Hi
I am following a low volume plan as I felt having the consistency of 3 workouts per week was solid, this allows me to add in 1 more workout where time and recovery presents, I also plan to do 1 outdoor ride on the Sunday but as I say I wanted the solid work of 3 workouts to be there as the base.
What I wanted to know is, does AT change the manually added workout, so for example would it look at a Tempo 3.0 and move it to 3.2 etc or does it only adjust workouts from the plan.
Thanks
No, from what I know, AT will only adapt workouts present in the training plan (be that from Plan Builder or manually added).
It does not āseeā manually added individual workouts.
OK thanks, would be better if it did but can understand why it wouldnāt. Good to know, cheers.
Isnāt this precisely what āTrainNowā is for? i.e., plan the Sunday workout in your head, then come Sunday open the app and do a TrainNow workout ā select the one you fancy, this will always be adjusted to match your current progression levelsā¦
Yes, TN is the TR preferred āfillerā option generally speaking. However, that is essentially directed at picking and performing a workout on the current day/moment.
Many people would like to lay out more of a āplanā for their supplemental workouts and/or rides that get added to something like a Low Volume plan, so they can see the estimated CTL projection. Using TN lacks that ability.
There are good cases for both options (TN vs manually added ahead of time), so it would be ideal if AT could at least see and consider tweaks to the manually added workouts. Saying that, I know it is something that may be very problematic, since it is essentially opening Pandoraās box when people could add ANY workout from the TR catalog. As such, that could well lead to contradictory direction as compared to the actual plan on the calendar.
In short, great idea, but likely not āeasyā.
Actually the TN option would be fine for me in this instance, Iād be happy dummying something in then removing and then going with a TN option. Not perfect but good to have an option.
What about adding the Mid Volume plan and just deleting a workout if needed? Iām in a similar boat where my schedule allows for a Low Volume plan mostly, but some weeks I have more time to add in a structured workout. Previously I would plan using the mid-volume plan, but end up deleting one of the workouts usually. So Iām wondering how AT would handle this? It sounds like manually adding a workout wonāt get AT adaptations, but perhaps deleting one from the mid will keep the adaptations going? Or is Train Now the way to go?
Similarly, I like the length of the mid-volume workouts. The LV midweek workouts are an hour, whereas the MV are 1:15 or 1:30. I donāt have as many free days to workout, but when I do, Iād like to go for longer. So the low volume gets me the workout days per week I need, but the workouts are too short. Should I stick with the mid volume plan and delete a workout if needed, or do the low volume and use Alternates to select a longer version of the workout that day? Hope this makes sense.
Again, itās good that there are options to fit in with our schedules. My plan only started last week but I did swap a 1 hour workout for 45 minutes so I could do it in my lunch., did the same today as well.
To be honest Iād always rather add than remove but I totally see your point. Iāve added or swapped workouts that offered more progression, just need to be careful not to add too much too soon. Iāve used the LV plan as a framework for getting at least 3 quality workouts in per week, Iām enjoying the flexibility that only having 3 days set brings.
I didnāt want to add because, like your original question, I wasnāt sure AT was doing anything to the added workouts because they werenāt a part of the plan. So I figured by skipping/deleting a workout, AT would adapt based on that.
Now my main question is whether the Alternates workout is my best option for going longer.
I think AT is great but I think the real benefit is progression levels. With progression levels you manually can pretty much do exactly what AT is doing. Say I add a level 3 workout this week to my calendar, a level 4 next, a level 5 the next, etc. I do these workouts and I get to level 6 and it goes from being āhardā to āvery hardā. So then the next week maybe I do a 6.3 workout instead of the 7 I had planned and I adjust the workouts from there. In simple terms this is really what AT is doing. The catch is you donāt want to plan too far out or you may have to redo a lot of your plan. This is really not much different that what a coach would do though. They donāt usually plan out more than 2 or 3 weeks of specific workouts.
The issue with TrainNow is that if I want to do a progression of long VO2 intervals (ie. 4 min, 5 min, 6 min) it doesnāt know that and thus may not suggest those workouts. So I end up searching through the Workout library to find these based on progression level.
Iāve been using the LV plans adding endurance as applicable. What iāve experienced is that once the Progression Level reaches the ceiling of the 60 minute planned workouts it will adapt and recommend a productive workout that is longer than 60 minutes.
Iāve been on the mid level sweet spot plan and have felt that a few endurance rides on the plan are too easy so I inserted an extra endurance ride with a higher difficulty level. I thought that it would have adjusted all my endurance rides going forward but it didnāt. I would think it should have.