Saw that video when it first came out. I support both Dylan J’s and TR’s methodologies. I’ve used a personal coach before and been a TR user for years. In a perfect world, I’d mixed both approaches depending on my time and feel. But the main problem is me (not the systems), I just don’t ride enough consistently.
TR is capable of supporting all training protocols by utilizing their adaptive training’s Custom Plan Builder and/or TrainNow features (beyond their preset plans). I can still train w/ Polarized approach while using TR’s workouts then make adjustments as needed. It’s hard to beat what TR offers, not to mention the free weekly podcast. No doubt, they push the boundaries…why not…Tesla did it and succeeded. Ultimately, TR is most cost-effective for me and compatible with my lifestyle.
What makes you think it isn’t? A lot of TR employees have experience being coached and coaching at all levels including the world tour pro level. @Jonathan coaches a high school or middle school mountain bike team, for example.
My earlier point was that TR and its employees have different qualifications than someone whose profession is coaching, but both their expertises is highly relevant for the discussion.
With Adaptive Training, it isn’t as off-the-shelf than many training plans that you can buy online.
I’m confused by this claim.
TR not only can do thus, but they have been doing this already. Lactate measurements here are completely irrelevant. E. g. they have benchmarked AT against their previous plans and found that success rates went up. In principle, they can also benchmark different variations of their training plans against one another (perhaps they already do).
I’m pretty sure in 10, 15 years, most coaches will use tools like TR to create plans. Coaches will select goals, points of emphasis, benchmarks as well as volume, software will do the rest. It sounds as if software will do everything and coaches will just push buttons, but IMHO it’ll be more like Photoshop and Illustrators did not make programmers into artists. These pieces of software gave artists new types of tools that removed old limitations and made things that were previously hard and time consuming very easy.
TR’s big advantage is that they have the largest database in the world of cycling workouts that includes training plan data and internal logic. Strava has a lot of this information, yes, but not all of it.
When your SS got to 10, did you do an FTP assessment? I understand you hoped TR would recognize the issue and prompt you, but did you take action to remedy the problem by updating your FTP?
But the plan’s structure and basic principles are still the same. So if you are like me, and respond better to 60-80% endurance and the remainder intervals, well, the current AT isn’t going to fix the basic structure of the plan. All that big data and I still get the same basic plan. I’ve said it in the past, I bought a bike, got fast following the principles in a $20 book (The Time Crunched Cyclist), and then spent 2 years on TR mostly discovering what didn’t work for me. And that’s ok, but if granted a do over I would have hired a coach and figured it out sooner. And now 2 years later, having worked with WKO and also a great coach, I know my physiology, what works for me, types of intervals that produce better results, when to continue extracting gains by extending a block, etc. I’m sure TR will eventually get there, but right now it doesn’t really understand my physiology and a bunch of other stuff.
Are they?
TR does give people like you options, though, e. g. you could pick traditional base or a polarized plan to replace sweet spot base (and in case of polarized, you also have a build option). Then you can customize your plan to accommodate some of your needs.
Of course, I’d like more choice as well, e. g. I’d like an option to automatically replace the Sunday sweet spot ride with an endurance ride (the way it was in past TR plans many moons back). I’d like custom workout length defaults for each day, etc. But from what I can tell, TR has added more options and more options for more custom plans are in the works.
Nothing is perfect, and if you found a better solution for yourself, who am I to argue with that But I’d say it is fair that over time TR has added more options.
Let me offer a different perspective: in my mind the primary role of coaches is to guide and educate athletes, not to prescribe workouts. Prescribing workouts comes downstream. Every athlete has to discover for themselves (either by themselves or with the guidance of a coach) how they react to stimulus and take constraints into account, and adjust training plans accordingly. You also opted for self-education, which isn’t everybody’s cup of tea. (I think it is an essential part, though, if you want to progress.)
Overall, I think what you did is exactly right: you tried various things, educated yourself and armed with that knowledge you made an educated choice on what works for you. People on these forums could save themselves so much time (including myself ) by following that path. Don’t discuss which FTP testing methodology is superior, pick something that works for you, but — importantly — validate the numbers and adjust them as necessary, especially in the beginning when you have little experience. Learn what your legs feel like when you spend 10+ minutes at threshold repeatedly and how that feelings differs when you are clearly below or clearly above threshold.
You are right that TR cannot fulfill many of these tasks — just like I cannot suddenly draw, because I have installed ProCreate on my iPad. People who believe that software like what TR could become will take work away from coaches is too pessimistic. IMHO once powerful software is available, software that makes TP, TR and all the others look like toys, a new generation of coaches will see the advantages and use them so that they can dedicate their time to what matters: interacting with the athlete. Moreover, they can help future athletes navigate this powerful software. Maybe they will use TR Pro that comes with additional features (e. g. powerful benchmarking of key performance metrics, metrics chosen by the coach) that are too complex for many athletes to use.
As stated above by others, AT simply isn’t all what it’s hyped to be and does not fix the basic issue with the plan structure.
The FTP was correct and didn’t move throughout the period. I completed workout at those levels so PLs per se were correct. But once you stack them up one after another for weeks disaster is waiting to happen. And consider I was already taming the plan slightly.
I’d like for my FTP to keep increasing with the PLs but 1 that’s not how it works and 2 that does not fix the structure of the plans by simply reassigning easier or harder workouts.
To me at least AT is nothing special so far and in fact I haven’t used it since.
TR I think worked well for the first couple of years but plans need a major redesign and customisation. AT should adjust the plans based on each user’s characteristics and not just single workouts.
Also that’s exactly what I mean by AT not really doing much of anything at the moment other than saving the hassle of manually picking harder or easier workouts.
I am not saying that they are not qualified coaches, but having listened to almost every podcast for over a year on the trainer, I get a strong sense that they validate their claims through ramp tests and success rate of workouts, thats it.
Of course people are getting faster if you go from no structure to structure.
That might be true! AT is definitely a step forward
What is confusing by this claim? And what does AT have to do with lactate testing?
I am just saying that they don’t seem to validate certain zones, level, and whatnot to the numbers they use. They just seem to do the ramp test, and then they hope for the best.
For example, just the other day a TR employee recommended someone here on the forums to do an almost IF 0.7 endurance ride to add to their training plan. And its those kind of things that makes me go ‘jeez, why would they do that?’, instead of maybe recommending a IF 0.6 endurance ride which is going to give same, if not better, adaptations, and not produce as much fatigue.
And this bring me to my point about lactate testing and why I feel like they might not be doing enough testing themselves. It feels like the “testing” that they do is based on their data. I have never once heard them doing studies on people doing their plans, that is actually physiology testing.
All they do is look at the numbers. Success rates of workouts is a selling point, not a receipt that you’re doing something right physiology wise.
That bothers me a little bit. We are humans.
It feels like you are not being objective in the whole discussion, but trying to protect TR in every way possible. I use TR myself, I do have a coach that coaches riders riding against Pogacar.
All I am saying is that sometimes TR feels like they are misguiding new cyclists a little bit, just saying that structure and hard rides is all you need, unless you have 18 hours a week, then you can do some zone 2.
Claims like that are just… insane. And I’ve heard it too many times to count now.
This is an endurance sport, end of story, you need time on the bike, put in the hours. If you don’t have them, TR is great, but you’ll very soon hit a wall because the training TR gives you might have you perform better and better ramp tests. But a ramp test is not indicative of anything at all really, it just sets your zones.
So it becomes this bad circle where TR makes themselves sound like a magic potion.
I’m going from memory here, but I remember TR staff mentioning the following metrics:
Progression Levels for different power zones
Scoring of unstructured rides (this is an internal alpha)
Failure rates of workouts (e. g. with and without AT)
Pauses during workouts (to my knowledge, this is not publicly accessible)
An internal fitness metric that subsumes FTP, all Progression Levels, etc. into a single number.
Benchmarking of modified versions of AT against old plans and older version of AT
Ramp rates
@Nate_Pearson was a bit vague on what makes AT tick, but he mentioned that they have tested plenty of models, including some with more and others with less parameters. For obvious reasons he didn’t want to go into a lot of details, but if you know anything about Machine Learning and the fact that TR has been working on this for at least 4 years, then it is clear that they have consider many more factors than that.
Again, I’m not saying it is perfect or that TR is better than coaches, I’m just saying that they have probably thought of any metric we can come up with and more.
Yes, what does lactate testing have to do with anything? You now mention FTP tests. All FTP tests are based on prior research, and that includes the ramp test. What TR (and all other platforms I am aware of) do that is problematic is (1) rely on research whose test subjects were likely fitter than the average TR member and (2) they use a fixed percentage to compute FTP from tested power (e. g. 95 % of FTP20 power or 75 % of MAP). With the data set TR has, they can use other techniques to infer FTP. Large-scale lactate testing could conceivable only address point (1), but not point (2).
So yeah, I think lactate testing has nothing to do with it. My recommendation is that you simply don’t hand off your brains when you train, no matter if it is a coach, a piece of training software or a book: validate things yourself. Is the new FTP you got (using whatever approach there is) accurate? Well, try a threshold workout with longer stretches at 100 %, a VO2max workout and, if you can, an outdoor ride where you ride stretches at these power levels. You’ll learn what riding at FTP feels like. Use the knowledge and adjust your FTP if necessary.
Stupid question since this is an opt-in beta feature: have you heard of AI FTP detection? TR has done exactly what you think they did not do: they validated their algorithms against the data that they had.
Now I don’t claim AI FTP detection is perfect, I actually prefer testing (because I like it, really), but clearly they have been working on this for quite a while and at least have attempted exactly what you want them to do.
How do you know that averaging 60 % FTP on your endurance ride will have the same or better outcomes? Is that just your opinion?
I don’t think such a blanket statement is correct in either direction is correct. If possible, longer rides at lower intensity are equal or better than shorter, slightly higher intensity rides (all within Z2). But that is usually a function of how much time you can (or allow the algorithm to) allot to your training on a given day.
(Personally, I prefer to do longer, mellower endurance rides outdoors. But I usually can’t spend more than 3 hours on a ride, I’m a family man.)
This is exactly what I mean. You cannot expect people to even vaguely understand all these parameters. This also goes against the whole TR model.
Why should someone pay for a service, where they in the end of the day have to act as a coach for themselves. Especially when its an extremely difficult topic when it comes to understanding what threshold, V02 Max etc should feel like.
In my head TR would benefit from doing studies where they measure their data vs lactate tests, fat oxidation, v02 max etc. Just to see how their data actually maps on real individuals.
Again, just looking at results and workout failures doesn’t say anything at all.
Its a statement based on the fact that we need to cater to all athletes using TR. Of course there are a lot of people who has a high LT1, and therefore IF 0.7 endurance ride would be fine for them. But considering the lack of base (naturally due to TR mainly focusing on intensity) most users probably have if they’re doing 3-5 hours a week, IF 0.7 is way too high to recommend to the majority of users.
TR caters to a wide audience, and includes beginners and literal Olympic gold medalists. You are right that this creates problems, and TR tries to address this with e. g. its blog or its podcast. Ultimately, your desire to learn about these things will determine how far you will get in the sport.
I spent decades without structured training, and in my case it showed. I read the Training Bible, listened to well north of 100 hours of podcast content, read blog posts and watched plenty of videos. That’s the reason I was able to make the gains I have.
If you want to become good at a sport, you need to be willing to learn. Knowing what your body feels like at the limit is one of the basics in endurance sports. Even before I did structured training, knew about power meters and what lactate threshold and VO2max were, I had an admittedly much more vague understanding of what it felt like to be at the limit for 5 minutes, 30 minutes, etc.
To me these are basics akin to learning dribbling and various shots in basketball, learning to run with the ball as a soccer player or various serves as a tennis player: sure, you can play the game and get enjoyment out of it. If you do, that’s great. But you shouldn’t necessarily expect to progress very quickly, or, when things fail, even be able to articulate properly what went wrong.
Now you could say that “OreoCookie, you see, these sports are usually taught by a coach …” and I’d reply “Correct, but you won’t find a tennis coach at $20/hour, much less $20/month.”
Again, all of this data already exists. Gas exchange tests where, among other things, fat oxidation at various paces (running) or power levels is measured is something relatively common. If you live in a bigger city, it is quite likely you can find someone who will do it for a reasonable amount of money.
No, experience level has nothing to do with what IF you target for your endurance rides. One of the training fundamentals is the notion of progressive overload. And with endurance rides you can tweak intensity (within reason) and duration. Coaching services like FasCat Coaching who default to outdoor rides recommend that you ramp your endurance rides time-wise and extend from 2 hours to 5 hours in 30-minute increments — twice a week for some of the plans.
TR caters to a more time-constrained audience, which means they cannot ask their users to spend 5 hours on the trainers — few people would complete such workouts. Even outdoors, many people don’t have the time. (I’d love to, but I love being married more ) So ramping intensity makes sense and is not too hard: if you use AT, your intensity and duration should be ramped at the right rate, starting from the right level. In my experience, AT reacts very well to feedback, so if I call a workout too hard or I fail it for some reason, it’ll adapt my plan.
I could get into more details where AT currently does things that I don’t expect and would have done differently, but the mechanics is right there.
That’s one big gap. Another one is that as part of the plan (perhaps optional) they schedule strength sessions with specific recommendations. If I were a du- or triathlete, I’d also complain about running and swimming workouts not being integrated yet …
I’m curious why they don’t partner with several skills coaches and teach people some of the basics of mountain biking, CXing and road riding.
Sorry if you’ve already answered this, but I can’t find it…did you check your FTP? Saying “my FTP did not change over a 6 week period” makes me think you did not.
I agree, but if you make the mistake of looking at the TR landing page (if you aren’t logged in), I think the company is setting pretty high expectations, for a product that cost the same a a nice coffee once a week, and you can’t really blame people for expecting a lot if they are promised the world
C race and group ride every week isn’t necessarily progressive though is it, if you aren’t careful you end up just doing the exact same thing week in week out which can easily end up with stagnating. Also presumably the C races are not 52 weeks a year (some kind of series), so you would want to build up to that - training plan into a few weeks of consistent racing.
I guess the events I am doing are a bit different (audax - just done a 600k and doing a 1500k next month, so basically just riding aerobically for a really really long time…), but I try to hit the 2 midweek TR rides pretty consistently, then top up with a lot of Z2. The weekend ride I’ll take or leave depending if I do the club ride or not (which usually has the intensity…). When the Tuesday night Zwift Racing League was on I subbed out the Tuesday TR workout, but those are 6-8 week series with gaps.
But obviously the case for something like TR is less strong in the summer - they have a lot of seasonal subscribers who just follow the plans from late autumn to early spring, and ride mainly outside the other 6 months (either cancelling or doing a bit of TrainNow - which does account for outside work - in gaps). I think outdoor PLs or workout levels 2.0 or whatever they are calling it will make this case a lot easier for more people.
Not that the lower plans don’t also have too much intensity for most, but Nate and others have said repeatedly that HV isn’t really recommended. It exists because it fills a niche, but burning out on their HV plan shouldn’t be a surprise with all the warnings they have provided over the years. Also, choosing LV, MV, of HV is a choice. You cannot give up all responsibility for your near-burnout. If you chose HV and started feeling burned out, you have a choice to change direction.
But I’d say it is fair that over time TR has added more options.
) by following that path. Don’t discuss which FTP testing methodology is superior, pick something that works for you, but — importantly — validate the numbers and adjust them as necessary, especially in the beginning when you have little experience. Learn what your legs feel like when you spend 10+ minutes at threshold repeatedly and how that feelings differs when you are clearly below or clearly above threshold.
) So ramping intensity makes sense and is not too hard: if you use AT, your intensity and duration should be ramped at the right rate, starting from the right level. In my experience, AT reacts very well to feedback, so if I call a workout too hard or I fail it for some reason, it’ll adapt my plan.