Which is part of the issue with TR. They indicate they have analyzed the data to know what is better but with no proof that they are correct no one will believe them.
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I not only feel endurance progression levels are nonsensical, I think vo2 levels are too. Based on what Iâve experienced, learned from more qualified coaches, and have advised others on, doing 3-5min repeats at a max effort relative to what an athlete can do is basically all you need for vo2 options.
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I canât really speak to the science.
But I havenât had any issues with doing endurance rides at higher watts. Current level is 7.3.
If anything I think itâs what made me a better cyclist this past year.
2-3 hours at the upper limit of z2. 
(All my training is outside)
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Yes, I agree with you. I think anaerobic contribution is very individual for vo2max and therefore power output in percentages. I believe the easier ones are good as an introduction, but usually just going all out for 3-5â a couple of times with high cadence seems fine to me.
I donât know if I expressed myself clearly. The âpredefinedâ part I would like, is my maximum available time. The Plan then should give me the best option (ideally) within that time constraint. Can be less time if better, but never more.
I like the fatigue monitoring the plans have and the increased adaptability to the individual. I still think there is room to improve in âlooking at the big pictureâ of a full seaskn or multiple years.
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Also, I think part of the problem is that TR is constrained by the âneedâ (self-imposed goal, or MO) to prescriptively assign workouts to people - all workouts! - as this enhances the optics of their offer to be delivering the right workout every time, having the machine figure everything out and taking responsibility away from the punter.
Practically, they should probably bin the automatic progression of endurance work as is being implied here and just advise people to do as much endurance work as peopleâs schedule allows + enjoy doing + can recover from sufficiently to still do their hard workouts.
The problem is that some people are unable or are insufficiently experienced to productively follow a pragmatic suggestion like that, hence the software tries to manage this for them in an inevitably prescriptive manner, tilted towards time-crunchedness, resulting in the approach we have currently and which then inevitably gets questionedâŚ
For now, perhaps the best suggestion is that anyone whoâs experienced enough to conclude that the TR endurance workout progression approach doesnât really make sense for them, then just do what you have reason to believe will work better for you instead. Accept this product âlimitationâ and move on. 
Plans donât need to be followed prescriptively - take the TR good stuff and simply override if/where you have the experience to do so, and where you have reason to believe youâll benefit from that. Same applies with any of the other training tools out there, innit.
â
NB comments arenât directed at you @Pbase , obvs 
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And I think PL of the endurance range is kind of hard to understand. If you for example compare Mianzimu that is 5 hours with IF of 0.67 set with 7.9. On the other hand youve got Makalu that is 75 minutes shorter with the same IF and same PL.
There is a lot of such examples where the PL seems a little bit off 
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So far Iâve not had issue with Z2 PLs. Just yesterday I dropped TB1 MV on my calendar, attempting to emulate the study referenced in podcast 503. It didnât ask me for available training hours, so I suppose Iâll find out how well the PLs translate when changing the weekend durations from ~2h to longer durations⌠thatâs if I donât kneecap myself with RLGL. Someone remind me every once in a while to exercise some restraint? 
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I just thought it would be worth dropping a link to what I just mentioned in another thread here.
Essentially, the duration of your scheduled endurance workouts will be determined by a few things.
- The max duration cap you set for that day of the week in Plan Builder
- The workouts that are available to you based on your Progression Levels
If your goal is to progress to longer workouts, simply change your max duration cap for any endurance days. We wonât exceed that cap as itâs there for a reason, so if you want your workouts to be longer than, say, 90 minutes, change that duration cap to something higher.
As @JoeX alluded to earlier, there is a point around level 5 workouts where James is a commonly prescribed workout because itâs a 90-minute workout at 74% of FTP. For anyone whose max duration cap is at 90 minutes and has an endurance PL of ~5 this might be a workout youâll see often as itâs basically the âhardestâ workout you can do thatâs 90 minutes long and still in the endurance zone.
I think thatâs the hang-up here. Endurance is mostly limited by the definition of zones, and not as much by oneâs abilities as in Sweet Spot, Threshold, VO2 Max, etc. In some ways it makes PLs seem less effective, but Iâd argue that they actually work just as well in these cases, albeit just in a slightly different way.
Again, if you want to increase the duration of your endurance workouts, change the max duration of your endurance days. There are actually plenty of longer workouts at relatively low levels, and you can start to get into 3-hour long rides with a PL of around 3.
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And herein lies the problem with endurance progression levels, not every ride needs to be maximized. If youâve only got 90mins itâs ok to just do a ride at 60%, going to 75% isnt going to do much more than introduce additional and unnecessary fatigue. Athletes arenât leaving additional gains on the table riding more conservatively
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Just remember that even on our six-day-a-week plans, there is still only one âtrueâ endurance ride. The others are easy rides, so we agree, not every ride needs to be âmaximized.â 
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Iâm not sure then, if this is a bug or I misunderstand your explanation. If I set a higher âcapâ for endurance days, Plan Builder gives me a warning of doing too much. It doesnât take it as a âmax durationâ it seems, but the fixed workout length of the day.
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Itâs not âfixedâ per se, but is instead, simply a limiter to the length of the workouts weâll prescribe you on that particular day.
If your abilities and Progression Levels show that you can handle workouts at the max duration youâve selected, weâll likely prescribe them to you. However, if not, youâll need to work up to them.
In short, setting your max duration cap to a specific number doesnât mean that all of your workouts moving forward are going to be that length. They can certainly be shorter, but most importantly, never longer.
The fact that youâre getting a warning means that we donât necessarily recommend increasing your workouts to whatever length youâve selected. Weâre essentially saying that what youâve selected might be a bit much for right now when thinking about long-term sustainability.
You can certainly work up to that, but weâre here to give you guidance when we can.
Ultimately, itâs up to you!
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Hmm okay⌠So, basically it will give me a workout of that length, if my PL allows it. Even if it is not reconmended.
I would love a version where I just tell Plan Builder: I have 2 hours each day, 4 on the weekend. Give me the optimal plan in respect to my history and build me up according to my feedback.
Even it that is 3 workouts a week at an hour to start with.
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If your PLs allow for a workout to be prescribed, then it is going to be recommended.
What youâre describing is similar to how Plan Builder and Adaptive Training works now.
You can build out the plan that youâre looking for in Plan Builder, but, again, the workouts we prescribe have to fit your abilities/PLs in order for us to prescribe them. We wonât prioritize your selected duration over your PLs.
Another thing to remember that weâve teased a few times before is that weâre working on an update to Plan Builder that will check in on your progress every so often and recommend updates to your plan. For example, if weâre only recommending a total of 6 hours of training a week, and youâve been knocking your workouts out and feeling good every day, weâll see that and potentially recommend an increase in volume somehow.
We know that athletesâ abilities change over time and we want your plan to adapt to your abilities and goals on the fly.
I canât share an ETA on this yet, but weâre working on it! 
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I do long time trials. Anything from 10miles to 12 hours (and even once a 24hr). As the season progresses I increase my long (Z2) rides to develop the capacity to manage my pace and develop endurance. Iâll do these as Z2 rides gettling longer as needed. Even over winter I was sometimes doing 3 and 4hrs Z2 turbo sessions on the TT bike. Sometimes Iâll do an outside TR interval session and then add on another 1-2hrs Z2 afterwards. I get no real PL credit for this.)
TrainerRoad simply can NOT/does not accomodate this type of training. I have to manage it myself, by using a LV (or occasionally MV) set of training plans and adding in a progression as I feel suits my needs. (I understand they say they will introduce a progression in endurance at some point, but frankly it is easier to manage this myself).
Actually to some extent they say âDO LVâ and then add longer easy rides outside as you see fit⌠which is fine.
This is what Stephen Seiler and others recommend: Use long (easy) Z2 rides to develop the endurance and as you progress to 3 to 4 hours (and beyond) you are also developing the increased stress associated with those longer rides which helps develop the physiology and FTP (TTE etc.)
I just accept that TR canât really handle this and donât worry about it. I do use Intervals.icu to look at my TSS and acute and chronic loads and also the distributon of my training.
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If I am riding inside⌠a two hour ride is better. Why? Iâm NEVER going to sit on a trainer for four hours. I know some people her do, but I bet most rides done on TR are probably in the 1-2 hour range.
I would imagine compliance for super long trainer roads is pretty low.
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I agree, but from that âindoor onlyâ perspective, Iâd argue that an easier 90 minute ride and then a harder ride on the hard day is more valuable than increasing the intensity of the easy days as a way to try to bump up load due to not doing longer rides.
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As Iâve mentioned several times before, you can 100% work up to 4+ hour long endurance rides when following a TrainerRoad plan.
If youâre adding volume to your plan manually, youâre right, our plans wonât take that over for you, but if the goal is to do long endurance rides, thatâs totally an option with our plans.
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