly well informed at all (see my earlier posts for details). It seems to be calibrated towards erring very much in favour of lower volumes, which would make sense as a default behaviour if you had no history data to inform the decision, but seems distinctly off in light of the history it has access to.

No matter. These limitations don’t hugely impact me - I’m happy to intervene manually, tweak settings, adjust durations, add my own workouts, and so on, in order to knock any generated plan into a shape I’m happier with. I’d have preferred a tool that could do most or even all of this for me, automatically, (as seemed to be the claim), but really it’s no big deal from my perspective - just carry on as I did previously.

Disappointing, though. Perhaps this will improve in time, although maybe it requires a move away from the current underlying plan structure (which these newer features here all sit atop of) before we see what better passes for real personalized custom plans…?

Regarding lack of TR response to points raised by you, I take that to mean it’s largely working as intended / per the design.

[SarahLaverty]

@MI-XC

The review of the plan before you add it to the calendar is super basic

@AlphaDogCycling

review is too basic, and really should show the proposed plan before it is added to your calendar

Hey guys!

Good news! In response to your feedback, we have added the Plan Preview back to the Overview page in Plan Builder v2 .

So before adding your Training Plan to your Calendar, you will get a detailed overview of what the Training Plan involves.

As always, let us know if you have any questions!

[AlphaDogCycling]

Thanks. This is really helpful.

I built a test plan, and the progression looks wonky from the outside – see the below screenshot. The wonkiness to me is that as the plan progresses between phases, the max TSS / week goes down. This is really counter intuitive.

[cbounds]

Why does the general fitness (raise ftp) option not factor in events?

I redid my plan last night. I don’t need openers for every event but it put workouts on days with events.

[Matt_W1]

Was having a play about with what settings bring up what plans and tried a new plan for general fitness with ftp increase and used balanced training approach.

It came back with 9 workouts over 6days, Thursday is a double workout day and Friday has 3. Dread to think what the more aggressive training load would come back with

Started one of these plans last week and I really wish it would give an idea as to why it adapts the plan like it does. My computer crashed in the last 5min of an endurance workout, completed to survey as easy, which it was but since then it’s been trying to reduce the pl of my endurance workouts, and I don’t know why.

[schmidt]

@AlphaDogCycling

as the plan progresses between phases, the max TSS / week goes down.

There may be some adaptation happening as you go along?

Also I read/heard somewhere that there would be a review after X weeks of the current approach and volume is still fine or should be adjusted, but I may have dreamed that up. In that case it would be a good suggestion for improvement.

[schmidt]

@Matt_W1

It came back with 9 workouts over 6days, Thursday is a double workout day and Friday has 3. Dread to think what the more aggressive training load would come back with

Can you give us a screenshot?

[Matt_W1]