Build phase exploded my legs

I would add to these:

  1. Forget about intervals.icu and listen to your body. It’s just a tool. It might be helpful to figure out WHY this is happening, but whatever it says about your load is irrelevant to your immediate training decision if your body is (clearly) telling you something different.

  2. Back to the why, as well as eating, focus on getting good sleep. Despite all the products people try to sell you, eating and sleeping is probably 99% of recovery.

  3. In addition to dropping intensity on workouts, consider dropping intensity on endurance and recovery rides. There’s no prize for going more watts on a recovery day, you’re not overloading anyway, but there IS downside. Don’t care if your FTP says you should go harder if your body is again telling you to go slower.

Take a couple days easy and jump back in.

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Build is hard, and probably too hard for most if I’m being honest. If you’re doing HV going down to MV doesn’t really make it much easier since intervals change and intensity is up.

Few things that can help with this and not push you over the edge.

Wednesday’s Z2 ride that usually moves up and down from 65 to 70 to 75% etc, skip that and just ride how your body wants to ride that day. Might be 65% or 70% or even 50%. It’s okay to listen to what your body wants there.

Drop one of the weekend intervals to a long Z2 ride if you can and have the time.

Drop one of the intervals within the workout or lower the % a touch.

It can be overwhelming/scary to adjust a training plan that’s laid out for you and feel like a failure if you need to do it, but in reality if doesn’t work its causing more harm then good.

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Vo2 intervals on The trainer work over my legs. I can do the same WO outside on a hill and hit the same numbers and the next day i feel much better than if i did them inside. Not exactly sure why. Been training with power since 2003, so I know my body well and can pace really well with power outside. I just had to take yesterday day off in general build since i did all my WOs inside this week, and the quads still hadnt recovered enough to do the prescribed workout. Part of it is me getting old (48) part of its got to be inside flywheel momentum not mimicking real life.
My tips are to do the most intense intervals outside, if you can, spin as much as possible for vo2 intervals inside, use the big ring for intervals to get the flywheel spinning as fast as possible, and take a day off as needed rather than put yourself in a hole thats going to take many days to recover. Im doing HV, and remove some to the filler workouts to allow me to recover better. Like it was said above, dropping to medium volume just ups the intensity, which appear to be the opposite of what you need.

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I have the same problem described --build into specialty phase blows up my legs every season. I begin w/SSB1 mid vol in Jan and by October, my legs are constantly sore and feeling weak and burn throughout the ride (not just first 10 min or so like at other times of the year and they loosen up on the ride).
My thought is that the plans have too many hard days. I don’t understand why there are two HIIT days and a weekend threshold and/or SS workouts. All conventional coaches caution against more than two days. AND, IDK about adaptive now, which I’m on, but I wish there was a way to change the number of hard days without having to manually change workouts every week. AND AND it would make a lot of sense for us 50+ athletes to not get the same prescriptions as all the young bucks.

So how long to take off the bike is a question I have besides suggestions/comments on my above thoughts would be appreciated. I’ve been mostly off the bike other than a cpl of mtn bike days (not easy as they should’ve been probably) for the past two weeks after my last race. I struggled through it but had a good result, which is nice but now I wonder about how long to wait on the legs as I also want to add strength training for the first time in 20 years…’

Thanks for any advice or feedback

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IME it has to do with insufficient base training for the amount of work you’re trying to do above threshold.

Adaptive Training addresses this issue by toning down the difficulty of the Build workouts if you start failing them.

But if you want to crush all of them, I think the best way is to lay down a huge volume of base training first.

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This guy

won 2 US national champion jerseys this year. I’m saying bye bye to my fifties and will never come close to winning anything at that level. But most of the “what worked” on that list is working for me, with mods given our age diff. Especially the part about fewer intervals and more endurance. Best of luck figuring out what works for you!

Me top.
Planbuilder: 6 weeks base, now 4 or 5 weeks build.
Couldnt Finish two Workouts last week because of my hurting legs

Thanks guys! I did the SS B1 mid vol and 2 then had a spring break in NC mtns with 10 + hour camp. Did SBT GRVL under 10 hours (decent for me) so I thought I had a decent base. I had a tough Sept with a lot of time off BUT these symptoms are the same as most seasons without the death to deal with.

I rarely fail VO2 or thresholds in specialty. I think short power is in my physiology which might help with those. I mistakenly overshot some of them in the build/Spec cycles bc I felt great. Probably also leads to the demise.

I chose XCO for the build this year and was thinking that focussed too much on VO2 and I feel like the following might be better for just what you described to build endurance
SSB1, 2
Sustained Power
XC marathon (for Wilmington WF 100K in June–A race)
then the base and build process for a 30 mile mtb in Nov – A)
for that I chose Rolling Road race as it’s like a gravel race with a half dozen short climbs.

One question–Have any of you tried polarized? Would that save the legs? If so for the base periods or for the specialty? I feel it might be bad for the specialty if it’ll be heavy on the VO2s in the specialty (during the fall peak phase) which seems to be what blows me up.

One final thought-- I usually feel like I could crush the world in Sept and the leg soreness and decline always happens in October when harder races come together… Peaking a month too soon it usually seems.

Thanks for reading this long post and your experiences. I feel like I resonate with your comments–except I wish I could contend for a Nat title!!! Congrats on those!

I race XCO, XCM and MTB 100s and followed a similar progression last year:
SSBHV 1 & 2
ShortPB HV
SSBHV2
XCO Specialty

I felt best coming out of SSBHV2 the second time. I thought XCO Specialty degraded my fitness and focused too much on V02 and not enough on endurance. I’m trying a new approach for 2022:
SSBHV 1 &2
SustainedPBHV
SSBHV2
XCM Specialty

My sustained power seemed to be my weakness/limiter in 2021 so I’m expecting the above plan to rectify that.

Then don’t do them all!

You are self coaching here. If your coach says not to do more than two a week, listen to your coach (you).

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Great advice and I’m glad to see my plans line up with yours. I probably will make the Iceman specialize phase XCM. I’m not sure why I had that input as Rolling RR.

What is the big diff between HV and Mid Vol?? Have you done the MV programs before???

I did MV for 2 years and tried HV for the first time last 2020/2021 training and racing season. I didn’t know if I could handle HV but was pleasantly surprised. I thought the HV plan was better as it was more volume but less intensity. It’s the intensity not the volume that destroyed me. For build before AT I did switch the Sundays to long z2 though. Now with AT the mid plans may be better but I don’t ever see myself going back to MV plans. I’ve just seen so much improvement with HV.

With AT the HV plans almost seem too easy now. I’m only in week 4 of SSBHV1, but I may add a bit of volume to SSBHV2 if this continues.

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If you mean the TR Polarized plans then no. But I’ve trained polarized with a specific focus on accumulating time at LT1 with 1 day of VO2max type work per week and it worked extremely well. I’ll describe the approach and let other argue about if it’s polarized or something else.

I think the major problem with “polarized” is folks cannot readily agree on what it is and finding plans that plot out day by day polarized are not easy to find. You can roll your own Polarized plan simply enough. TR Sustained Power Build MV provides a progression of VO2max that will get you started for the hard day.

Let’s build some blocks:

Block 1 - 6 Weeks: Take the Tuesdays from SPBMV and keep them as Tuesday. Fill in the rest of the days in with good Z2/Z3/LT1 (*) rides. Try to get about 8 hours a week for the first 6 weeks. A long ride helps so if you can get one 2-3 hour ride that’s a plus. Z2 / LT1 won’t crush you so it’s ok to add more but work up over the first 3 months.

Block 2 - take the Saturday VO2max workout from SPB and put them on Tuesdays. Again, fill in with Z2/Z3/LT1. Try to work up into the 10-12 hour a week range.

For future blocks will remain at that 10-12 hour a week target. If you have time, and legs can take it, building up to 15 is a nice target. But don’t go 6 hours to 15 hours. Take some weeks and build up.

Block 3 - keep progressing the VO2max Tuesday but don’t go crazy. 4x5 or 5x5 efforts are plenty. It’s fine to repeat the VO2 workouts and not keep progressing those interval times. I rarely go over 5x5 and often just stick with 4x5 or even 4x4.

That’s 18 weeks and you should feel pretty good.

In the fourth block, I keep the VO2max work about the same but add an additional “hard” day. Typically that will be a Saturday race, or a simulated race, or just a hard ride with good efforts. Depends what I’m doing and how I’m feeling. A simulated race for me would be a Time Trial. An all out 20 min (10 mile) stretch building to perhaps an hour or 25 mile test as the weeks move on.

Notes:

(1) I’m a big fan of tempo riding. There is nothing wrong with some tempo time on long rides as long as you have the hard day(s) sorted and are getting the long LT1 type stuff in.

(2) I also lift 2-3 days a week. Mostly upper body when “in season”

(3) Without a big race goal, I find 4-6 months of structure is about all I want to do. Once I achieve good fitness, I tend to want to use it and will look for fun rides. I typically am “training” for a two week vacation of mountain biking in July. I’ll build into that, go hammer the trails, and then enjoy the heck out of riding Aug-Sept-Oct.

(4) November I will start leg strength again “seriously” and drop VO2max stuff. In the fall I like to get long rides in but it’s “base” and fitness stuff not building toward any other goal.

Appreciate that may not be as specific or programmed as folks need or want. But this type of training has worked extremely well for me in the past. “Worked well” meaning increased MLSS and increased TTE at MLSS with lower RPE. That’s winning for me nowadays!

As an aging (55) and medium talent bike rider / athlete, have found it helps to break the year up into three chunks: hard bike training of 16-20 weeks; have fun with the on bike fitness 8-12 weeks; strength training and base riding 12-16 weeks.

YMMV and I’m not trying to coach anyone, just outlining a simple approach that seems effective and is pretty enjoyable.

-Darth

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The OP’s experience is exactly what happened to me two years in a row following the TR plans. The second year I knew what was coming so I got a coach. Myself and many others on this board feel that there is too much intensity in these plans. Especially for those 40+ and if your something like 12+ weeks out from your A event. Anyone that follows this forum knows how much this has been debated.

My recommendation would be take it easy for a week. A zone 2 ride is not a recovery ride. I feel even the TR recovery rides (recess) are too high %FTP. Build your weeks around only 2 intensity sessions and fill remaining days with Z2. Instead of recovery rides just take the day off.

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Wow!! Thanks for the advice. I have pondered polarized, listened to many a podcast (numerous with Seiler) but didn’t think it was a year round solution for me… Still don’t know. Wondered if it was a good specialty phase or base phase option for me. With a little bit of VO2 in the base, it seems like it’d make mtb fun rides and B/C races in the spring doable and fall mega VO2 less destructive on the legs which has been my problem. I think as I’m peaking in sept-Oct, I feel so good I blow past the ceilings of the VO2 or threshold workout prescriptions and I fry myself by mid Oct. My key mtb races are late Oct and early Nov. I try to do an ultra mtb or gravel in the summer and then switch to XC mtb races in the fall.

I’ll study and ponder your plan! Thanks again. Any further thoughts based on my info above would still be welcomed.

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And this become even worse with AT - as TR uses time constraints when adapting levels and never goes longer, always harder. This is sample week of a SST MV Base 1.

This is basically very hard build, not base. Yes, it is adapted to my levels but like I said - harder not longer.

And it’s basically 6 week of this. No way.

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Game changer :wink: :rofl:

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Holy $*!t !! I’ve never seen any levels over 6. Not sure what that means… for me.

Definitely agree that that week looks too hard, I just had a look and it’s very similar for me if I look up SSBMV2. I note the 150+min “Alternates” pulls up some more appropriate Sweet Spot Workouts in the 10+ range.

It’d be definitely beneficial to be able to specify say 120 or 150min available for those days, rather than look up Alternates.

When I am back in Base next Autumn/March-April I’ll likely swap out those for the 90% work from “More Sweet Spot” as I don’t think the spikes within those Redondo etc would help me with fitness increases vs being able to complete the Threshold work.

Build is a lot better this time around with AT though, I’m getting prescribed threshold work I can achieve, but I also know I don’t want to try and spend a bunch of time just over threshold.

So I always wonder how much SS is too much over the winter base phases. Some podcasters say even SS is high intensity. If I did no more than one workout a week that has any ints at or above threshold like it seems like base phases do, is 2-3 SS days too much?? Still focussing on not doing too much and ending up with burned out legs by October when my racing matters.